LORENZO
The office door opens without a knock. Only one person has that privilege.
"We have a situation." Dante's voice cuts through the whiskey haze I've been cultivating for the past hour.
I don't look up from the shipping manifests. "Unless the docks are on fire or Pietro's finally snapped and killed someone important, it can wait."
"Sophia Torrino is downstairs asking for you."
The glass stops halfway to my mouth. I set it down carefully, my mind already calculating angles. Francesco's niece. Here. At three in the morning.
"Alone?" I'm already reaching for the Glock in my desk drawer, checking the chamber with practiced efficiency.
"Far as I can tell." Dante moves further into the room, his presence filling the space the way it always does. "I had Aldo check the perimeter. No cars idling, no foot traffic that doesn't belong. She walked here—been standing outside for ten minutes before she knocked."
"Armed?"
"Not unless she's hiding something impressive under that coat. Girl's half-frozen and scared enough to shake apart."
I stand, tucking the gun into my waistband. "Could be a setup. Francesco using family to get close."
"Could be." Dante's expression doesn't change, but I catch the slight shift in his stance. Ready for violence at a word from me. "But she mentioned Michigan Avenue. Said the girl from Michigan Avenue needs your help."
Fuck. She remembers.
Twelve years ago. The kid with the ball and the death wish. Dark hair, huge eyes, mother crying hard enough to make a scene. I'd walked away with blood on my hands—my own, for once—and tried to forget about it.
"She has information about the shipment," Dante adds. "Showed Aldo a flash drive."
This is a trap. Has to be. Francesco Torrino doesn't make moves this obvious unless he's desperate or playing a deeper game. But the girl...
"Bring her up." The words come out before I can think better of them. "Through the kitchen, back stairs. And Dante—" He pauses at the door. "Keep your hand on your gun."
"Always do."
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I pour another whiskey, then think better of it and pour one for her too. If this is a trap, at least I'll die with good liquor in my system. If it's not...
Christ, what kind of desperation drives a Torrino to my door?
Dante Castellani has been watching my back since we were teenagers. His father worked for mine until a deal went bad and bullets started flying. Dante took three bullets meant for me that night, nearly bled out in my arms in some warehouse on the South Side. He was eighteen. I was sixteen.
He lived. His father didn't.
My father took him in after that—not out of charity, but because he recognized what I'd already known.
Dante was born for this life. Not just the violence, though he excels at that, but the strategy.
The loyalty. The ability to see three moves ahead while everyone else is still reacting to the last one.
Six-foot-three of controlled menace, Dante commands a room without saying a word.
He's got this way of going completely still right before violence erupts, like a wolf deciding whether you're worth the energy to kill.
The scar through his left eyebrow makes him look perpetually skeptical, which isn't far from the truth.
He's my consigliere now, the only person outside family I trust completely. Dante would burn Chicago to the ground if I asked him to. Hell, he'd probably enjoy it.
The knock comes exactly three minutes later. Professional, measured—Dante's signature even in something as simple as announcing himself.
"Come."
The door opens and she walks in first, Dante close behind. He shuts the door with, then positions himself against it, arms crossed. His message is clear: no one leaves without permission.
Sophia Torrino stops three feet inside my office and freezes.
She's not the little girl I pulled from traffic anymore. Twenty, maybe twenty-one now. Dark honey hair falls past her shoulders in waves that the November wind has turned wild. Her coat hangs open, revealing a simple black dress underneath.
But it's her eyes that stop me cold. Same honey-brown as twelve years ago, but the innocence is gone. Replaced by something I recognize too well—desperation barely held in check by sheer will.
She's shaking. Her lips have taken on a bluish tint that says she's been outside too long. This is fear, bone-deep and primal. The kind that comes from knowing exactly how bad things can get.
Still, she doesn't speak.
"You're dripping on my carpet," I say, keeping my voice neutral.
She blinks, looks down at the puddle forming around her boots. "Sorry, I—"
"Sit." I gesture to one of the leather chairs across from my desk. "Before you collapse."
She moves like she's walking through quicksand, each step careful. When she sits, she perches on the edge of the chair, ready to run. Smart girl.
Though if she needs to run from me, she's already lost.
I push the whiskey across the desk. "Drink."
Her hand trembles as she reaches for it, and she has to use both hands to bring the glass to her lips. The first sip makes her cough, but she takes another anyway. Color starts returning to her cheeks.
"Better?"
She nods, sets the glass down carefully. Her fingers twist in her lap, and I notice her nails are bitten down to the quick. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
"You saved my life once."
I wait. Let the silence stretch until she has to fill it.
"I need you to do it again."
Jesus fucking Christ.
The curse ricochets through my skull while I keep my expression blank. This is exactly what I don't need. A Torrino sitting in my office at three in the morning, asking for protection.
"That's a heavy request, Miss Torrino."
"I know what I'm asking." Her chin lifts, and for a second I see something fierce underneath the fear. "I know who you are. What you are. I know coming here makes me a traitor to my family."
"Then why?"
She reaches into her coat pocket, and I see Dante shift slightly. But she only pulls out a flash drive, sets it on my desk between us.
"Because in ten days, I'm supposed to marry Daniil Morozov." Her voice cracks on his name. "And I'd rather be a living traitor than a dead bride."
The name hangs in the air like a loaded gun. Morozov. The Russian psychopath who's been turning Chicago's underworld into his personal playground. The one who supposedly left his last girlfriend in pieces—literally.
And Francesco's selling his own niece to him.