Thayer is gone.
I push myself up into a sitting position, the oversized dark gray cotton t-shirt slipping off my left shoulder. The heavy silencepresses against my eardrums until they begin to ring with a high, frantic pitch. The memories of last night—the assassin’s dead, empty eyes, the terrifying snap of his neck, and Thayer crawling into this bed to completely cage me in—crash into my conscious mind, making my pulse spike in a violent, erratic rhythm.
I slide my bare feet off the edge of the mattress. The polished concrete floor is freezing, sending a sharp, involuntary shiver racing straight up my spine.
"Thayer?" I call out.
My voice sounds frail, entirely swallowed by the vast, open-concept expanse of the bunker. There is no answer.
I wrap my arms tightly around my waist, my bare toes curling against the cold floor as I walk out of the sleeping alcove. The bunker is illuminated only by the faint, blue-white glow of emergency strip lighting running along the baseboards. I pass the sterile, stainless steel bathroom and move into the central living area.
The heavy, pneumatic steel doors at the far end of the room are sealed completely shut. The biometric locking mechanism glows with a solid, unyielding red light.
I am locked in. Again.
But this time, the panic doesn't rise in the same blinding, suffocating wave. The claustrophobia that nearly drowned me in the master suite is muted, entirely overshadowed by a dark, terrifying realization. I am locked in a vault, yes, but I am locked in the exact same vault that the most dangerous man in Chicago uses to protect his most valuable assets.
“You are the most expensive thing I own.”
I walk toward the massive command center dominating the left side of the bunker. A sleek, curved black desk holds half a dozen dark monitors. I slide into the heavy leather tactical chair. The seat is still slightly warm, retaining the phantom heat of Thayer’s body. I pull my knees up to my chest, letting the oversized t-shirt cover my legs, and stare at the blank screens.
My hand moves entirely on its own accord. I reach out, my trembling index finger pressing the spacebar on the matte black keyboard.
Instantly, the entire console flares to life.
Four of the six monitors illuminate, casting harsh, stark light across my face. They are displaying a live, encrypted security feed from the compound above.
The top-left screen shows the front gates, the rain still pouring relentlessly over the armed patrols and the attack dogs. The top-right shows the grand foyer, currently empty and plunged into darkness. The bottom-left displays the shattered ruins of the master suite doors, yellow crime-scene tape hastily strung across the splintered mahogany.
But it is the bottom-right screen that makes the blood completely freeze in my veins.
It is a feed from a room I have never seen. A subterranean space composed of raw cinderblock and flickering, harsh fluorescent overhead lights. In the center of the room is a heavy, bolted-down metal chair.
Maria is strapped to it.
The older Italian housekeeper, the woman who had brought me chamomile tea and trembled at the mere thought of Thayer’s wrath, looks completely broken. Her crisp, dark uniform is tornat the collar. Her face is pale, streaked with tears and smeared mascara. Her wrists are bound to the armrests with heavy, industrial zip-ties.
Standing directly in front of her is Thayer.
He is no longer wearing his ruined suit jacket. He is down to a stark white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, exposing the thick, winding dark ink of his Syndicate tattoos. The crisp white fabric is splattered with a terrifying amount of fresh, bright crimson blood. It paints the center of his chest, heavily soaking into his cuffs.
I slap a hand over my mouth, stifling the sharp, horrified gasp that tears from my throat.
Dante stands in the corner of the room, his arms crossed over his tactical vest, his expression completely unreadable, a silent sentinel witnessing the absolute destruction of a woman who has served their family for decades.
I lean closer to the monitor, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. There is a small green audio icon flashing in the corner of the feed. I reach out with shaking fingers and drag the mouse over it, clicking once to unmute.
The sound of Maria’s ragged, agonizing sobs instantly fills the quiet bunker.
"Please, Don Thorne," Maria wails, the sound entirely shattered. "Please, I beg you. I had no choice. You have known me since you were a boy. I would never betray the family. I would never betray your father's memory."
Thayer doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't need to. When he speaks, the dark, lethal frequency of his tone makes the cinderblock walls seem to vibrate.
"My father is dead, Maria," Thayer states methodically, slowly pacing a slow, predatory circle around her chair. "I am the Don now. And you handed a Commission assassin the key to my private quarters. You let a blade into the room where my wife sleeps."
"They have Leo!" Maria screams, her voice cracking, her chest heaving violently against the restraints. "They took him yesterday afternoon from his school! They sent me a picture of my grandson with a gun to his head! They told me if I didn't unlock the secondary door, they would mail him back to me in pieces!"
The revelation hits me like a physical blow. I slump back in the leather chair, the air completely knocked out of my lungs.
