16. Lorenzo
LORENZO
Rain drums against the roof of the SUV as we drive south through the city.
Water streams down the windows, blurring the evening lights into streaks of red, gold, and white. Traffic crawls through the rain as impatient drivers fight for inches of road. The wipers sweep steadily across the windshield, clearing the glass before the rain closes in again.
Inside the SUV, nobody speaks.
Matthew drives with both hands on the wheel; his gaze fixed on the road.
Mateo sits beside him, scrolling through warehouse reports on his phone with the quiet irritation of a man who has already found three problems before dinner.
Rocco occupies the rear seat, his eyes moving constantly between the windows, mirrors, and passing streets.
I watch the city.
A woman in a yellow coat stands beneath a bus shelter, one hand gripping her bag, the other holding her collar closed against the wind.
Two teenagers run across the street despite the light, laughing as a cab nearly clips them.
A delivery truck blocks half an intersection while drivers shout uselessly from behind glass.
We clear the next junction, and I glance toward the side mirror.
A black van sits three vehicles behind us.
There is nothing remarkable about it at first.
Chicago is full of black vans, full of men driving too slowly and men driving too quickly, full of people going somewhere they have no business being. I look away and let the reflection slip from my attention.
Mateo’s phone vibrates in his hand.
He reads the message, then mutters a curse beneath his breath.
“Warehouse Four?”
I keep my eyes on the window.
“What about it?”
“The union inspector wants another walkthrough tomorrow.”
“Pay him.”
“I already did.”
“Then pay him again.”
Mateo turns slightly, his expression flat with disbelief. “At this point, we should just put him on payroll.”
“Then he’ll ask for benefits.”
Matthew lets out a short laugh, the first sound in the car that has nothing to do with rain or traffic.
The moment passes.
I look back towards the mirror.
The black van is still there.
Rain thickens as we turn east, falling harder against the glass until the world outside becomes a shifting blur.
A taxi slips into the space behind us, blocking my view for a few seconds.
Traffic shifts around us with the usual disorder of the city: one car pulls off at a side street, another turns right, a bus slows at the curb.
When the taxi moves aside, the van remains.
Closer now.
Only two vehicles separate us.
I say nothing.
Rocco says nothing.
That is enough to tell me he has seen it too.
The city keeps moving around us, careless and alive.
We pass a pharmacy with bright lights burning in the windows, a liquor store with iron bars across the door, and a church whose stained-glass windows glow warmly against the rain.
The van stays behind us through all of it, patient enough not to rush, careful enough not to crowd, but never far enough away to become coincidence.
A man following another man always believes he is invisible.
That is the first mistake.
The second is believing he is the only one watching.
I rest one arm against the door and let my gaze drift away from the mirror.
“How long before the north warehouse is fully operational?” I ask.
Mateo answers immediately. “Three weeks.”
“Two.”
“Don,” he murmurs. “You know these things. You know,
That’s not how construction works.”
“Make it how construction works.”
His jaw tightens. He wants to argue, but he knows better than to waste his breath on a number I have already decided. I almost smile.
Behind us, the van takes the same turn.
Still there.
Still waiting.
I take my phone from my pocket.
Mateo notices the movement and glances back at me. “You need something?”
“No.”
I dial anyway.
The call connects after two rings.
“Don.”
Marco’s voice is calm, alert, already prepared for an emergency, because the men who serve me learn early that I do not just call without reason after a business deal like this.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Estate.”
“Good.”
A pause. “Do you need me?”
“Not yet.”
Through the rain-streaked glass, the van’s headlights hold their place behind us.
“Take two men,” I say.
Marco waits. “Then what?”
I give him an address.
Not one of our warehouses. Not one of our clubs. Not any place tied openly to the Nero name. It is an old loading yard near the river, abandoned long enough for the city to have forgotten it exists, and useful for exactly that reason.
Quiet and empty.
“Be there in fifteen minutes,” I say.
Marco’s voice lowers. “Problem?”
“No.”
I end the call.
Mateo turns halfway in his seat. “What’s at the river?”
“Nothing.”
The answer satisfies nobody.
The farther south we drive, the thinner the city becomes.
Apartment buildings give way to warehouses.
Restaurants and corner stores disappear, replaced by storage yards, steel fences, dark loading bays, and floodlights that buzz weakly through the rain.
Water gathers in potholes and spreads across the pavement in black pools.
The van keeps following.
One vehicle separates us now.
I watch its headlights ripple across the wet road. Whoever drives it has discipline. He understands distance. He understands patience. He has done this before.
Not well enough.
But before.
Matthew checks the mirror.
Then checks it again.
I see the exact moment he notices. It is small, barely more than a tightening in his shoulders, but fear and awareness have their own language.
“Don,” he says quietly.
I look at him. “What?”
His eyes flick toward the mirror, then back to the road. “Maybe nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing.”
Silence fills the SUV at once.
Mateo turns fully now. Rocco has already shifted, his attention fixed on the vehicle behind us. Of course he knows. The only surprise is how long it has taken the others.
“How long?” Matteo asks.
“A few miles.”
His eyebrows rise. “A few miles?”
I look through the rear window.
The van remains behind us, steady and certain, comfortable in the belief that we are still prey moving toward home.
“Take the next exit,” I tell Matthew.
“Estate?”
“No.”
The SUV leaves the main road, and almost immediately, the last traces of ordinary Chicago begin to fall away.
The streets grow emptier. The buildings become lower, wider, uglier.
Fences run along both sides of the road, topped with barbed wire and shining with rain.
Floodlights throw pale circles over empty loading docks.
Somewhere in the distance, the river moves unseen through the dark.
The van follows us off the main road.
Still committed.
Mateo reaches inside his jacket.
I stop him with one look.
“Not yet.”
His hand lowers.
We pass the first gate, then the second, then the third. The road narrows until there is nowhere to go except forward or back. No pedestrians move along the sidewalks because there are no sidewalks here, only cracked concrete and puddles deep enough to swallow the reflection of the sky.
Nobody lives here.
Nobody walks here.
Nobody hears anything here except rain striking metal.
That is when the van begins to hesitate.
The distance between us widens slightly. Not enough for panic. Just enough for doubt. Whoever sits behind the wheel has finally understood that we are not heading home.
Too late.
Very slowly, I smile.
Rocco notices. He looks through the rear glass, then at me, then back toward the van. Whatever expression is on his face disappears.
The van should turn around.
It does not.
That tells me everything I need to know.
Men with innocent reasons to follow another car eventually leave. Men with instructions keep going; even when their instincts warn them, they walk into something they cannot see.
The old loading yard appears ahead through the rain.
Chain-link fencing surrounds it on three sides, rusted at the joints and patched in places with newer steel. Beyond the concrete embankment, dark water moves beneath the weak reflection of distant city lights. The gates stand open, exactly as they are supposed to.
Matthew drives through without slowing.
The SUV rolls into the yard, tyres hissing over wet concrete.
Behind us, the van stops outside the entrance.
Three seconds pass.
Then four.
Then five.
For a moment, I think the driver might still save himself.
Then the van moves forward.
It crosses the threshold and enters the yard.
I lean back in my seat.
Behind it, the gates begin to close.
The driver’s mistake is not failing to see the trap.
The driver’s mistake is seeing it too late.
And when the van finally brakes hard inside the loading yard, trapped between the closing gates and the SUV waiting ahead, he discovers the truth of the evening.
He has never been following me.
I have been bringing him here.