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The rain had turned to sleet by eleven o’clock.

Freezing needles of ice lashed against the steel hull of Warehouse Four at the edge of Navy Pier. Lake Michigan roared against the concrete pilings below, a churning cauldron of black water and crushing ice floes.

Inside the abandoned shipping terminal, the air smelled of diesel fuel, rust, and impending death.

I sat in the passenger seat of Mateo’s armored Maybach, watching the yellow halogen floodlights cut through the swirling sleet outside. Mateo sat behind the wheel, checking the action on an automatic shotgun resting across his knees.

“You don't get out of this car,” Mateo said for the tenth time. His voice was a flat, lethal monotone. “The glass is rated for armor-piercing rounds. The doors are locked from the console. If anything goes wrong, you hit this red toggle on the dashboard. The vehicle will drive in automated emergency mode directly to the federal building.”

“I’m not leaving Bianca,” I said firmly, reaching over to touch his arm.

Mateo looked at my hand, then up at my face. The cold killer behind his eyes softened for a fraction of a second. He leaned across the console, his fingers tangling in my hair, and kissed me with a bruising, desperate finality.

“Bianca is my sister,” he whispered against my lips. “It is my blood to spill. Not yours. Promise me, Tessa.”

“Mateo—”

“*Promise me.*”

“I promise,” I lied, looking straight into his gray eyes.

He nodded, pulled his black wool cap low over his brow, racked the shotgun with a terrifying mechanical clatter, and kicked the driver’s side door open into the freezing storm.

***

Through the tinted glass, I watched the nightmare unfold.

Mateo walked alone into the center of the cavernous warehouse floor, illuminated by high-powered halogen lamps mounted on the steel scaffolding above.

Waiting for him thirty yards away was Lorenzo Vitiello.

Lorenzo looked like an older, decayed version of Salvatore. His hair was slicked back, his expensive camel-hair coat unbuttoned, his cruel sneer visible even from fifty feet away. Flanking him were a dozen heavily armed mercenaries.

And tied to a wooden chair in the center of the warehouse was a girl no older than nineteen. Bianca. Her face was bruised, her dark hair tangled, her mouth gagged with silver duct tape.

“Where is the Carbone girl, nephew?” Lorenzo’s voice echoed through the metal rafters, amplified by the cavernous acoustics of the warehouse. “I specifically asked for the little maid! I wanted to see the blood of Salvatore’s great love spill onto the concrete before I took his empire!”

“Let Bianca go, Lorenzo,” Mateo replied, his voice carrying with terrifying calm. “This is between you and me. The Outfit won't follow a coward who hides behind little girls.”

Lorenzo threw his head back and laughed—a wet, barking sound that grated on the nerves. “The Outfit will follow whoever holds the money and the docks! And once you and your father are dead, there is no one left to challenge me!”

Lorenzo raised his hand, signaling the sniper perched high on the overhead gantry crane.

My eyes caught the tiny red laser dot dancing across the concrete floor, tracking toward the center of Mateo’s back.

Mateo didn't see it. He was focused on the men in front of him.

*He’s going to die.*

The thought hit me with the force of an avalanche. All the promises, all the warnings, all my instincts for self-preservation evaporated into thin air.

I didn't hesitate.

I reached out, hit the door unlock button on the console, grabbed the heavy flare gun Mateo had left in the glove compartment, and kicked the car door open into the freezing rain.

“Mateo! Above you!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Every head in the warehouse snapped toward the car.

Mateo spun around, his eyes widening in pure horror as he saw me running across the concrete floor. “Tessa, get down!”

*Crack!*

The sniper’s high-caliber round tore into the pavement two inches from Mateo’s boot, sending sparks and concrete shrapnel flying.

I raised the heavy orange flare gun with both hands, aiming directly at the industrial lighting rig suspended above the sniper’s perch, and pulled the trigger.

*WHOOSH!*

The magnesium flare rocketed into the darkness, striking the massive cluster of electrical transformers feeding the warehouse’s floodlights. The impact ignited the dry cabling in an instantaneous explosion of blinding white fire and shower of golden sparks.

The entire warehouse was plunged into blinding flash-blindness, followed by sudden, pitch-black chaos.

“Kill them all!” Lorenzo shrieked in the dark.

Gunfire erupted like thunder.

Mateo didn't retreat. In the strobe-like flash of muzzle flares and burning magnesium, he moved like a phantom. The roar of his shotgun echoed through the steel rafters, obliterating two mercenaries who had rushed toward me.

I sprinted toward the center of the floor, sliding on my knees across the slick concrete until I reached the chair where Bianca was tied.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, pulling a trauma shear from my pocket and frantically sawing through the zip-ties binding her wrists. “I’ve got you, Bianca!”

The girl gasped, ripping the tape from her mouth. “Look out!”

I spun around just as Lorenzo lunged from the shadows, a silver revolver gleaming in his hand. He grabbed me by the collar of my jacket, yanking me to my feet, pressing the freezing barrel of the gun against my temple.

“Hold your fire!” Lorenzo screamed into the smoke. “Cease fire or I blow her brains across the floor!”

The gunfire stuttered and died.

The wind howled through the shattered loading doors, carrying swirling flakes of snow.

Through the clearing smoke, Mateo emerged. His shotgun was gone. His coat was covered in soot, blood dripping from his knuckles. He stopped fifteen feet away, his chest heaving, his gray eyes locking onto Lorenzo with a hatred so profound, so absolute, that the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

“Let her go, Lorenzo,” Mateo whispered. The quietness of his voice was far more terrifying than any shout.

“Drop your weapons, nephew,” Lorenzo sneered, his breath hot and rancid against my ear, the steel barrel pressing hard enough to bruise my temple. “Drop them, or Salvatore’s precious bloodline ends right here on this dock.”

Mateo didn't drop his weapon.

Instead, a slow, terrible smile curved the corner of his lips.

“You always were an arrogant bastard, Uncle,” Mateo murmured. “You thought I came here alone?”

From the dark shadows behind Lorenzo, the steady, rhythmic tap of a cane echoed across the concrete.

*Tap.*

Lorenzo’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. He slowly turned his head.

Standing beneath the flickering emergency lights, flanked by twenty heavily armed soldiers wearing the traditional black wool overcoats of the Palermo syndicate, was Salvatore Vitiello.

The old Don was holding a submachine gun in his left hand, his silver cane in his right.