Chapter 1 - The Midnight Intrusion
The sudden warmth against my side made every instinct I had forged in the Chicago underworld scream for violence. My right hand slid instantly beneath my custom pillow, closing around the cold, checkered steel grip of a Sig Sauer P226. In the dark of my penthouse suite, my heart hammered like a war drum.
I whipped the covers back and pointed the barrel downward, ready to pull the trigger.
Then I froze.
It wasn't an assassin. It wasn't one of Luke’s scouts testing my perimeters.
It was Emma.
She was curled on the very edge of the king-sized mattress, fully clothed in her gray housekeeping tunic, fast asleep. Her breathing was shallow, interrupted by a faint, ragged catch in her chest. A dark bruise bloomed across her left cheekbone—one I hadn't noticed earlier under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway. Her fingers were still clenched tightly around a damp washcloth.
For two years since the sniper’s bullet paralyzed me from the waist down, no one had dared cross the threshold of my bedroom without formal permission, let alone sleep beside me.
Slowly, I lowered the pistol.
The phantom pain that had torn through my dead limbs earlier that night had finally subsided into a dull, icy ache. I realized what had happened. She must have come in to check my vitals or clear the medicine tray, collapsed from sheer, bone-deep exhaustion, and drifted off right there on the sheets.
I stared at her pale, hollowed face. The dark circles under her eyes looked permanent. For a man who controlled half the city’s underground ports, freight lines, and construction rackets, looking at her felt like staring at a failure I hadn't authorized.
I didn't wake her. Instead, I carefully pulled the thick cashmere duvet over her shivering shoulders, reached for my phone, and dialed Luke’s private number.
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"Boss?" Luke answered on the first ring, his voice sharp with immediate alertness. "Is there an intruder?"
"Find out who gave Emma the bruise on her face," I whispered, my voice cold enough to freeze water. "I want a name, an address, and what they owe by sunrise."
