“Good,” Eddie said too quickly. “That’s good. Don’t talk to them.”

Ava’s stomach twisted.

“I need to leave the city.”

“I can help. Where are you?”

Roman slid a card across the table.

Ava read the address.

“Near the old rail yards in Cicero,” she whispered. “By the warehouses.”

“I’ll come.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. Yeah, alone. Stay hidden. Don’t call anyone else.”

The line went dead.

Ava lowered the phone.

Her voice was barely there.

“He’s guilty.”

Roman took the phone from her hand, not roughly.

Ava expected triumph from him.

Instead, he looked tired.

“Get dressed,” he said. “We leave in ten.”

They had retrieved clothes from her apartment without asking.

Jeans. Boots. Her gray sweater. A winter coat with a missing button. Her mother’s silver necklace. A framed photograph of her mother laughing under a red umbrella at Navy Pier.

Ava held the photograph longer than she meant to.

Her mother, Elaine Hart, had been a nurse until illness stole the steadiness from her hands. She had raised Ava with practical tenderness and impossible hope. She had believed no person was only the worst thing they had done.

Ava wished she were here now.

Then again, if Elaine were alive, Ava would not have been drowning in debt. She would not have taken every shift. She might not have been at The Silver Saint.

Grief had a cruel way of arranging appointments.

When Ava returned to the living room, Roman had changed.

The suit was gone. He wore black tactical clothes beneath a dark coat, a holster visible at his side. He looked less like a billionaire now and more like the reason other men whispered.

Mason looked at Ava.

“You can stay here.”

She looked at Roman.

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

Roman gave no sign of approval.

But his eyes stayed on her a second longer than necessary.

The ride to Cicero was silent.

Rain faded into mist as they passed shuttered factories and rows of warehouses sleeping behind rusted fences. The city’s glamorous face disappeared behind them. Here, Chicago looked older, harder, less willing to pretend.

Ava stood beneath a flickering streetlamp with a tiny earpiece hidden beneath her hair.

Roman’s voice came through it.

“We see you.”

“That does not help as much as men think it does,” she muttered.

A low sound answered.

Mason, laughing once.

Roman said, “Stay in the light.”

“I feel like a mouse in a trap.”

“You are not the mouse.”

“Comforting.”

Headlights appeared at the far end of the street.

A dark sedan rolled toward her and stopped twenty yards away.

The driver’s door opened.

Eddie Rowe stepped out.

He looked smaller outside the restaurant. Pale. Damp. Sweating despite the cold. His cheap tie hung crooked. His hands shook at his sides.

“Ava?” he called.

She forced herself to step forward.

“I’m here.”

He looked around.

“You okay, kid?”

That part needed no acting.

He came closer.

“You did right calling me. I’ll get you out.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere safe. Indiana maybe. I know a guy.”

Ava’s gaze shifted to the sedan.

There was someone in the back seat.

Her pulse slammed.

“Eddie,” she said softly, “who’s in the car?”

He stopped.

His face collapsed.

“I’m sorry.”

The rear door opened.

The man from The Silver Saint stepped out into the mist.

Charcoal raincoat.

Forgettable face.

Gun in hand.

This time, he did not hide it.

Ava’s throat went dry.

Eddie covered his face.

“They said they’d kill my daughters,” he whispered. “I owed too much. I thought it would be clean. I swear, Ava. I thought it would just be him.”

The gunman smiled.

His accent was faint. Eastern European, maybe. Or practiced enough to make guessing useless.

“Come here, Miss Hart.”

Ava took one step back.

Roman’s voice came through the earpiece, calm and close.

“Say it.”

Ava lifted her chin.

The gunman raised the pistol.

Ava spoke clearly into the cold.

“Take the shot.”

The warehouse district exploded with light.

Floodlights ignited from three rooftops, turning the mist white. A rifle cracked from above. The gunman’s weapon shattered out of his hand, metal spinning across pavement. He screamed and dropped back against the sedan.