Chapter 2 - The SetupThe silence in the penthouse was deafening, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning and the sound of Sienna’s terrified breathing. The icy metal of the gun barrel was pressed firmly against her forehead. One squeeze of Dawson’s finger, and her life would end right here on the polished concrete floor.
"Dawson..." Sienna whispered, tears filling her eyes but refusing to fall. She didn't pull away. She looked straight into his hazel eyes, searching for the man who had held her hand just moments before. "Look at my face. Look at me! If I wanted to betray you, I could have taken the money your father offered me six weeks ago and run. Why would I stay? Why would I care if you lived or died?"
Dawson’s hand trembled slightly. The muscle in his jaw worked furiously. "The USB drive was in your bag, Sienna. The codes came from your terminal."
"I was set up!" she cried out, her voice echoing off the glass walls. "Think about it! Who had access to my desk? Who knew I was reviewing the North Harbor logistics files today? I left my keycard on my desk when I went to fetch your coffee at three o'clock!"
"Enough of this drama!" Viktor Volkov barked, drawing his own weapon. "She’s a rat, Dawson! The syndicate code is clear. Traitors die on the floor where they are caught. If you don't have the stomach to kill your little pet, I’ll do it for you!"
Viktor raised his gun toward Sienna.
In a split second, before Viktor could align his sights, Dawson shifted his stance, swinging his weapon away from Sienna’s head and pointing it directly at Viktor’s chest.
"Touch her, Viktor," Dawson growled, his voice dropping into a guttural register that made the room temperature seem to plummet, "and I’ll paint this window with your brains."
"Dawson!" Vittorio Moretti slammed his silver cane against the floor. "Stand down! The proof is right in front of you!"
"The proof is too clean, Father!" Dawson shouted, his eyes locked on Viktor, who had gone rigid under the sights of Dawson’s gun. "Sienna is a lot of things—she's stubborn, she's annoying, and she has no respect for authority. But she isn't stupid enough to keep a Swiss bank statement printed out in her purse like a movie villain! Someone wanted her caught. Someone wanted her dead before she could speak!"
Sienna looked at Dawson in shock. Even with a gun pointed at his Underboss, even with his father demanding blood, he was defending her. He hadn't lost his trust in her; he was playing a dangerous game to keep her alive.
"Vittorio," Viktor said slowly, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. "Your son is compromised. His emotions are clouding his judgment. Allow my men to take the girl to the basement in the South Side warehouse for interrogation. If she's innocent, we'll find out."
The South Side warehouse. Everyone in Chicago knew what happened in the Moretti South Side basement. Nobody ever walked out alive.
"No," Vittorio said sternly. The old Don looked at Sienna, his sharp eyes calculating every variable. "She stays alive. For now. Put her in the vault room in the basement of this building. Lock it from the outside. Nobody talks to her, nobody sees her until I finish analyzing the server logs myself."
"Father—" Dawson started.
"That is my final decree!" Vittorio shouted, his authority leaving no room for argument. "Guards! Escort Miss Brooks downstairs. If she leaves that room, heads will roll."
Two heavy-set Moretti guards stepped forward. Sienna didn't fight them. She looked at Dawson as they grabbed her arms. He lowered his gun slowly, his eyes meeting hers with a silent, burning promise: Hang on.
Ten minutes later, Sienna was shoved into a cold, windowless concrete room beneath the bedrock of the Moretti Tower. The heavy steel door slammed shut, followed by the heavy clunk of electronic locks engaging.
The room contained nothing but a wooden bench and a single overhead bulb.
Sienna sat on the bench, pulling her knees to her chest. Her mind was racing at a terrifying speed. Who set me up? It had to be someone with high-level clearance. Someone who knew the shipping schedules, someone who knew her routines, and someone who stood to gain from removing Dawson’s most trusted ally.
Viktor Volkov.
It was too obvious. Viktor was the Underboss. He hated Dawson. He wanted the syndicate for himself. But as Sienna replayed the events of the last few weeks in her head, another detail struck her—a detail so small she had almost overlooked it.
Three days ago, when she was filing financial documents in Vittorio’s private study, she had noticed a series of large, encrypted wire transfers originating from a private account in Moscow. The transfers weren't going to Viktor. They were going to a shell corporation registered under the name Lazarus Holdings.
And Lazarus was the middle name of Vittorio Moretti.
Sienna’s breath caught in her throat. No. It can't be.
Why would the patriarch of the Moretti family sell out his own shipping containers to the Russians? Unless... unless it wasn't a betrayal of the syndicate, but a setup to purge his own organization.
Hours passed in the dark. Sienna lost track of time. Her body ached, and the damp cold of the basement seeped into her bones.
Suddenly, a soft, metallic scraping sound came from the air vent near the ceiling.
Sienna stood up, staring at the vent. The grate was unscrewed from the inside and dropped quietly onto a pile of old blankets. A moment later, a figure dropped down from the ceiling, landing lightly on his feet like a panther.
It was Dawson.
He wore dark tactical gear, a combat knife strapped to his chest, his face smeared with greasepaint. In his hand, he held a keycard and a suppressed pistol.
"Dawson!" Sienna whispered, running to him.
He caught her, pulling her fiercely against his chest. His arms wrapped around her so tightly she could barely breathe, his face buried in the crook of her neck. "Are you hurt? Did they touch you?"
"I'm fine," she breathed, hugging him back with all her strength. "Dawson, why are you here? If your father catches you—"
"My father isn't here," Dawson said, pulling back to look at her face, his hands framing her jaw. "I cut the security feeds to this wing. We have ten minutes before the circuit resets."
"Dawson, listen to me," Sienna said urgently, grabbing his vest. "It was Viktor, but he isn't acting alone. I think your father—"
"I know," Dawson interrupted softly, a profound, agonizing sorrow settling over his dark features. "I checked the server logs myself an hour ago. The access key that leaked the codes wasn't copied from your desk, Sienna. It was generated three days ago from my father's personal terminal in his estate."
Sienna gasped. "Your father... he framed me?"
"He didn't just frame you," Dawson said, his voice cold and hollow. "He's making a deal with the Russian Bratva. He’s dying, Sienna. He has stage-four lung cancer—he’s kept it hidden from the family for six months. He knows I'm not ruthless enough to keep the syndicate together through a war, so he's selling half our territory to Volkov and the Russians in exchange for fifty million dollars to secure my safety and retirement."
"He's sacrificing your reputation... and my life... for a deal?" Sienna asked, horrified.
"He thinks you're a distraction," Dawson said, looking into her eyes with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat. "He thinks you made me soft. He wanted you removed so I would become the monster he needs me to be to survive."
"So what do we do?" she asked.
Dawson reached into his tactical vest and pulled out a small, encrypted flash drive, along with a pair of passports.
"I have a car waiting in the alley," Dawson whispered. "We take this drive to the District Attorney—the same guy you told me about three weeks ago. We give him everything. We burn the Moretti empire to the ground tonight, and we walk away together."
Sienna looked at him, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "You would give up your legacy? Your family name? Everything you were born to inherit?"
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Dawson reached out, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her cheek. "My legacy was poison, Sienna. You're the only thing I've ever wanted that was clean. Let's go home."
Before she could answer, the heavy steel door of the vault room blew inward with a deafening explosion, throwing them both to the floor in a cloud of smoke, fire, and shattered concrete.
