Catalina
Three hours down here. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Water drips in the dark and every drop marks another minute before my uncles realize I'm gone.
The Chicago River flows directly above my head, tons of freezing, murky water pressing down on this decommissioned stretch of the River Speakeasy, and the single dim bulb swinging on its frayed wire throws jagged shadows against the brick that all look, if I stare too long, like men I recognize.
The leather bag at my feet holds everything I own.
Ten thousand dollars in vacuum-sealed cash.
A fake passport. A burner phone with exactly one encrypted contact programmed into it.
An encrypted drive holding the entire Bellanti shipping network—armory codes, guard rotations, the manifest of every textile crate that has moved through the forty-third street docks in three years.
I am a walking bomb. The Costas want that information to win their two-decade war.
I want a new identity and a plane ticket.
A simple, cutthroat transaction. Except my hands won't stop shaking.
My teeth won't stop chattering. If my family finds me before the Costas extract me, what the Bellanti basement does to defectors will be worse.
I learned the absolute truth of my bloodline before I lost my milk teeth.
You do not leave the Bellanti machine. You die inside it.
Women in our family who tried—and there have been a few—never made it back to a hot meal.
My uncles drank sixty-year-old scotch the morning after each one and toasted to family loyalty.
I sat at the long mahogany table and watched the coffee go cold in their cups.
I pace. Twenty-two steps from the rusted iron grate at one end of the tunnel to the reinforced steel door at the other.
Turn. Twenty-two steps back. Pacing keeps the blood moving in my freezing legs.
It keeps the panic from taking permanent residence in my throat.
My denim jeans cling tight to my thighs, offering zero protection against the subterranean chill.
The wool coat is useless against the aggressive dampness.
I check the burner phone for the hundredth time.
Dark. I check the steel door for the hundredth time.
The deadbolt hasn't moved. Above me, the muffled rumble of a subway train shakes dust from the brick ceiling.
People up there are buying lattes, complaining about the weather, rushing to dinner reservations.
They have no idea a decades-old shadow war is bleeding out beneath their feet.
My uncles sit at the heads of long tables up there, carving up the city like prime rib.
I grew up in the parlor in pristine white lace listening to the screams from the soundproofed basement.
My hands are technically clean. My soul is not.
A metallic scrape tears through the silence.
The noise violently bounces off the brick walls.
My pacing stops instantly. My lungs lock.
My throat clamps shut. Every instinct honed by two decades of Bellanti paranoia screams at me to run.
There is nowhere to go. This tunnel is a dead end.
A kill box. The rusted iron door at the far end of the tunnel groans under pressure.
Hinges shriek in protest. Shadows warp and lengthen across the damp floor as the heavy deadbolt slides back.
A new scent invades the space, overpowering the smell of the river water.
Motor oil. Smoke. Sun-warmed metal.
The fragrance is heavy. Aggressive. Unapologetic.
It wraps around my throat, cutting through the stench of the mildew.
It is a working-class threat in three notes.
It speaks of garages and firearms, of hard labor and violent afternoons.
My lungs expand, pulling it in deeply. The reaction is involuntary.
The scent grounds the frantic panic spiraling in my chest. A man steps through the threshold.
The dim, flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminates his towering frame.
Fabio Costa.
The boogeyman. The monster my uncles invoked to keep the Bellanti children in line.
He is a caged lion shoved into a human frame.
Six and a half feet of leashed violence.
His presence alone is a weapon. The black tactical gear is built for ambushes, not appearances.
He is designed for absolute destruction.
The stories my family told about the Costa enforcers were not exaggerated.
If anything, they failed to capture the terrifying magnitude of the man standing in front of me.
The steel door slams shut behind him with a final, echoing boom.
The deadbolt clicks back into place. We are locked in.
A violent jolt locks every muscle. Fear, mostly.
Something else underneath it I refuse to name yet.
The pulsing heat ignites in my lower belly, flaring hot and sudden.
It spreads rapidly through my veins, chasing away the subterranean chill.
The absurdity of the reaction makes me want to laugh hysterically.
I am standing in a damp crypt, facing my executioner, and my body decides this is the moment to awaken.
The magnetic pull is violent. It drags at me, urging me to step closer to the danger.
He does not speak. He simply exists in the space, devouring the oxygen.
He is a caged thing trying to decide if I am the door or the lock.
"Catalina Bellanti." His voice grinds out of him, low and wrecked, like every word has been dragged across broken glass to reach me. It scrapes against the damp stone. It vibrates directly in my chest.
"In the flesh." I lift my chin. I force my shoulders back. Show no weakness. That is the first rule of survival in my world.
He evaluates me. Dark eyes drag over my frame, hot and suspicious, sticking on my throat, the line of my mouth, the curve of my hips beneath the wool coat.
The appraisal is thorough and unforgiving.
It is a tactical assessment, searching for hidden weapons or wires.
But the lingering heat in his gaze betrays something feral beneath the surface.
Every line of my body suddenly feels exposed under his scrutiny.
The bulky coat cannot hide the shape of my body.
A muscle twitches along his sharp jawline.
The faint silver dusting of gray hair at his temples catches the dim light, giving him a distinguished, lethal edge.
The gold chain resting against his throat glints.
"You are smaller than the intel suggested." He takes a slow, deliberate step forward. The thud of his boot echoes off the brick.
"And you are exactly as rude as your reputation implies," I fire back. The words leave my mouth before my brain can censor them. The Bellanti sharpness is a defense mechanism. A shield I have wielded since childhood. My family expects submission. I survive by offering sharp edges.
His eyes narrow. The depths of his gaze lock onto mine.
The intensity is staggering. He stops ten feet away.
The scale of him is overwhelming up close.
He towers over me. He stands a full head and shoulders above me, forcing me to look up.
The proximity is suffocating. The heat radiating off his body hits the freezing air, creating an invisible force field.
"You have a smart mouth for a woman standing in a grave." The hostility in his tone is palpable.
"It's only a grave if you're stupid enough to kill your best asset." I stand my ground. Every instinct screams at me to retreat, to press my back against the wall. I refuse. I hold my position in the center of the tunnel.
"Asset." He spits the word like a curse. "You are Bellanti blood. You are poison."
"I am defector blood," I correct him sharply. "There is a difference."
"There is no difference." His jaw locks tight. The muscles bulge beneath his skin. "Twenty years of war. Twenty years of your family putting bodies in the ground. You think handing over a few shipping schedules buys you a clean slate? Your uncles murdered my family."
The accusation hangs in the air. Two decades of blood feud press down on us.
The blood in the streets. The retaliation.
The endless cycle of violence. I am standing in front of a man whose uncle was executed by my bloodline.
The grief does not look like sorrow on him.
It looks like a caged thing fighting its bars.
"I am not asking for a clean slate. I am asking for asylum." I keep my voice clipped and professional. "I give you the inside workings of the Bellanti machine, and you give me a way out. Starting with getting me out of this freezing sewer."
A dark, humorless chuckle escapes his chest. He closes the distance.
Two feet away. The heat rolling off his frame chases away the remaining chill in the air.
The scent of motor oil is intoxicating. My body betrays my logic.
Heat pools low in my stomach. The worst possible time to find a man attractive.
My life is on the line, and my hormones decide to throw a parade.
"You do not dictate the terms of your surrender, Catalina." He says my name with a gritty promise. He strips away the polished, aristocratic Bellanti veneer and turns the syllables into a threat.
"I'm not surrendering. I'm negotiating."
"Negotiations require leverage. You have a burner phone and a duffel bag." He steps closer. He looms over me, a physical manifestation of intimidation.