At 2:17 in the morning, forty-three dollars sat in my checking account when a bleeding woman in a cream coat stumbled into the café and whispered, “Please don’t let them find me.”

The North Pier warehouse smelled of rot, wet timber, and industrial grease.

A biting wind tore off Lake Michigan, whipping freezing spray across the rusted corrugated metal walls. Inside, the only light came from the flickering yellow halogen bulb hanging high above an empty shipping floor.

I sat on a wooden crate near the center of the floor, shivering uncontrollably inside my thin coat. Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to run, to jump into a cab and hide under Toby’s hospital bed. But across the cavernous room, hidden among the shadows of twenty-foot stacked shipping containers, Dante and three of his men were positioned with silenced carbines, waiting for my signal.

The heavy sliding door creaked open.

Arthur Pendelton walked in first, clutching a black leather briefcase to his chest like a shield. His silver hair was disheveled, his coat buttoned crookedly. He looked terrified.

Behind him stepped Marcus Briggs.

Scar Face.

He was wearing the same heavy leather jacket he had worn at the café, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his scarred eyebrow twitching in the dim light. Two burly men followed him, their hands lingering conspicuously beneath their unbuttoned coats.

“Where is Julian?” Arthur demanded, his voice shaking against the echoing emptiness of the warehouse. “He promised he would be here himself. I have the board files. I have the financial audits that Carmela kept hidden.”

Briggs didn't answer immediately. He stopped ten paces away, his cold eyes sweeping over the empty crates, the rafters, the corners.

Then, his gaze locked onto me.

He went completely still.

“Well, well,” Briggs said, a slow, ugly grin spreading across his face, exposing gold-capped molars. “Look what the cat dragged in. The heroic little barista from Western Avenue.”

Arthur spun around, dropping his briefcase in shock as he noticed me for the first time. “What is she doing here?! Julian, is this a trap?!”

“Shut up, Arthur,” Briggs barked without taking his eyes off me. He took two slow, deliberate steps toward my crate. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, sweetheart. I gave you a warning this afternoon. Sent you your little brother’s toy. Did you think that was a suggestion?”

My chest tightened until I could barely draw breath, but I remembered what Dante had said: *Bravery is having the discipline to hide your fear when the wolf is smelling your throat.*

I stood up from the crate, keeping my hands visible, making them look small, trembling, and pathetic.

“Julian’s not paying you, Arthur,” I said, my voice echoing off the metal walls. “Look at Briggs. Does he look like he brought a plane ticket to Switzerland? He brought two men and a body bag.”

Arthur went white as paper. He looked at Briggs, backing away slowly. “Marcus... is this true? We had an agreement!”

“I told you to shut your mouth, old man,” Briggs snarled, pulling a suppressed Glock from beneath his jacket with terrifying speed.

He aimed it straight at Arthur’s chest.

“Now!” I screamed, dropping flat onto the concrete floor.

The warehouse erupted into violent, muffled chaos.

A sharp *phut-phut-phut* cracked through the shadows as Dante’s sniper team opened fire from the rafters. Briggs’s right-hand man dropped instantly, clutching his shoulder with a howl of agony. The second thug dove behind a wooden pallet, returning fire with an unsuppressed weapon that shattered the warehouse silence with deafening, concussive roars.

Concrete chips sprayed across my face as bullets chewed into the floor beside me. I scrambled on my hands and knees toward the cover of a steel support beam, my heart threatening to burst out of my ribs.

Arthur was screaming, crawling blindly toward the exit, leaving the black briefcase behind.

Briggs didn't run. He was a professional killer, cold and relentless. He spotted me diving behind the steel pillar, cursed violently, and charged toward my position, gun raised.

“You’re dead, girl!” he roared over the gunfire.

He rounded the corner of the pillar, raising the pistol to put a bullet through my skull.

Suddenly, a shadow dropped from the shipping container above like an avenging angel. Dante landed directly on Briggs’s shoulders, the sheer momentum slamming the two-hundred-pound enforcer into the concrete with a sickening crack.

The gun skittered across the floor, sliding straight to my feet.

Dante and Briggs rolled across the floor in a brutal, bone-crunching brawl. Briggs gouged at Dante’s eyes; Dante drove a vicious elbow into Briggs’s ribs, the sound of breaking bone audible even over the remaining gunfire in the distance.

Briggs pulled a combat knife from his boot, slashing upward. Dante leaned back, but the blade caught his forearm, slicing through his wool coat and drawing a dark spray of blood. Dante didn't even flinch—he caught Briggs’s wrist, twisted it violently until the joint popped, and slammed his forehead directly into the bridge of Briggs’s nose.

Briggs collapsed onto his back, blood pouring from his shattered face, gasping for air.

Dante stood over him, breathing heavily, pressing the heel of his boot onto Briggs’s throat.

The remaining gunfire stopped. Dante’s two operatives moved forward, securing the second thug in plastic zip-ties while Arthur Pendelton lay face-down on the floor near the exit, sobbing hysterically with his hands over his head.

I was leaning against the steel pillar, my hands trembling violently, staring down at the gun that had come to rest against my sneaker.

Dante looked over at me, wiping blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. His gray eyes were intense, wild, but completely focused.

“You alright, Vance?” he asked, his voice rough.

“I... I think so,” I managed to choke out.

I knelt down, picked up Arthur’s abandoned leather briefcase, and popped the brass latches.

Inside lay stacks of encrypted financial drives, forged board authorizations, and a handwritten ledger detailing every bribe Julian Thorne had paid over the past three years to orchestrate his aunt’s murder and seize control of the conglomerate.

On the very top was a signed contract with an overseas mercenary group, dated two weeks ago.

Target: Carmela Thorne.

Fee: Five million dollars.

Signatory: Julian Thorne.

“We have him,” I whispered, looking up at Dante. “We have the whole thing.”

Dante pressed harder on Briggs’s throat until the man groaned in agony.

“Not yet,” Dante said coldly. “A piece of paper in an alley doesn't stop a coup in a boardroom. Tomorrow, Julian will walk into Thorne Tower flanked by lawyers, security guards, and the press. He’ll claim this evidence is fabricated.”

“Then we don't bring the evidence to his lawyers,” I said, standing up, the adrenaline burning away the last remnants of my fear.

I looked at Arthur, sobbing on the floor, and Briggs, bleeding beneath Dante’s boot.

“We bring it to the one person Julian cannot buy.”

“Who?” Dante asked.