When she tied the final knot, her hands were red.

Dominic looked at her through fever-bright eyes.

“You have good hands.”

“I wanted to be a nurse once,” she said, wiping tears she did not remember crying. “Before bills.”

Dominic’s hand found hers.

Weak.

Certain.

“Then we fix that.”

She shook her head.

“Don’t promise things while bleeding.”

“I make excellent decisions while bleeding.”

Bella had fallen asleep curled near Dominic’s legs.

Cassidy looked at her.

“Why doesn’t she speak?”

Dominic closed his eyes.

For a long time, she thought he would not answer.

Then he said, “Two years ago, my wife Elena was killed.”

Cassidy went still.

“Bella was in the back seat. We were stopped at a light on Wacker. Motorcycle pulled up. I saw the gun and covered Bella. Elena took three bullets.”

His voice flattened.

Not because he felt nothing.

Because he felt too much.

“Bella was covered in her mother’s blood. She screamed for three hours at the police station. Then she stopped. She hasn’t spoken since.”

Cassidy covered her mouth.

“I’m sorry.”

“I promised Elena I would keep her safe.” His eyes opened, dark and hollow. “Today I brought war to her dinner table.”

“No,” Cassidy said fiercely. “You saved her.”

“You saved her.”

“She saved me first,” Cassidy whispered.

Dominic turned his head.

The rain struck the windows. The room smelled of blood, whiskey, wet silk, and fear slowly turning into something else.

“What now?” Cassidy asked.

Dominic’s eyes hardened.

“Now O’Shea thinks I’m dead or dying. He’ll gather allies. He’ll celebrate. He’ll make mistakes.”

“And?”

“We don’t run.”

Cassidy already knew before he said it.

“We hunt.”

PART 3: THE WAITRESS WHO WALKED INTO THE LION’S DEN

Morning came gray and wet.

Dominic was standing by the window when Cassidy woke, pale but dressed in black jeans and a dark shirt from a duffel bag hidden under the mattress. The bandage at his side showed red near the edge. His face was drawn, but his eyes were clear.

He had coffee on a hot plate.

Instant.

Terrible.

Cassidy drank it like medicine.

“Word on the street?” she asked.

“O’Shea is telling everyone I’m dead. He’s throwing a victory party tonight at the Emerald Lounge.”

“Subtle.”

“He never was.”

Dominic placed a folder on the table.

“He will have the five families there. Corrupt aldermen. Two judges. At least three police captains. More importantly, his accountant will be there with a ledger.”

“A book?”

“The book. Payoffs, protection payments, shell companies, names. If I get it, I don’t need to shoot half the city. The federal government will do what bullets cannot.”

“You can’t get inside.”

“Your men?”

“Compromised or known.”

She looked down at her hands.

Hands that had carried plates.

Hands that had stitched a mafia boss.

Hands that still smelled faintly of blood no soap could remove.

“I can.”

Dominic’s head snapped up.

“You need eyes. I’m invisible in rooms like that. Men like O’Shea don’t see waitresses unless they want something poured.”

“You said I’m Valenti now.”

His jaw tightened.

“I said that to protect you.”

“Then let me protect back.”

“Cassidy—”

“I am already in this,” she said. “Enzo tried to kill me. O’Shea wants me delivered. Bella is sleeping in a safe house because of this war. Stop treating me like I’m still holding a tray at The Gilded Spoon.”

Dominic looked at her.

Long.

Hard.

Then he looked away first.

That was how she knew she had won.

The transformation took two hours.

Cassidy cut her sandy-blonde hair into a sharp bob and dyed it black in the cracked bathroom sink. She smudged dark makeup around her eyes, changed the angle of her brows, put on fake glasses, and dressed in black slacks and a white server’s shirt.

When she stepped out, Dominic went still.

“Well?”

“You look like trouble.”

“Good.”

He handed her a silver pendant.

“Microphone. I’ll be in the van. Tap twice, I come in.”

“With guns blazing?”

“With everything.”

She fastened it around her neck.

His hand caught hers.

The touch stopped her.

“Come back to me,” he said.

The words were not a command.

That made them dangerous.

Cassidy looked at him, this wounded man with blood under his bandage and war in his eyes, and realized something impossible had begun in the space between terror and trust.

“I will.”

The Emerald Lounge pulsed with green light, cigar smoke, and money that had touched dirty hands.

Cassidy entered through the service door as Veronica Hale, temporary agency server. The head bartender barely glanced at her fake ID.

“VIP upstairs. Champagne. Don’t look O’Shea in the eye. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Spill something, you die.”

“Got it,” Cassidy said in a bored South Side accent.

Her heart beat so hard she could hear it beneath the music.

In her earpiece, Dominic’s voice was low.

“Breathe.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re performing breathing.”

She nearly smiled.

“Shut up.”

“Good. You’re still you.”

The VIP room was thick with smoke.

Mickey O’Shea sat at the center table, obese, red-faced, sweating through a custom suit, cigar clenched between thick fingers. Around him were men Cassidy recognized from news clips and men she recognized from nightmares: politicians, cops, union bosses, criminals wearing watches that could pay off her mother’s dialysis.

“So I told Valenti,” O’Shea roared, “you touch my blood, you pay in blood. Now look at him. Worm food.”

Laughter exploded.

Cassidy moved between them with a tray of champagne.

Invisible.

Useful.

Beneath notice.

She reached O’Shea’s table.

“Champagne, sir?”

“Leave the bottle.”

He did not look at her.

His attention was on a thin man beside him with a briefcase cuffed to his wrist.