Chapter 3 - Blood on the Marble
The Onyx Lounge was not a dive bar; it was a cathedral of bad intentions wrapped in black marble, brass, and smoked glass.
Perched on the fiftieth floor of a high-rise in the Loop, it catered to the top one percent of Chicago’s tax brackets and the top one hundred percent of its criminal elite. Soft jazz hummed through hidden speakers, mingling with the low murmur of conversation and the clink of crystal champagne flutes.
I stood three paces behind Adrian’s right shoulder, wearing a black silk cocktail dress that Mrs. Gable had dropped on my bed that afternoon with a sniff of deep disapproval. It fit like a second skin, elegant and modest enough to look professional, but striking enough that more than one man in a Brioni suit had let his gaze linger on my collarbones.
Adrian had noticed every single one of those looks.
He hadn't said anything. He had merely shifted his stance—just an inch—positioning his broad frame between them and me, a silent, immovable wall.
“Look at the bar,” Adrian murmured, not turning his head, his voice pitched so low only I could hear it over the saxophone solo. He was holding a glass of club soda with lime, playing the part of the gracious, sober host.
I adjusted the leather folio in my arms, pretending to check a guest list.
“Cassian,” I whispered back. “He’s had three scotches in forty minutes. His left hand keeps twitching toward his inner pocket, and he hasn't looked you in the eye once since we arrived.”
“Cassian is nervous because his mistress is sitting at table four and his wife just walked into the powder room,” Adrian replied smoothly. “Try again.”
I bit my lip, scanning the room. My feet were killing me in four-inch heels, but the adrenaline kept the pain at bay. I had been watching these men for three hours. To an outsider, they looked like titans of industry laughing over market shares. But I had spent my life reading the micro-expressions of angry men who came to collect my father’s debts; I knew what fear and betrayal looked like when they were wearing tuxedoes.
Then, my eyes locked on the mezzanine.
A man was standing by the brass railing. Thin, pale, with sleek silver hair and the sharp, aristocratic features of an old-money predator. He wasn't looking at the crowd. He was looking at Luca, who was standing by the emergency exit talking to two private security guards.
“Who is the man with the platinum signet ring?” I asked.
Adrian’s posture tightened almost imperceptibly. “Julian Moretti.”
“He isn't watching you,” I murmured, leaning in slightly, the faint scent of Adrian’s cedar-wood cologne filling my senses. “He’s watching Luca’s guards. But not like an enemy. He nodded at the one with the shaved head. Twice. Short, sharp nods. Like a foreman checking off a delivery.”
Adrian didn't move. He didn't turn around. But I felt the sudden, terrifying shift in the atmosphere around him. The relaxed host vanished, replaced instantly by the lethal commander I had seen in the study.
“The guard with the shaved head is named Vance,” Adrian said, his voice dropping into a register that made my spine tingle. “Harry Vance’s nephew.”
My breath caught. “Harry Vance? The loan shark?”
“Cassian hired him three weeks ago to bolster the security detail for the transport division.” Adrian turned slowly, bringing his full attention to me. His eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fire. “You’re sure?”
“I know the Vance family walk, Mr. Voss. They all have that slight hitch in the right hip. That man worked the Cicero lot two summers ago. I’d bet my life on it.”
“You might have just saved it,” Adrian said.
Before he could say another word, the lights in the Onyx Lounge went out.
The music died mid-note. The low chatter of three hundred wealthy patrons turned into a collective gasp, followed immediately by the high-pitched shriek of a woman in the back corner.
In the pitch blackness, Adrian’s hand found my wrist with terrifying precision.
His grip was bruising. With one violent yank, he pulled me flush against his chest, his other arm coming around my head, forcing me down toward the floor just as the first deafening *crack* of gunfire shattered the silence.
The muzzle flash lit up the mezzanine in violent strobes of orange and white.
Screams erupted. Glass exploded everywhere—the massive chandelier above the bar detonated, raining thousands of crystal shards onto the marble floor. People were trampling over each other, stampeding toward the main elevators in a frenzy of survival.
“Stay down,” Adrian growled into my ear.
He didn't sound scared. He sounded furious.
He moved with chilling efficiency. Still shielding my body with his own, he dragged me behind the heavy oak structure of the horseshoe bar. Bottles of top-shelf liquor were exploding above us, showering us in bourbon and glass.
I was trembling violently, my hands clutching Adrian’s dress shirt, my forehead pressed into the hollow of his shoulder. “Adrian—”
“Quiet,” he commanded, though his hand came up to cup the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair, holding me protectively against his heart.
With his free hand, he drew a matte-black semi-automatic from his shoulder holster with a smooth, metallic *click*.
Across the room, the emergency lights flickered on—a sickly, pulsating red that painted the room in the color of fresh blood.
Through the shattered bottles, I saw them. Four men in tactical vests, moving through the panic. One of them was the guard with the shaved head—Vance. He wasn't shooting wildly into the crowd; he was moving directly toward the bar. Toward Adrian.
“They’re coming for you,” I whispered, panic clawing at my throat.
“They’re welcome to try,” Adrian replied.
He pushed me down into the narrow footwell beneath the counter. “Stay here. If you move, I will kill you myself, do you understand me, Maya?”
I nodded frantically.
Adrian rose in one fluid motion. He didn't take cover; he leaned over the bar and fired three times. The reports were deafening in the enclosed space. Two of the tactical men collapsed instantly, their bodies sliding across the slick, alcohol-drenched marble.
Vance dove behind a leather booth, returning fire. The wood of the bar splintered inches above Adrian’s head.
Adrian fired again, suppressing Vance, but from the mezzanine above, Julian Moretti’s voice rang out, cold and mocking. “Adrian! Did you really think you could take the northern docks without paying the toll?”
A bullet tore through the brass railing behind Adrian.
He grunted—a short, choked sound of pain—and stumbled back half a step.
My heart stopped. “Adrian!”
He ignored me, adjusting his grip, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped. He raised his weapon and fired two rapid shots toward the mezzanine. A scream echoed from above, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the stairs.
Silence fell over the lounge.
The gunfire had stopped. The screams of the fleeing patrons had faded down the stairwells. The only sounds left were the hiss of a broken soda line behind the bar, the pulsating hum of the red emergency lights, and the ragged, shallow breathing of the man standing above me.
Adrian stood still for five seconds, his gun leveled at the exit doors, waiting for another target.
None came.
Luca burst through the shattered double doors, his own weapon drawn, a deep gash bleeding freely across his forehead. “Adrian! The lobby is clear! Moretti got out through the freight elevator, but Vance is down!”
Adrian didn't answer.
Slowly, the gun lowered in his hand. He took one step forward, swayed, and his knees buckled.
I scrambled out from beneath the counter, ignoring the glass digging into my knees through my stockings. “Adrian!”
I caught him before his head hit the floor, his massive weight nearly crushing me as we both went down onto the wet, liquor-stained marble. My hands went to his torso, frantically searching for the wound. Beneath his left arm, the crisp white fabric of his shirt was already saturated with thick, dark crimson.
The bullet had caught him in the side, just below the ribs.
“Luca! Help him!” I screamed, my voice raw, tearing through the quiet room.
Adrian’s head fell back against my lap. His face was gray, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. But his eyes—those terrifying, frozen river eyes—were wide open, fixed entirely on me.
He reached up, his bloody hand wrapping weakly around my wrist.
“You... stayed,” he rasped, a bloody cough catching in his throat.
“Of course I stayed, you idiot!” I sobbed, tearing the hem of my silk dress with both hands, ripping a long strip of fabric away and pressing it hard against his bleeding side. Adrian hissed in agony, his fingers digging into my arm. “Hold on. Don't you dare close your eyes, Adrian! Look at me!”
“Boss,” Luca was there now, kneeling beside us, his face pale despite the blood on his brow. “We can't go to Northwestern. Moretti’s people will have the trauma bays staked out.”
“The estate,” Adrian whispered, his gaze never leaving mine. “Dr. Chen. Take us... home.”
His grip on my wrist tightened for one final, desperate second.
“Maya,” he murmured, his voice fading.
“I’m right here,” I cried, pressing down harder on the wound, my hands covered in his blood. “I’m not going anywhere. Look at me, Adrian. Keep looking at me.”
May you like
His eyes fluttered, then rolled back, his body going completely limp against my chest.
***
