“Don’t Buy Her Face Unless You Want the Dead Woman Back”.... Three Starving Triplets Sold a Painting to a Chicago Billionaire—And the Mother He Buried Was Hiding Behind the Brushstrokes

FLASH-BANG!

Two high-decibel stun grenades detonated simultaneously inside the room. The blinding white light and shockwaves threw Julian’s four tactical operatives off balance, their weapons firing wildly into the plaster ceiling.

“DOWN!” Luca roared, tackling June, April, and May to the floor and covering them with his body armor.

Adrian didn't go down. He lunged forward through the smoke and flash, catching Julian’s gun arm before the lawyer could recover his senses. Adrian drove his thumb into the nerve cluster behind Julian’s wrist, forcing the pistol from his grip, then drove a heavy right hook into Julian’s jaw.

Julian’s glasses shattered as he hit the concrete floor hard.

Through the shattered window frames, six heavily armed operators wearing black tactical gear and helmet-mounted night-vision goggles swung into the room on rappelling cables. They were not local police. They were the elite strike team from Voss Maritime Security—former navy special warfare operators whom Adrian kept on a twenty-four-hour private retainer.

Within eight seconds, Julian’s four guards were disarmed, pinned to the floor, and zip-tied with military efficiency.

The heavy smoke cleared, leaving only the sound of rain pouring through the broken windows and the frantic, shallow breathing of Julian Vance as he lay on the floor, clutching his bleeding face.

Adrian stood over his former attorney, his face illuminated by the flickering red tactical lights of his operators. He didn't look angry; he looked like an executioner who had already calculated the weight of the rope.

“You thought I came here with just Luca?” Adrian asked softly, stepping onto Julian’s hand as the lawyer tried to reach for a fallen knife. He didn't press hard enough to break the bones—just enough to pin him to the floor. “I’ve owned the airspace over River North for five years, Julian. The moment my car turned off Michigan Avenue, my satellite array locked onto this building.”

Julian looked up through his one unswollen eye, terror finally breaking through his arrogant facade. “Adrian… please. We were brothers. I did it for the company… I did it to protect what we built!”

“You didn’t do it for the company,” Adrian said, turning his back on him. “You did it because you were small, greedy, and weak.” He looked at his strike team leader. “Take him to the sub-basement at the shipping yards. Don't touch him. Just let him sit in the dark until the federal prosecutors arrive with the asset seizure warrants.”

“No! Adrian, wait!” Julian screamed as two operators dragged him roughly to his feet and pulled him toward the stairwell. “You need me! You don't know where the offshore accounts are! You can't liquidate without me!”

“I don't need the money, Julian,” Adrian said without looking back. “I have everything I ever wanted right here in this room.”

Adrian rushed back to the iron bed.

The three girls were clinging to Luca, wide-eyed but unhurt. Dr. Mercer, Adrian’s private physician who had just arrived with two paramedics through the cleared stairwell, was already kneeling beside Clara with a medical kit open.

“Her pulse is thready, Mr. Voss, and her fever is 103.8,” Dr. Mercer said briskly, attaching an IV drip to Clara’s frail arm. “Severe double pneumonia brought on by exposure and malnutrition. We need to move her to the ICU immediately.”

Adrian picked Clara up in his arms, wrapping his heavy wool overcoat around her body. She weighed almost nothing—like carrying a bundle of dry twigs. She opened her eyes weakly, her hand reaching up to touch his neck.