Mister, put your dog in timeout!” Three-year-old Lucy Bennett marched into the private meeting of the most feared man in Chicago with one hand on her hip and the other gripping what

The freezing weight of Lake Michigan pressed down on Vincent Calder like a tomb of liquid ice. The subterranean maintenance tunnel had not merely flooded; it had imploded under the sheer hydrostatic pressure of a ruptured municipal main, transforming the old brick-vaulted coal railway into a roaring, churning sub-surface rapid. Shards of ancient masonry, twisted rebar, and chunks of concrete spun through the dark water like floating shrapnel.

Vincent’s tactical vest dragged him downward, the dead weight of spare magazines, communication gear, and the soaked wool of his custom suit fighting every instinct of his survival training. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen as the black current slammed him hard against a submerged cast-iron support beam. The impact rattled his ribs, knocking the remaining breath from his chest in a violent cluster of air bubbles that vanished toward the murky ceiling.

He didn't panic. Panic was a luxury reserved for the dead.

Drifting particles and silt clouded the beam of his tactical flashlight, casting eerie, dancing shadows across the submerged ruins. Ten feet away, pinned beneath a fallen section of reinforced concrete slab, lay a ceramic mask. The water churned sluggishly around it, stirring the dark hair of a face half-scarred by old fire. Gabriel.

Vincent kicked off the iron beam, his boots gliding through the freezing eddy. His chest felt as though it were clamped in a vice, but his eyes remained locked on the pinned figure. Reaching down, Vincent hooked his gloved fingers into the tactical collar of Gabriel's jacket. The man was unconscious, his body limp, his chest barely rising against the pressure of the surrounding deluge. The water had saved Gabriel from Vincent’s bullet, but it was now actively drowning him.

With a powerful, agonizing thrust of his legs, Vincent kicked upward, dragging his treacherous brother through the roiling foam toward a maintenance hatch that led to an upper air pocket beneath the street-level storm drains.

They breached the surface with a simultaneous, violent gasp.

Vincent heaved Gabriel’s limp body onto a narrow concrete ledge, coughing up mouthfuls of bitter, oil-stained river water. He wiped his face with a trembling hand, his breathing ragged and echoing off the dripping concrete walls of the drainage vault. For a long, agonizing moment, Vincent stared down at the man who had burned his world to the ground, who had stolen his youth, and who had just tried to slaughter the only two people who had ever taught him how to truly live.

Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered. A harsh, wet cough escaped his scarred lips, followed by a wheezing laugh that rattled in his throat.

"You... you missed, little brother," Gabriel whispered, spitting a stream of bloody water onto the stone. "Or... or did sentimentality finally rot your aim?"

Vincent stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wet concrete, and drove the heel of his boot down hard onto the edge of the stone beside Gabriel’s head, cracking the concrete. His voice was a low, lethal hum that cut through the sound of dripping water.