Chapter 5 - The Gathering of the Wolves
The reaction from the Barrett family was exactly what Stellan had anticipated: a desperate, chaotic mobilization.
By Thursday afternoon, the intelligence reports flowing into the Cross estate via Vincent Kane’s street network confirmed that Dominic Barrett had called in favors from the Outfit remnants in Cicero and the Serbian crews operating out of the shipping yards in Gary, Indiana. They were hiring freelancers—men who didn't care about the historical truce or the rules of the New York commission, men who only cared about the seven-figure bounty Dominic had placed on the white folder containing the original genetic test results.
Inside the estate, Nora stood in the third-floor hallway, holding Wren against her shoulder. The house had changed its posture entirely. The soft, silent luxury had been replaced by a grim, militarized efficiency.
"We’re moving you down to the basement bunker tonight," Mrs. Aldridge said, packing a duffel bag with Wren’s formula and medicine. "Mr. Cross’s orders. The windows up here are reinforced, but he doesn't want to risk a long-range rifle from the ridge across the highway."
"Is it that bad?" Nora asked, her voice tight with panic. "The Barretts... are they coming here?"
"They're desperate, Nora," a deep voice spoke from behind her.
Stellan walked up the stairs, carrying a heavy black tactical vest in his hand. He looked tired, the skin beneath his eyes dark and shadowed, but his movements were still precise and calm. He reached out, his finger gently tracing the line of Wren’s jaw. The baby blinked at him, letting out a soft, happy coo that seemed to ease the tension in his face by a fraction.
"I spoke to Julian’s father," Stellan said, looking at Nora. "He’s an old-school man. He knows the rules. But his eldest son, Dominic, is a lunatic who thinks he can shoot his way out of a structural deficit. He’s spent the last twenty-four hours trying to buy enough guns to storm this property."
"Stellan, let me take her and leave," Nora begged, her eyes swimming with tears. "We can go to California, to Europe... anywhere. They don't want me; they just want to hide what Julian did. If we disappear, the war stops."
"The war started forty years ago, Nora," Stellan said softly, his voice carrying a rare, brotherly warmth that made her look at him differently. "It started when our mother was forced to give you up to protect you from the Barretts’ grandfather. They’ve been skimming from our blood for two generations. I spent ten years looking for the trail she left behind in Switzerland, but the records were wiped. I didn't find you because I was looking in the wrong places. I was looking for a Cross. I should have been looking for a girl with our mother’s eyes, scrubbing floors three miles from my own office."
He stepped closer, his hand resting on her shoulder. "You aren't leaving this house, Nora. Not because you’re a prisoner, but because you’re a Cross. And a Cross doesn't run from a Barrett. We let them come, and then we take their teeth."
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He turned to Mrs. Aldridge. "Take them down to the lower level now. Secure the blast doors. Vincent’s men are already on the perimeter."
As Nora followed Mrs. Aldridge down the service elevator into the reinforced concrete bunker beneath the mansion, she could hear the heavy steel shutters on the upper-floor windows closing with a series of rhythmic, metallic clangs. The estate was sealing itself shut, turning into an iron tomb that was about to be tested by the full force of the Chicago underworld.
