Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Bakery Floor
The scent of yeast and antiseptic clung to the small third-floor apartment as dawn crept over 43rd Street, casting a cold, slate-grey light through the rain-streaked windowpane.
Vincent Costello lay on the narrow velvet couch in Beatrice Hayes’s living room, his leg elevated on a stack of worn paperback novels. His charcoal suit jacket hung over the back of a wooden chair, stiffened by dried rainwater and dark, rusty crusts of blood. Beneath the white gauze wrapping his thigh, his muscle throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening heat. Yet his mind was entirely clear—clearer than it had been in months.
In the tiny kitchen, Bee was making coffee.
She moved with an economy of motion that fascinated him. Every gesture was deliberate, honed by years of surviving on four hours of sleep and fourteen-hour shifts at Olyri’s Sweets and Breads. She was a woman built for endurance, heavy-boned and broad-shouldered, her flour-dusted cargo pants replaced now by grey sweatpants and an oversized faded band t-shirt that stretched over her soft, substantial curves.
She set a steaming ceramic mug on the crate beside his couch. Black. No sugar.
"Drink," she said, her voice raspy from smoke and fatigue. "You look like something a stray cat threw up."
Vincent reached for the mug, his broad hand steady despite the pain radiating through his spine. Up close, in the thin morning light, he could study her without the distraction of chemical fires and drawn weapons. Beatrice Hayes was not beautiful by the shallow, gilded standards of the socialites who frequented his high-end clubs in the Loop. Her jaw was too square, her hazel eyes heavy-lidded with perpetual exhaustion, her dark curls springing out of a clumsy cloth tie at the nape of her neck.
Yet there was a quiet, terrifying majesty to her. She moved like a force of nature—unbothered by his reputation, unimpressed by his title, and holding his very life in the palm of her calloused, scar-pitted hand.
"My men will be tearing South Chicago apart right now," Vincent said, taking a slow sip of the scalding liquid. "They’ll think Declan Foley took me to a brickyard or tossed me into the river."
Bee dragged a wooden stool from the kitchen counter and sat down opposite him. Her knees gave a loud, crackling pop as she settled her weight, crossing her arms over her wide chest.
"Let them search," she said flatly. "Declan’s crew is currently hiding in whatever hole they crawled out of, trying to scrub the smell of dry-cleaning fluid out of their eyebrows. They won't come back to 43rd Street today. But by nightfall, Foley will realize I didn't blow the entire block to hell, and he’ll start asking who lives above the bakery."
Vincent leaned back against the cushions, his dark eyes fixing on her face with intense, unblinking focus. "Then you need to leave with me. When I step out of this apartment, you come under the umbrella of the Costello family."
Bee let out a sharp, humorless bark of laughter that ended in a dry cough. "I’m not joining your circus, Costello. I have a job. I have a lease. And I have a brother in a rehabilitation facility four miles from here who needs three thousand dollars’ worth of specialized physical therapy every two weeks."
"You don't understand the man you humiliated last night, Beatrice," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register so dark, so cold, that it usually made seasoned enforcers lower their eyes. "Declan Foley is a dog with a spot of rot in his brain. He doesn't care about logic. He cares about his pride. You made him beg on his knees in front of eleven of his soldiers. He will burn this entire building with you inside it just to prove he has balls."
Bee didn't flinch. She leaned forward, resting her thick elbows on her knees, bringing her face close enough that he could smell the faint, lingering scent of almond extract on her skin.
"Then you better make good on your promise, Boss," she whispered, her hazel eyes flashing with a fierce, dangerous light. "You said we have a deal. My brother’s bills paid. Tommy’s death warrant canceled. Foley crushed. You do your job, and I’ll handle mine."
Before Vincent could reply, the vintage rotary telephone mounted on the kitchen wall let out a harsh, jarring ring.
RING.
Bee didn't jump. She stood up slowly, walked over to the receiver, and unhooked it. "Yeah?"
Vincent watched her expression carefully. He reached down with his right hand, his fingers instinctively reaching for the heavy steel weight of his snub-nosed revolver, before remembering it was currently lying at the bottom of a chemical puddle in a alley.
Bee listened for three long seconds. Her jaw tightened until a small muscle twitched in her cheek.
"He's awake," she said into the receiver. "I patched him up. He's sitting on my couch bleeding on my second-best throw blanket." She paused, listening again, then gave a brief, sharp nod. "The back alley behind the meatpacking plant. Twenty minutes. Bring a clean coat and a pair of trousers that don't look like they were mauled by a lawnmower."
She slammed the heavy receiver back onto its hook with enough force to rattle the chrome bell.
She turned back to Vincent. "Your second-in-command, Frankie 'The Butcher' Vane, just called my kitchen landline. Apparently, he had your car tracked to the block before the signal went dead. He sounds like he’s about to have a heart attack."
"Frankie is loyal, but he lacks subtle imagination," Vincent said, attempting to shift his weight to stand. A sudden, vicious spasm of pain shot through his wounded thigh, and he let out a choked gasp, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the couch.
Bee was across the room in two strides. She grabbed him beneath his armpits, her massive frame providing a wall of solid support that stopped him from collapsing onto the floorboards. Her breath was warm against his neck.
"Easy, big guy," she grunted, taking his weight effortlessly. "You rip those sutures I just put in, and I’m sewing you back up with fishing line and no lidocaine."
Vincent looked sideways at her profile. His shoulder was pressed tightly against her side, feeling the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, the soft warmth of her body contrasting sharply with the cold, ruthless reality of his life.
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"You're a strange woman, Beatrice Hayes," he murmured, his face inches from her jaw.
"I’m an exhausted woman, Vincent Costello," she replied, slinging his heavy arm over her broad shoulders. "There’s a difference."
