A little girl walked straight up to me, one of the most feared mafia bosses in America, shoved a crumpled fifty-dollar bill into my hand, and begged me to buy back her mother’s pawned bracelet. I thought I understood every kind of deal a person could make, until she showed me what she planned to give me in return.

The iron foundry on 12th Street was a cavernous rust-bucket of a building, abandoned since the steel crash of the late nineties. Broken glass littered the concrete floor, and rain dripped continuously from holes in the high corrugated roof, creating a hollow, echoing beat in the darkness.

Four black vehicles were parked in a semicircle near the center of the floor, their headlights cutting bright white beams through the rising dampness.

I stepped out of my SUV alone.

Marcus had begged me to bring a full assault team, but I knew Victor Moretti. He was a coward who operated best when he thought he held the upper hand. If he saw twenty armed men, he would panic, and a panicked coward was more likely to pull a trigger on a hostage.

I walked steadily into the crosshairs of the headlights, my hands resting casually in the pockets of my dark suit.

Standing in the center of the light was Victor Moretti—a fat, balding man in his late fifties wearing a leather trench coat that struggled to zip around his midsection. Surrounding him were eight armed thugs, their jackets pulled back to reveal submachine guns and pistols.

And tied to a heavy steel chair in the middle of them was Elena.

Her dark hair was matted with rain and sweat. A deep bruise was already forming along her cheekbone, and her clothes were torn at the shoulder. But when she raised her head and her eyes locked onto mine, I saw no fear in them. Only a desperate, wild disbelief.

"Jonathan?" she gasped, her voice cracked and breathless. "What... what are you doing here?"

"I told you I'd find you, Elena," I said softly, stopping twenty feet away from the glare of the headlights.

"How did you—" She stopped, her eyes going wide as realization hit her like a physical blow. "Lila. Oh God, Jonathan, where is Lila?!"

"She's safe," I said, keeping my tone firm so she could hear the absolute truth in it. "She's at my home, surrounded by people who will protect her with their lives. She's eating warm food right now, Elena. She's safe."

Elena let out a long, shuddering sob, her head dropping forward as relief washed over her.

Victor Moretti laughed—a wet, disgusting sound that rattled in his throat. He stepped forward, resting a hand heavy with gold rings on the back of Elena's chair.

"Look at this," Moretti sneered, looking around at his men. "The great Jonathan Reed, walking into my house for a broken woman and a bastard kid. I knew you were soft, Reed, but I didn't think you were stupid."

I turned my gaze slowly from Elena to Moretti. My expression didn't change, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"You hit her, Victor," I said quietly.

Moretti shrugged, pulling a silver toothpick from his pocket. "She was mouthy. Didn't want to get into the van. We had to teach her some manners before we figured out who she was."

"You touched my family," I said.

"She ain't your family, Reed!" Moretti snapped, his arrogance flaring up. "She owed twelve grand to my loan sharks! Her rent was six months behind! She's nobody! And now you walk in here thinking you can just dictate terms to me? You're on my turf!"

"Your turf?" I repeated softly.

I raised my right hand and snapped my fingers once.

From the shadows above the foundry floor—from the broken catwalks, the rusted cranes, and the high window ledges—a dozen red laser dots suddenly appeared, painting the chests and foreheads of every single one of Moretti’s eight men.

The sound of twenty heavy bolts sliding into place echoed through the massive building.

Moretti’s men froze. Their hands hovered over their weapons, their faces turning ghost-white as they realized they had walked straight into an elevated sniper perimeter.

"You didn't really think I came alone, did you, Victor?" I asked, taking two slow steps forward.

Moretti's breath hitched. He reached frantically for his waistband, but before his fingers could touch his gun, I moved.

I crossed the distance between us like a phantom. I grabbed his wrist, twisted it back until the bone cracked with a sickening snap, and slammed him face-first onto the hood of the nearest car. His gun clattered across the concrete floor.

His men started to raise their weapons, but the sharp click of red lasers focusing directly on their eyes held them completely paralyzed.

"Nobody move!" Marcus’s voice boomed from the catwalk above. "Put your hands on your heads or you die where you stand!"

One by one, Moretti’s thugs dropped their weapons to the floor, raising their hands in absolute surrender.

I kept one heavy hand pressed against the back of Moretti’s neck, pinning him to the steel hood. He groaned in agony, his fingers twitching helplessly.

"You have two choices tonight, Victor," I whispered into his ear, my voice devoid of any human warmth. "Choice one: I kill you right here, take your territory by midnight, and wipe your family name off the census."

Moretti whimpered, his pride completely broken. "What's... what's choice two?"

"Choice two: You sign over every contract, every property, and every debt ledger on the South Side to my syndicate by morning," I said. "You take your pathetic crew, get on a bus to Miami, and never set foot in Illinois again. If I ever see your face in this city again, I won't use snipers. I'll do it myself."

"I sign! I sign!" Moretti gasped, tears of pain leaking from his eyes onto the dirty car hood. "Just let me go, Reed! Take her! Take everything!"

I shoved him back, letting him collapse onto the floor like a sack of wet flour.

Without giving him another glance, I pulled a small pearl-handled knife from my vest pocket, walked over to Elena, and sliced through the thick ropes binding her wrists and ankles.

The moment the ropes fell away, Elena stumbled out of the chair. She didn't run. She stood there, trembling, looking up at me through her bruised eyes, her chest rising and falling violently.

"Jonathan..." she whispered.