Seducing chicago, p.1
Seducing Chicago, page 1
Contents
Seducing Chicago
Copyright
Acknowledgements
About this book
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Excerpt from Seducing Vegas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Series by J.F. Lowe
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Review
Seducing Chicago
By J.F. Lowe
Seducing Chicago
J.F. Lowe
Published by Seduction and Sin Publishing
Copyright © 2022 J.F. Lowe
Edited by Bailey Macks
EBook ISBN: 978-0-6453516-2-0
Print IBSN: 978-0-6453516-3-7
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Warning: The contents of this book for a mature audience.
Acknowledgements
I want to say a special thanks to the people who make this series work. As my husband and I traveled around the United States of America in 2019, we were lucky enough to go to some of the amazing places and to meet some absolutely fabulous people. These places and people were my inspiration. Like the other books in this series Seducing Chicago was inspired by our trip to Chicago, Illinois and the stories that we discovered when a tour with family friends.
Have you ever watched any of those old gangster movies? There are some great ones out there, full of drama and excitement. But far from the studios of Hollywood, a very real gangster history exists. We're not talking about petty theft or violence purely for the sake of violence, what we're talking about is true organized crime, criminal efforts focused on making money through tightly-controlled and managed organizations.
These crime syndicates operate at a very high level of sophistication, featuring their own ranks of bureaucratic administration, distribution, and muscle. Of the powerful organized crime syndicates in the United States, few have achieved the power and influence of the Chicago Outfit, a branch of the American Mafia. It may seem the stuff of movies, but the Chicago Outfit has had a very real impact on American history.
To understand the Chicago Outfit, we have to step back a bit into the late 19th century. American industry was booming, bringing immigrants to major cities in droves. However, in an era of intense economic competition, political corruption, and no government regulation of business, workers were paid very little and treated very poorly.
Many turned to crime, organizing street gangs in cities like Chicago. The criminal markets were established, networks were formed, and the only thing left was to organize them. The people to take that opportunity were immigrants mostly from Southern Italy who had experienced the organized crime syndicates that dominated Naples and Sicily.
As the mob grew in American cities, they took control of drug, gambling, and prostitution rings, and became substantially wealthy. They also relied heavily on extortion, relying on what was called the Black Hand, or threatening violence unless paid off. Basically, people had to pay the mob in order to be protected from the mob. The name, Black Hand, comes from extortion letter demanding payment that was stamped with a black hand.
The Chicago Outfit was founded in this world of growing organized crime. Its growth was really thanks to Giacomo 'Big Jim' Colosimo, who consolidated the Outfit's power and wealth through hundreds of brothels. However, they really became a world-famous criminal institution thanks to the Eighteenth Amendment. This constitutional amendment outlawed alcohol, introducing a period known as Prohibition in 1920.
With alcohol now illegal, the Chicago Outfit found a new crime opportunity. Colosimo's nephew, Giovanni 'Papa Johnny' Torrio, wanted the Outfit to focus on beer and liquor, but Colosimo disagreed. So, Torrio had Colosimo killed, and started expanding the Outfit's focus.
As The Chicago Outfit developed the underground markets for alcohol sales, they started moving into other gangs' territories, sparking a bloody period in the city called the Beer Wars. The Chicago Outfit controlled the South Side of Chicago, the Irish-American gangs controlled the north, and violence erupted between these groups. Torrio retired after an attempt on his life. He handed over the Outfit to a man whom he had brought in back in 1919, and who had quickly risen through the ranks: Alphonse Capone. If you have read book two of the Seduction In The City series Seducing Philly you will read a little more on Al Capone and the Eastern State penitentiary where he spent his final days.
About this Book
Vengeance is cruel, revenge is instinct, and when you come from my family, an eye for an eye just isn’t enough. I’ll make you beg and suffer in ways you could never imagine. What I didn’t imagine is that your emerald-green eyes, swooping eyebrows, and soft cheeks make my c*ck jump every time I see you. Whether I kill you or f*ck you, either way, the streets of Chicago are mine.
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Chapter 1
Cade Torrio could taste it in the air. His blood burned, and his fingers clenched reflexively. He was so close now, so very close to achieving what he’d set out to do more than a decade ago. Just a little more patience, and they would all be dead, every single one by his hand and his alone.
The dangerously tense man eased back in the black leather seat. His driver would tell him when the signal came through. All he had to do was be ready to put a bullet between the shit-eating cocksucker’s eyes.
When he closed his eyes, he could still see his mother’s face as the blood drained out of it. He could still see the life leaving her eyes, the exact moment when she passed on. Her screams haunted him every waking hour and woke him up at least twice a night on top of that. It was easier to drink than to remember, but that wasn’t an option on evenings like this. He needed to be cold and responsive in order to do what needed to be done.
He felt the holster at his hip. The pistol grip fit snugly in his hand. He could draw and fire two shots in half a second. Most people could only say that they could do that in practice, in a controlled environment. Cade knew from experience in life-or-death situations, and he had left the trail of bodies behind to prove it.
Slow inhales, slow exhales. He could hardly hope to actually calm down, but he could manage to slow his slamming heartbeat down to vaguely reasonable levels.
“Mr. Torrio?”
Cade opened his eyes to look through the slitted window to the front of the car. His driver, Stanfield, was staring back at him, his face utterly impassive as always.
“Are they here?”
“No, sir. Blackjack and Arrow just reported that they’ve arrived and are in position. There are no escape routes now.”
Cade grinned at that, a feral expression that struck fear into the hearts of even the most hardened men. Everything was going perfectly according to plan.
Chapter 2
Stephanie St. Clair had just finished a shitty day at work. No, scratch that, an extraordinarily shitty day at work. Just when she’d thought she was done, her boss had informed her — in that particularly unpleasant way of hers — that Stephanie was needed for closing up. God forbid that Andrew actually came into work on his appointed shift. But heck, maybe the boss was right on the money because Stephanie had stupidly agreed to pick up his slack.
She sighed, lumbering down the empty streets of Chicago at night with all the weight of an overburdened, overworked waitress. Honestly, if it had just been a bad day at work, then that would have been easy enough to deal with. The real issue was that she had a week of shitty days ahead of her, then at the end of that, there was the shittiest time of all: the holidays.
Oh, she loved the holidays in concept. She loved Christmas cheer and gorging on all sorts of sweets and the festive music that blared on every corner. She liked the enchanting mystery of snow falling among massive trees bedecked in all sorts of ornaments, and she loved giving and receiving presents, from the anticipation of wondering what you received and watching the transformations on the faces of the recipients. What she didn’t love was her family. In fact, if she was being perfectly honest with herself, she loathed her family.
The St. Clair’s were a rowdy bunch, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world, even though they could grate on her nerves a bit. They were also fruitful, with dozens of members convening every year for an entire fortnight of neverending celebrations. Again, that wasn’t quite what ground her gears. It was a bit much for her semi-introverted self, but it was bearable. At the end of the day, the real issue was that they were probab
That’s right, evil. Now, Stephanie didn’t throw that word around willy-nilly. She didn’t just have a bone to pick or an uncle that gave her the creeps, though Uncle Lenny definitely did give her the creeps. It wasn’t about a feeling that she had in her gut or a wild fantasy that she’d thought up as a child.
She kicked a can on the sidewalk, her mood getting darker and darker as she reflected on the past. It was probably unwise to neglect her awareness, but the neighborhood between her house and restaurant was pretty safe. So she found herself remembering the first time that her mother had told her not to ask too many questions about Gramma. God, what a night that had been.
It had been the first time she’d seen a dead body. Hell, when her mom had warned her that she might see one, she’d thought that Mom had been talking about Gramma herself. That wouldn’t have been much of a surprise, what with Gramma being nearly ninety. Of course, if anyone could be sustained purely by vitriol and vexation, Gramma was it.
Thus, imagine how great little nine-year-old Stephanie’s shock had been when she found out that Gramma wasn’t dead. Far from it, in fact. The old woman had gone and killed someone else, if you can believe it. Stabbed him right in the chest, a young man in the prime of his life, killing him on the spot. At the time, Stephanie had just assumed that it was a mugging gone wrong or something to that effect. It was Chicago, and things like that were hardly unheard of. Hell, she’d come away thinking that Gramma was a bit of a badass in her own right and that maybe all that prickliness did have a purpose after all.
Of course, just before Stephanie had officially become a teenager, she’d found out that Gramma had actually murdered the guy because he’d borrowed some money and refused to pay it back. Allegedly, he had laughed in her face when she’d gone to ask where the money was. He’d said something to the effect of “What are you gonna do, call your grandsons to come rough me up?”
He’d been laughing when he said that, but he wasn’t laughing when she rammed a knife straight into his chest. Must’ve nicked an artery or something because he died right there on the spot, hitting the ground and bleeding out in seconds. Gramma had then called not the police but her sons to come to get rid of the evidence.
Now, Stephanie pondered as she turned a corner and started down the second-to-last block before her apartment, it would have been one thing if that was the whole enchilada. If that was the only weird event that stood out, or even if Gramma had done other shit — which she definitely had — then that would only be one member of the family that was really nuts. Her uncles got rid of the body, sure, but they’d do anything for her, and of all their traits, loyalty was really the one least worth criticizing.
But as it turned out, that had only been the tip of the iceberg. From that point on, the rest of her family had apparently considered her old enough to learn about the rest of the dirty laundry, and it was more than enough to fill a laundromat or two.
Like the time that Grandpa Vinny had killed three men at a bar by locking them in and setting the whole thing on fire. Apparently, they’d all been betting on the outcome of a football game, and Vinny had won, but the others didn’t want to pay up. It was hard to figure out how burning them alive and destroying a bar had gotten him his money, but Stephanie really didn’t want to dig too deeply into the details.
Or there was the time that she found out that her own mother had brutalized another woman with a knife. Cut her face to shreds, or so the story went. It was hard to imagine that the rumors were true about it being a crime of jealousy, but the alternative was to believe the even more disturbing rumors, which said that both her mother and the victim had been high-class escorts fighting over a client. For pretty obvious reasons, she had never brought this up to her mom, not the least of which was that she had inherited a bit of Gramma’s temper. Lovely most of the time, but get her good and riled up…
If Stephanie had been paying closer attention to her surroundings, she might have noticed how things had gotten a little too quiet. Not enough of a difference that it was immediately obvious, but enough that any hardened native of Chicago would have noticed and taken heed of in the same way that animals could sense a thunderstorm before the first drop of rain hit the ground.
But no, Stephanie just worked herself into a fouler and fouler mood, going back through the history of her family’s sins and internally grumbling about how she’d have to spend Christmas talking to each and every one of the psychopaths. None of them would pull knives on one another, but that was hardly a blessing. Instead, if they wanted to work out their aggressions, they’d probably commit some other heinous crime together, the likes of which the kids in the family would learn about in a few years and get traumatized for life. Either that or they’d get over it and become jaded.
Honestly, Stephanie wasn’t quite sure what had happened to her. It usually felt like the worst of both worlds.
God, they were probably going to get Grandpa Vinny’s ashes—
BANG
Stephanie was distracted as all hell, but she was still a local girl and knew to hit the floor by reflex whenever she heard anything remotely resembling gunshots. Before she even knew what had happened, she was crouching down between a parked car and a tree growing out of a beefy planter on the sidewalk.
She took stock of her surroundings, searching both for the source of danger and for any potential avenues of escape. It was dark, but she couldn’t see anyone at all, which was far more of a curse than a blessing. It didn’t sound like a driveby. There was no sound of screeching tires as the assailants peeled off into the night. If her luck continued to be terrible, then there was probably just one guy hiding with a gun, and she was his target.
The crack of three more shots rang out, but no more. They were definitely coming from pretty far down one of the streets intersecting her current route. She quickly considered the possibility of bolting and making a run for it, then discarded the idea. Her current hiding spot was fairly concealed and her best bet until she had a better idea of what was going on. If this was just some teens playing around, then there wasn’t all that much to fear, but if it was actually a psycho with a gun, shooting everything that moved, then catching their attention was a terrible idea.
There was silence, which was anything but reassuring. However, after a few seconds of holding her breath and her heart pounding right out of her chest, Stephanie realized that she wasn’t entirely correct on that point. It wasn’t completely silent.
Footsteps were getting louder, coming in her direction. She tried to hunker down even further. Between the darkness and her cover, she figured that it would be almost impossible to spot her, but she could still peek out through a small gap between the tree’s leaves and the planter.
The source of her troubles charged into view, sprinting on a path that would take him well clear of her hiding spot. He kept looking over his shoulder, stumbling half his steps as he ran. His eyes were so wide that she could see the whites even from across the street. The man looked absolutely terrified.
She didn’t realize he had a gun until he lifted it and fired wildly over his shoulder. There were no screams, just the pounding of his footsteps and his heavy breathing.
And then, for no reason that she could discern, he turned and came straight for her. He would be upon her in seconds, and Stephanie St. Clair would likely be ended on the spot. Even if he wasn’t crazy, he looked like he might shoot her just out of sheer surprise.
She was torn between running and trying to hide even more. It was way too late to escape undetected, he was near enough to see any move she made. The second it took for him to close half the distance felt like an absolute eternity.
Stephanie closed her eyes tight. Might as well not see it coming, right?
But then a shadow crossed over her. She had no idea how she noticed it in the darkness, but it was almost like she could feel a malevolent, feral presence.
The footsteps stopped. There was no sound but hoarse, choking breaths.
