1
Clara
The metallic slideof the private elevator doors seals shut with the heavy, industrial finality of a crypt. The locking mechanism engages deep within the wall. A brutal clunk echoes through the cavernous space of the penthouse, loud as a gunshot in the dead silence. My fingers dig into the cracked ash wood of the Louisville Slugger until the joints throb with a dull, persistent ache.
The scent of expensive leather and chemical cleaners hangs heavily in the air. Beneath that sterile luxury, a faint, haunting aroma of roasting espresso drifts up through the ventilation grates from Il Corvo below. The restaurant. A mafia stronghold masquerading as a high-end West Loop dining experience. The chefs downstairs did not even blink when two men the size of commercial refrigerators marched me through the prep kitchen and shoved me into this steel box.
Arthur Reeves. My father.
A man who treats fatherhood like a casual hobby and gambling like a devout, unrelenting religion. He finally hit the absolutebottom of the barrel. He bypassed the neighborhood loan sharks and went straight to the monsters.
The Bellanti family.
Every native Chicagoan knows the stories. You do not grow up in this city without hearing the dark, bloody whispers about the Costa and Bellanti syndicate war. It is a blood feud spanning two decades. Twenty years ago, the original patriarchs of the Costa family—Igor and Carlo—were assassinated on the exact same night. A coordinated, ruthless strike. A massacre designed to wipe the Costas off the map and give the Bellantis complete, unchallenged control of the Midwest underground.
The assassination failed to end the bloodline. Igor and Carlo left behind sons. Vicious, grieving, heavily armed sons who fled into the shadows, taking the reins of the fractured empire and quietly scheming to take back the streets of Chicago. For twenty years, they plotted their return. Warehouses burned in the dead of night. Shipping containers vanished. Politicians learned to look the other way. The Costas built an impenetrable fortress on the North Side, hiding operations behind legitimate corporate fronts, while the Bellantis ruled the docks on the South Side.
A war of absolute, unforgiving vengeance.
My father, an unemployed degenerate with a penchant for underground poker tables, decided to step right into the crossfire. He stole shipping logs from the Bellanti family. The Bellantis move illegal weapons and untraceable poison through the city, wrapping their empire in the guise of legitimate logistics. Arthur, possessed by some suicidal delusion of grandeur, believed he could blackmail the devil.
The devil came to collect. A million dollars in cash.
Arthur did not have a million cents. Instead of taking a bullet to the brain, he offered a trade. He surrendered his debt—and the stolen logs—to the only force in Chicago terrifying enough to rival the Bellantis.
The Costa family.
And he threw me in to sweeten the deal.
I pace away from the elevator. The heels of my boots sink into a plush, charcoal rug thick enough to hide a body. My duffel bag sits abandoned by the doors, containing three pairs of jeans, a handful of sweaters, and my favorite coffee mug. The entirety of my life reduced to a cheap canvas sack. I left my lesson plans sitting on my desk. Thirty-two third graders are going to walk into Room 204 tomorrow morning expecting a lecture on the Great Chicago Fire, and instead, they will get a substitute teacher, because their third-grade teacher was traded like a casino chip to a mafia syndicate.
The sheer absurdity of it scrapes against my ribs. A frantic, trapped-bird panic batters the inside of my chest.
I lift the bat. I test the weight. It feels like a brittle toothpick. It is an old college softball relic, the grip tape peeling at the edges from years of use. I brought it out of sheer, desperate defiance. When the Costa enforcers kicked in my apartment door thirty minutes ago, they watched me pack it. They did not even try to stop me. They exchanged a look of dry amusement. That silent exchange terrified me more than a drawn gun. They knew a piece of wood would not save me.
The penthouse is a gilded cage suspended high above the city. Floor-to-ceiling windows line the far wall, offering a sweeping, unobstructed view of the Chicago skyline. The glass is incrediblythick. Soundproof. The city acts as a silent movie playing out in the rain. Taillights streak red across the wet asphalt of the interstate below. The rain lashes violently against the glass, making absolutely no sound.
Silence presses into my ears. Heavy. Suffocating.
I move deeper into the space, keeping the bat raised defensively. The living area is stark, masculine, devoid of any personal touches. Dark leather sofas face a massive fireplace carved from a single slab of black stone. No pictures. No books. No signs of life. It looks like a waiting room for purgatory.
I edge past a hallway leading to a bedroom. A glimpse through the open door reveals a massive, king-sized bed covered in dark linens and an en-suite bathroom dripping in black marble and gold fixtures. The sheer wealth on display is dizzying. It is designed to make the prisoner forget the lock on the door.
I retreat to the main living space. The kitchen catches my attention.
I stop at the edge of the sprawling culinary space. It makes zero sense. A commercial-grade fortress sits right in the middle of a mafia underboss's penthouse. A six-burner Wolf range gleams beneath recessed lighting. Double convection ovens anchor the far wall. An enormous stainless-steel refrigerator hums softly in the corner. The countertops consist of thick slabs of black marble, polished to a mirror finish and completely unmarred by stains or scratches.
Massive glass canisters line the back wall. They are not decorative. They are highly functional. Filled to the brim with flour, sugar, rolled oats, and dark chocolate chips. A heavy,industrial stand mixer sits on the center island. A faint dusting of white powder clings to the crevices of its base.
The juxtaposition snaps my brain in half. A lethal syndicate boss with a million-dollar bounty on his head, stress-baking in the middle of the night? My grip on the bat falters for a fraction of a second. The reality of this space directly contradicts the blood-soaked reputation of the man who owns it.
A soft, melodic chime cuts through the silence.
The elevator.
Adrenaline floods my veins, a sharp, metallic burn racing from my throat down to my fingertips. I spin around. I plant my boots shoulder-width apart on the hardwood floor. I raise the bat, resting the barrel above my right shoulder. The stance is automatic. Muscle memory from a thousand trips to the batting cages takes over.
The metallic locking mechanism clunks loudly. The heavy steel doors slide apart.
