Chapter 87 Concrete To Code

• The spotlight found Mason like an old friend as he approached the podium. Three hundred of Chicago's finest waited in pristine silence, their expectations heavy as Lake Michigan storm clouds.
• He adjusted his tie and let his eyes sweep the crowd. Petrov, hunched over his cane, eyes sharp as winter steel. The Calabrese twins lounged like mirror-image panthers. Tommy Chen's tattooed dragons writhed beneath his collar as he lit another cigarette.
• And there, in the back, Helena King - the woman who'd claimed him today as her son. She watched from the shadows, her gaze dissecting him layer by layer.