THE WOMAN AT TABLE SIX SAID, “GET THAT OLD MAN OUT OF HERE BEFORE MY HUSBAND ARRIVES.” I REFUSED—AND TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I WAS STANDING IN THE LOBBY WITH MY NAME TAG IN MY HAND WHEN HER HUSBAND WALKED IN AND CALLED HIM “SIR.” The first thing I noticed about the old man was his hands. They were clean, but rough.

The damp, foul air of the sewer tunnel clung to my skin, but I was sweating ice.

I stared at the glowing screen of my phone.

Bring the deed and the letter to the old Vance Construction yard. Come alone.

My mother.

She was at my apartment, recovering from hip surgery. She couldn’t even walk to the bathroom without a walker. She was completely defenseless.

“Rachel?” Thomas asked, holding the flashlight on his phone to guide us through the muck. “What’s wrong?”

I shoved the phone into my pocket.

“Nothing,” I lied, my voice shaking. “Just… just scared of the dark.”

I couldn't tell him.

If Thomas knew Caroline had my mother, he would call the police. Caroline would panic. My mother would pay the price.

I had to do this alone.

We emerged from the sewer grate two blocks away from the bank, coughing and shivering in the freezing Chicago rain.

“My car is still at the bank,” Thomas said, wiping grime from his face. “We need to get to a police station. With John’s testimony and the deed, we can have Caroline arrested tonight.”

“I… I can’t go to the police yet,” I stammered, backing away.

Thomas frowned. “Rachel, what are you talking about?”

“I need to go home. I need to check on my son. And my mother.”

“I’ll come with you,” Thomas offered.

“No!” I shouted, too loudly.

Thomas and John both stopped and stared at me.

“I mean,” I forced my voice to lower. “You need to get John somewhere safe. Caroline thinks he’s locked in the vault with you. If her people see him, they’ll kill him.”

Thomas hesitated, looking at John. The old man looked exhausted, leaning heavily against a brick wall.

“She’s right, Tommy,” John rasped. “I know a church on 5th Avenue. The priest is a friend. We can lay low there until morning.”

Thomas looked at me, his eyes full of gratitude.

He reached into his pocket and handed me his personal cell phone.

“Keep this,” he said. “Call me the second you get home. We end this tomorrow.”

“I will,” I lied.

I watched them flag down a passing cab.

As soon as their taillights vanished into the rain, I turned and sprinted toward the L-train station.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

In my left pocket was my phone with Caroline’s threat.

In my right pocket was the thick, folded property deed and the letter written by my father.

Thirty minutes later, I stood outside the rusted chain-link fence of the abandoned Vance Construction yard on the South Side.

The yard was a massive graveyard of rusted cranes, concrete barriers, and weeds pushing through cracked asphalt.

A single black SUV sat idling in the center of the yard.

Its headlights were on, cutting through the heavy rain.

I swallowed my terror and walked through the open gate, the mud sucking at my shoes.

The driver’s side door of the SUV opened.

A massive man in a dark suit stepped out, holding an umbrella. He didn’t look at me. He just opened the rear passenger door.

I walked up to the car and looked inside.

Caroline Bishop sat in the plush leather seat, smoking a thin cigarette.

She looked immaculate. Not a hair out of place.

“Get in, Rachel,” she said, blowing smoke into the damp air.

“Where is my mother?” I demanded, standing in the rain.

Caroline smiled. “She’s fine. I sent two of my private security guards to your apartment to… assist her with her recovery. They are sitting in your living room right now. If I don't text them in ten minutes, they will take her off her pain medication. Permanently.”

Bile rose in my throat.

I climbed into the SUV. The heavy door slammed shut behind me, sealing me inside the quiet, leather-scented cabin.

“Hand them over,” Caroline said, holding out a perfectly manicured hand.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the deed and the letter.

I held them tightly.

“If I give you these, you let my mother go.”

“Of course,” Caroline said smoothly. “I have no interest in an old woman. I just want what belongs to me.”

“None of this belongs to you,” I spat, my anger suddenly flaring hotter than my fear. “Your father stole it. And you helped him.”

Caroline let out a dry, humorless laugh.

“Oh, please,” she sneered. “Save the righteous indignation for someone who cares. My father built an empire. Thomas’s father tried to tear it down. We simply protected our interests.”

“By murdering him?”

“Arthur Bishop was collateral damage in a corporate restructuring,” Caroline said coldly.

I stared at her. She wasn't just arrogant. She was a sociopath.

“And my father?” I asked, tears blurring my vision. “Was he collateral damage too?”

Caroline’s smile faded.

She took a long drag of her cigarette.

“Your father was weak, Rachel. He took the money to blow the site, but he couldn’t stomach the guilt. He came to my father a year later, threatening to go to the police.”

My breath caught.

“My dad tried to confess?”

“He was going to ruin everything,” Caroline said, her eyes narrowing. “So, my father had to solve the problem.”

“My dad died of a heart attack,” I whispered.

Caroline leaned forward, her face inches from mine.

The smell of mint and tobacco rolled off her breath.

“Your father didn't die of a heart attack, Rachel,” she whispered. “My father’s men paid him a visit. They gave him a choice. Take the pills, make it look natural, and his wife and daughter get to live in that apartment rent-free forever.”

I stopped breathing.

“Or?” I choked out.

“Or they would have thrown him off a roof and made it look like a suicide. And you would have been evicted the next day.”

My father. My brave, broken, beautiful father.

He hadn't just died. He had sacrificed himself to buy my life.

A primal, violent scream ripped from my throat.

I lunged across the seat, my hands closing around Caroline’s throat.

She shrieked, dropping her cigarette as we crashed against the leather door.

I squeezed with everything I had, twenty years of grief and poverty pouring into my fingers.

The driver’s door ripped open.

The massive bodyguard grabbed my coat and violently yanked me backward, throwing me out of the SUV and into the freezing mud.

I gasped for air, clutching my ribs where I had landed.