Chapter 4
His encrypted burner phone buzzed against the center console. The harsh vibration rattled the plastic cup holder.
Renzo glanced at the illuminated screen. The display showed no number, only three letters: *DNT*.
Dante. His second-in-command.
Renzo tapped the speaker icon with the flat of his thumb. "Speak."
"Where the hell are you?" Dante’s voice crackled through the cabin, rough and urgent, backgrounded by the hollow echo of a parking garage. "The warehouse is burning. Fire department’s on the scene, but the CPD gang unit is already swarming the perimeter. Sal Valenti’s people are tearing the West Side apart looking for who pulled the trigger."
"Let them tear," Renzo said evenly. "They won't find anything."
"That’s not the problem, boss," Dante snapped, his voice dropping an octave, thick with tension. "Word already reached the Old Man. Don Silvio called a council for tomorrow evening at the meatpacking plant. He's asking why Sal was hit tonight. The Don didn't greenlight this hit, Renzo. Nobody did. Who fed you the drop on Sal's location?"
Renzo’s jaw tightened. For a fraction of a second, his gaze drifted sideways toward me.
To Dante, the hit had come from an anonymous tip slipped through an encrypted courier drop—a tip that had supposedly pinpointed Sal’s hideout and mentioned an innocent hostage held for extortion.
To Renzo, it had been a rescue mission that happened to align with blood vengeance.
"We talk about it when I get in," Renzo replied, his tone chilling into that flat, unyielding authority. "Is the brownstone secure?"
A heavy pause hung over the line. "The safehouse on Dearborn? Yeah. It's clean. Me and two boys from the North crew swept it twenty minutes ago. Why? You bringing someone in?"
"Be ready at the door," Renzo said, and disconnected before Dante could argue.
He dropped the phone and slid his hand across the leather console, his palm brushing over the sleeve of my coat. The gesture was tentative, almost clumsy in its tenderness, as if he were trying to handle blown glass with iron gauntlets.
"We’re almost there," he said softly. "It’s a private residence. Discreet. Nobody knows the address except my three most trusted men. You can wash up, get warm, sleep. Nobody will touch you there."
"Your friend on the phone..." I murmured, letting my lower lip quiver. "He sounded angry. Because of me?"
"Dante worries about business," Renzo said, his voice dropping into a dark, soothing cadence. "You aren't business, Clara. You're innocent. There’s a difference."
*Innocent.* The word tasted like sweet cyanide on the back of my tongue.
If Dante only knew how right his instincts were, he’d put a hollow-point bullet through my forehead the moment I crossed the threshold.
***
The brownstone on Dearborn Street stood tucked behind a row of towering maples whose bare, wet branches clawed at the gray autumn sky. From the exterior, it looked like the quiet home of an affluent lawyer or an architect: brass door knocker, discreet security cameras tucked into the cornices, leaded glass windows shrouded by heavy blackout velvet.
Renzo parked in the narrow subterranean garage beneath the house. The heavy steel door rolled down behind us with a pneumatic hiss and the solid clack of hydraulic deadbolts engaging.
The moment the engine died, the silence closed in, thick and suffocating.
Renzo stepped out first. His boots clicked against the sealed concrete floor, deliberate and light. He didn't just walk around the hood; he scanned the perimeter, his right hand resting casually inside his vest where the Kimber’s grip protruded just beneath the silk lining. Satisfied, he reached for my door and pulled it open, extending a hand to help me down.
I stepped onto the concrete, wobbling on the heels of my leather boots.
I made sure my knees buckled just enough.
Renzo caught me before my balance broke. His arm banded around my waist, lifting me effortlessly against his chest. For a second, our faces were barely inches apart. His skin smelled of cold rain and expensive wool, carrying that lingering, intoxicating trace of cordite that made the hair on my arms stand up. His amber eyes burned into mine, pupils blown wide in the dim fluorescent lighting of the garage.
"I've got you," he whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. "Lean on me."
"I’m sorry," I stammered, clinging to his lapels, burying my trembling fingers into the heavy fabric of his vest. "My legs... they just feel like water."
"You went through hell tonight. You don't have to walk on your own."
He didn't put me down. With one arm hooked securely beneath my thighs and the other cradling my back, he carried me toward the steel-reinforced elevator door at the rear of the garage. He keyed a four-digit PIN into a brass panel, followed by a biometric thumbprint.
The elevator groaned and ascended three floors in near-total silence.
When the doors slid open, they revealed a wide, open-concept loft. Exposed brick walls were lined with minimalist modern art, a roaring gas fireplace cast long amber shadows over herringbone oak floors, and the air smelled faintly of cedarwood and gun oil.
Standing beside an oversized granite kitchen island was Dante.
Dante was built like an anvil—shorter than Renzo, with a boxer’s flattened nose, scarred eyebrows, and cold, suspicious eyes the color of dirty river ice. In his right hand, he held a tumbler of bourbon; his left thumb was hooked into the belt loop of his tactical slacks, inches from an exposed Glock 19.
When Dante saw Renzo step out of the elevator carrying a woman wrapped in his own overcoat, his jaw went rigid.
"What is this?" Dante’s voice was low, laced with immediate hostility. "Renzo. Tell me you didn't drag a civilian out of the warehouse."
Renzo didn't break his stride. He carried me past Dante toward the plush leather sectional sofa positioned near the fireplace, lowering me gently onto the cushions as if I were made of porcelain. He crouched in front of me for a second, pulling the wool coat tighter around my shoulders, his eyes searching my face.
"Stay here," he said softly, his voice dropping into that private, protective frequency. "I'll get you some water."
I nodded meekly, curling my legs beneath me, shrinking into the corner of the sofa. I lowered my gaze, staring at the floorboards, but through the curtain of my damp hair, my eyes were tracking Dante’s posture with cold precision.
The tension in the room spiked instantly, crackling like static before a lightning strike.
Dante followed Renzo over to the kitchen island, his boots heavy on the wood. He set his bourbon glass down with a sharp *thwack*.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Dante hissed under his breath, his neck muscles bulging against his collar. "Sal Valenti’s blood isn't even dry on the docks, and you bring a stray into the Dearborn house? Who is she?"
"Her name is Clara," Renzo said, his voice flat, dangerously calm. He pulled a crystal tumbler from an overhead rack and filled it from the filtered tap. "She was tied up in the central bay. Valenti took her because of her father’s shipping manifests."
"And you believed her?" Dante took half a step closer, his eyes darting toward me on the couch. "Renzo, listen to yourself! You don't take anonymous tips from burner phones, hit three captains without Don Silvio’s say-so, and walk away with a fucking hostage as a souvenir! It’s a setup. It stinks of a frame from ten miles away."
