Chapter 1 - The Blood in the House
The rain drummed a frantic rhythm against the roof of the sedan as Adrian gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned translucent. The gray concrete walls of Chicago’s highway tunnels flickered past like frame-by-frame exposures of a nightmare he couldn't wake from.
In the backseat, little Emma had finally quieted down, her small thumb tucked into her mouth while her other hand clutched the gray rabbit.
Beside him, Grace sat trembling, her hands locked together in her lap. The confession she had just delivered hovered in the air between them like a toxic gas.
“They weren't Mercer’s people,” Thomas Kane had whispered in the mud. “They were ours.”
Adrian’s voice, when he finally broke the silence, was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of an avalanche.
“You found Thomas bleeding beneath that pine tree. He told you the ambush came from inside my own organization. What happened next, Grace?”
Grace swallowed hard, her eyes reflecting the flashing red lights of a passing ambulance.
“Thomas knew he wouldn't survive,” she said, her voice cracking. “He was bleeding internally. The men in Vale security jackets were searching the tree line. They were hunting him, and they were hunting the baby. Thomas shoved the blanket into my arms, pushed me down a ravine toward the maintenance creek, and told me to run.”
“And you ran.”
“I had to,” she sobbed. “I had a baby of my own at home. But I couldn't leave Lily in the woods to burn. I wrapped her coat-thick against my chest, crawled through the culvert, and made it to my cousin’s car before anyone saw me.”
“Why didn't you come to me?” Adrian’s head snapped toward her, his dark eyes burning with an intensity that made her shrink back against the passenger door. “Why didn't you bring my daughter to my front door that very night?”
“Because Thomas said your best friend was the architect of the hit!” Grace cried, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “He told me that if I walked into your mansion with Lily, the traitor would know she survived within an hour. He told me the only way to keep your child alive was to make the world believe she was buried in that white casket!”
Adrian looked away, staring straight ahead through the windshield as the rain blurred the lights of the city skyline.
Marcus.
Fifteen years of brotherhood. Fifteen years of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the shadows of the underworld, burying enemies, sharing drinks, watching each other’s backs when bullets flew. Marcus had been the first man Adrian called when Evelyn died. Marcus had been the one who arranged the security detail, who mapped the route, who handed Adrian a glass of scotch and told him, “We’ll find the bastards who did this.”
Marcus hadn't been hunting the bastards.
Marcus was the bastard.
“Where is Thomas now?” Adrian asked, his voice dropping into a register so cold it felt like winter had settled inside the car.
“He’s not dead,” Grace whispered. “He’s hiding in my brother’s empty cabin up in Door County. He’s too weak to travel, but he’s alive.”
Adrian tapped the turn signal, changing lanes with lethal precision.
“We’re not going to my house,” he said.
May you like
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to collect my daughter. And then we’re going to have a reckoning.”
