Chapter 8 - Lower Wacker
Dominic did not panic.
That frightened Tommy.
Five years earlier, any mention of Lower Wacker could send Dominic into a physical spiral.
Now he stood in the federal building while agents argued around him and stared at the message.
“They want you emotional,” an agent said.
Dominic looked at him.
“They?”
The agent hesitated.
Dominic understood.
“You know where he took her.”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
Tommy swore.
An agent finally spoke.
“Traffic cameras caught a vehicle entering Lower Wacker.”
The same place.
The bomb.
Leo.
His father had chosen it deliberately.
Dominic’s body reacted before his mind.
His chest tightened.
Sweat formed beneath his collar.
The room narrowed.
Then he remembered Abigail’s voice.
Your body is fighting itself.
He inhaled.
Slowly.
Again.
Pain was not danger.
Memory was not the present.
He looked at Tommy.
“Get the car.”
Abigail woke inside an SUV parked in a disused maintenance section beneath Lower Wacker.
Alessandro Russo sat opposite her.
She recognized Dominic in him immediately.
The eyes.
Not the warmth Dominic tried so hard to hide.
Only the shape.
“So,” Alessandro said, “you’re the therapist.”
Abigail’s wrists were bound.
“Yes.”
“You cured my son.”
“No.”
Alessandro raised an eyebrow.
“He did that himself.”
The older man smiled.
“That sounds like something a therapist would say.”
“You drugged him for years.”
“I kept him manageable.”
“You were afraid of him.”
Alessandro’s smile disappeared.
Abigail knew she had found the wound.
“You knew that if Dominic recovered, he’d discover what you did.”
“He was sentimental. Like Leo.”
“You mean decent.”
Alessandro leaned closer.
“Do you know how many people Dominic has hurt?”
“Yes.”
“And you imagine love makes that disappear?”
Abigail stared at him.
“No.”
The word surprised Alessandro.
“I think he has to live with what he’s done. I think changing matters only if it costs him something.”
She leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed.
“And it is costing him everything you taught him to value.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“You think you know my son?”
“I know he asks before touching someone who’s afraid.”
Silence.
“That already makes him more of a man than you.”
Alessandro struck her.
Her head snapped sideways.
Pain exploded through her cheek.
But when she looked back, she was smiling faintly.
“You proved my point.”
Headlights appeared at the end of the tunnel.
Alessandro stood.
Dominic stepped from the SUV alone.
Cane in one hand.
No visible weapon.
The concrete around him carried every ghost of his past.
He saw Leo’s burning vehicle in his mind.
He heard screaming.
His leg almost failed.
Then Abigail saw him.
“Dominic!”
He looked at her.
She was alive.
That was enough.
Alessandro walked forward.
“You came.”
Dominic’s cane struck concrete.
Thud.
“I’m done running from you.”
“You think handing your family to federal agents makes you righteous?”
“No.”
Dominic stopped.
“I think it makes me finished.”
“You cannot resign from blood.”
“I’m not resigning from blood.”
Dominic’s voice remained calm.
“I’m resigning from you.”
Alessandro pulled a pistol.
Abigail’s breath stopped.
“You were always weak.”
Dominic looked at the weapon.
“No. I was afraid.”
He took another step.
“There’s a difference.”
Alessandro aimed at him.
Then blue and red lights erupted at both ends of the tunnel.
Federal vehicles.
Chicago police units from an outside task force.
Alessandro spun.
Dominic had never come alone.
He had come wired.
Every word had been recorded.
Alessandro grabbed Abigail and pressed the gun against her neck.
Dominic’s composure finally cracked.
“Let her go.”
“There he is,” Alessandro whispered. “My son.”
“No.”
Dominic’s voice shook.
“Your son died five years ago in this tunnel.”
His eyes filled.
“The man standing here had to become someone else.”
Abigail suddenly drove her heel backward into Alessandro’s knee.
He stumbled.
The gun moved.
Dominic lunged.
A shot exploded.
Then agents swarmed the tunnel.
Alessandro hit the ground.
His weapon skidded beneath a vehicle.
Dominic fell beside Abigail.
For one terrifying second, she thought he had been shot again.
Then he reached for the rope around her wrists.
His hands shook too badly to untie it.
“Are you hurt?”
“My cheek.”
“Anywhere else?”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
She touched his face.
“Dominic.”
He opened them.
“You came back here.”
He looked around the tunnel.
The place that had controlled five years of his life was suddenly only concrete.
Dirty concrete.
Nothing more.
“Yes.”
“You did it.”
Dominic shook his head.
“We did.”
Agents dragged Alessandro past them in handcuffs.
Father and son looked at each other.
Alessandro waited for Dominic to speak.
Dominic said nothing.
May you like
He simply turned away.
And that silence was the first thing his father had never been able to control.
