At the bar, Mason’s head snapped up.

Roman’s eyes remained on Ava.

“Get down.”

Her lips parted.

“What?”

“Now.”

The first shot came as Roman flipped the table.

The heavy oak table slammed upward, smashing plates, coffee, glass, and candle flame into chaos. The suppressed round punched through the air exactly where Ava’s throat had been.

Screams tore through The Silver Saint.

Roman seized Ava by the back of her server jacket and dragged her behind the overturned table as a second shot buried itself in the wood.

“Move,” he ordered.

“I can run to the kitchen—”

“He saw you write it.”

Another shot cracked into the booth.

Mason returned fire from the bar. Bottles exploded behind him, spraying liquor and glass. Diners crawled beneath tables. A chandelier chimed violently overhead.

Roman pulled Ava across the floor, keeping his body between her and the gunman.

She slipped on broken glass. He caught her before she fell.

“Let go of me!” she shouted.

“You’re alive because I haven’t.”

They crashed through the kitchen doors.

A cook screamed. A pan hit the floor. Blue flame jumped from a burner. Someone yelled to call the police.

“Police won’t get here fast enough,” Roman said, as if answering thoughts she had not spoken.

Behind them, the kitchen doors burst open under gunfire.

Roman shoved a steel prep cart into the doorway. Trays, knives, lemons, and ramekins scattered across tile. Then he grabbed Ava’s hand and pulled her through the rear exit.

The alley hit her with rain, garbage, diesel, and cold.

A black SUV roared backward toward them, tires slicing through puddles. The rear door flew open before the vehicle fully stopped.

“No,” Ava gasped, digging her heels against wet pavement.

Roman did not argue.

He lifted her by the waist and threw her into the SUV.

By the time she scrambled upright, he was inside beside her.

“Drive,” he said.

The SUV shot forward.

The gunman appeared in the kitchen doorway and fired twice. Bullets struck the rear window, blooming white cracks across reinforced glass.

Ava pressed herself against the opposite door, shaking so violently that her teeth knocked together.

Roman DeLuca sat beside her with rain in his hair, blood at his temple, and coffee staining one sleeve of his thousand-dollar suit. His breathing remained controlled.

Ava hated that.

She hated him for looking calm while her entire life split open.

“Let me out,” she said. “Please. Next corner. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t know anything.”

Roman turned his head.

The look he gave her held no comfort.

“That man saw your face.”

“I’m a waitress.”

“You’re a witness.”

“I’m nobody.”

“No,” Roman said quietly. “Tonight you became a problem.”

The SUV cut through rain-dark Chicago. Streetlights smeared gold across the windows. Sirens wailed somewhere behind them, growing faint.

Ava pressed a hand against her chest.

“I have an apartment,” she said, ridiculous panic spilling from her mouth. “I have rent. I have a shift tomorrow. I have a cat who only eats one kind of food and screams if I’m late.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“What’s the cat’s name?”

“The cat.”

Ava stared at him.

“Pickles.”

For one impossible second, something like amusement touched his mouth.

Then it vanished.

“Mason,” Roman said into his phone. “Send someone to Miss Hart’s apartment. Retrieve the cat, essential items, medication, personal documents. Quietly.”

Ava lurched forward.

“No. You are not sending criminals into my apartment.”

Roman looked at her again.

“Would you prefer assassins arrive first?”

That silenced her.

The SUV descended into a private garage beneath a black glass tower overlooking the Chicago River. Armed men stepped from the shadows. A private elevator opened before Roman reached it.

Ava thought about running.

Then she saw two men watching the garage entrance with weapons beneath their coats and understood that escape was not the same as safety.

The elevator required Roman’s palm, then his eye.

Of course it did.

When the doors opened, Ava stepped into another world.

The penthouse looked less like a home than a verdict. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the glittering city. The river coiled below like dark metal. Everything was black marble, steel, white leather, and art that looked too expensive to have been chosen for beauty.