Page 161 of Pietro

I don't look up from the shipping manifests. "Unless the docks are on fire or Pietro's finally snapped and killed someone important, it can wait."

"Sophia Torrino is downstairs asking for you."

The glass stops halfway to my mouth. I set it down carefully, my mind already calculating angles. Francesco's niece. Here. At three in the morning.

"Alone?" I'm already reaching for the Glock in my desk drawer, checking the chamber with practiced efficiency.

"Far as I can tell." Dante moves further into the room, his presence filling the space the way it always does. "I had Aldo check the perimeter. No cars idling, no foot traffic that doesn't belong. She walked here—been standing outside for ten minutes before she knocked."

"Armed?"

"Not unless she's hiding something impressive under that coat. Girl's half-frozen and scared enough to shake apart."

I stand, tucking the gun into my waistband. "Could be a setup. Francesco using family to get close."

"Could be." Dante's expression doesn't change, but I catch the slight shift in his stance. Ready for violence at a word from me. "But she mentioned Michigan Avenue. Said the girl from Michigan Avenue needs your help."

Fuck. She remembers.

Twelve years ago. The kid with the ball and the death wish. Dark hair, huge eyes, mother crying hard enough to make a scene. I'd walked away with blood on my hands—my own, for once—and tried to forget about it.

"She has information about the shipment," Dante adds. "Showed Aldo a flash drive."

This is a trap. Has to be. Francesco Torrino doesn't make moves this obvious unless he's desperate or playing a deeper game. But the girl...

"Bring her up." The words come out before I can think better of them. "Through the kitchen, back stairs. And Dante—" He pauses at the door. "Keep your hand on your gun."

"Always do."

The door closes behind him with a soft click.

I pour another whiskey, then think better of it and pour one for her too. If this is a trap, at least I'll die with good liquor in my system. If it's not...

Christ, what kind of desperation drives a Torrino to my door?

Dante Castellani has been watching my back since we were teenagers. His father worked for mine until a deal went bad and bullets started flying. Dante took three bullets meant for me that night, nearly bled out in my arms in some warehouse on the South Side. He was eighteen. I was sixteen.

He lived. His father didn't.

My father took him in after that—not out of charity, but because he recognized what I'd already known. Dante was born for this life. Not just the violence, though he excels at that, butthe strategy. The loyalty. The ability to see three moves ahead while everyone else is still reacting to the last one.

Six-foot-three of controlled menace, Dante commands a room without saying a word. He's got this way of going completely still right before violence erupts, like a wolf deciding whether you're worth the energy to kill. The scar through his left eyebrow makes him look perpetually skeptical, which isn't far from the truth.

He's my consigliere now, the only person outside family I trust completely. Dante would burn Chicago to the ground if I asked him to. Hell, he'd probably enjoy it.

The knock comes exactly three minutes later. Professional, measured—Dante's signature even in something as simple as announcing himself.

"Come."

The door opens and she walks in first, Dante close behind. He shuts the door with, then positions himself against it, arms crossed. His message is clear: no one leaves without permission.

Sophia Torrino stops three feet inside my office and freezes.

She's not the little girl I pulled from traffic anymore. Twenty, maybe twenty-one now. Dark honey hair falls past her shoulders in waves that the November wind has turned wild. Her coat hangs open, revealing a simple black dress underneath.

But it's her eyes that stop me cold. Same honey-brown as twelve years ago, but the innocence is gone. Replaced by something I recognize too well—desperation barely held in check by sheer will.

She's shaking. Her lips have taken on a bluish tint that says she's been outside too long. This is fear, bone-deep and primal. The kind that comes from knowing exactly how bad things can get.