"Hold your fire!" the man shouts, his voice thick with absolute shock, rapidly raising his left hand into the air. "Hold fire!"
My vision clears, adjusting to the light.
It is Dante.
The underboss of the Thorne Syndicate is standing in the doorway, completely covered in ash, mud, and dried blood. Behind him, half a dozen heavily armed Syndicate soldiers lower their weapons, their eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated shock.
They are not looking at the blood on the floor. They are looking at me.
Sybil Vance. The pawn. The fragile, broken girl their boss went completely insane to protect. I am standing over the unconscious, bleeding body of the most feared man in Chicago, holding a loaded Glock 9mm with the dead, completely unblinking focus of a seasoned killer.
Dante slowly lowers his assault rifle, his dark eyes sweeping over my pale, blood-smeared face, and then dropping to the massive form of Thayer lying in the dirt behind me.
"Is he..." Dante begins, his voice completely raw.
"He is alive," I command, not lowering the gun a single millimeter. My voice is absolute, cold steel. "He is bleeding.And if any of you take a step toward him without my explicit permission, I will kill you myself."
Dante stares at me for a long, heavy second. The sheer, profound cognitive dissonance completely shatters the seasoned underboss. He recognizes the absolute truth in my eyes. I am not the Don's captive anymore.
I am the Donna.
Dante slowly, deliberately bows his head, his eyes fixing firmly on the dirty floorboards.
"Understood, Donna," Dante murmurs, the formal title completely lacking the forced reluctance from the morning before. It is heavy with genuine, terrified respect. "We are here to take you home."
CHAPTER 14 THE QUEEN OF ASHES POV: THAYER
Waking up is a violent, dragging ascent through an ocean of crushed glass and suffocating shadows.
The first thing that registers in my fractured consciousness is the harsh, sterile smell of medical-grade bleach and iodine. It completely invades my nasal passages, aggressively scrubbing away the phantom scents of wet earth, freezing rain, and the intoxicating, delicate trace of vanilla that I desperately want to cling to.
The second thing that registers is the pain.
It is not a dull, generalized ache. It is a blinding, localized inferno burning through the left side of my body. It feels as though a jagged iron spike has been driven directly through my shoulder joint and bolted to the mattress beneath me.
I do not groan. I do not open my eyes immediately. I lie perfectly still, my jaw locking so tightly the muscles in my cheeks feather and cramp. I methodically run a systems check on my own body, a survival instinct honed over a decade of ruling the Chicago underworld. My right arm is fully functional. My legs are heavy but responsive. My chest rises and falls in slow, shallow increments, restricted by layers of tight pressure bandaging.
There is a steady, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor echoing in the quiet room.
I finally force my heavy eyelids apart.
The harsh, fluorescent white light of the Syndicate’s subterranean medical wing assaults my vision. The room is aggressively sterile, a windowless bunker of polished chrome, white tile, and state-of-the-art surgical equipment. I am lying in the center of the room on an elevated hospital bed, the upper half of my body completely bare, save for the thick white gauze wrapping my left shoulder and chest. An IV line is taped to the back of my right hand, dripping a steady stream of clear fluid and heavily synthesized narcotics directly into my vein.
I hate the drugs. They dull the sharp edges of my paranoia. They make the monster sluggish.
I turn my head.
Dante Vitiello is sitting in a cheap, plastic visitor’s chair in the corner of the room. His tactical gear is gone, replaced by a dark, tailored suit that looks entirely out of place against his exhausted, bruised features. He is staring at the floor, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped tightly together.
"The drugs are making me slow, Dante," I rasp, my voice completely ruined, sounding like gravel grinding against rusted iron. "Pull the line."
Dante’s head snaps up. He instantly rises from the chair, crossing the room in three long strides. The relief that washes over his hardened features is palpable, though he quickly masks it behind the stoic, professional facade of an underboss.
"Boss," Dante breathes, stopping at the edge of the bed. "You lost over four pints of blood. The surgeon said another twentyminutes in that cabin and your heart would have given out completely. You need the fluids. And the morphine."
"I don't need the morphine," I growl, my uninjured right hand lifting to grip the plastic tubing taped to my skin. With a sharp, violent jerk, I rip the IV needle entirely out of my vein.
A few drops of blood well up on my skin, dripping onto the pristine white sheets. Dante curses under his breath, grabbing a piece of gauze from the side table and pressing it aggressively against my hand.
