Christian took me underground.
Literally.
Beneath one of Russo Holdings' oldest buildings was a tunnel left from Prohibition.
We entered through a freight elevator and emerged beneath a closed theater six blocks away.
Marco stayed behind with the others.
Christian and I ran alone through rain.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere nobody knows about."
"You said that about the penthouse."
"Apparently I was wrong."
"Comforting."
He looked at me.
"You use sarcasm when you're terrified."
"I use sarcasm all the time."
"You're terrified all the time?"
"Lately."
For the first time, Christian laughed.
One short sound.
Then he caught himself.
It shouldn't have mattered.
But it did.
The man Chicago feared had laughed because of me.
We reached an old brick house in Bridgeport before dawn.
Inside, everything was covered with sheets.
"What is this place?"
"My mother's."
I stared.
"You have a secret abandoned house?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
"Rich criminals are exhausting."
He looked almost offended.
"I'm not rich because I'm a criminal."
"That's the part you object to?"
He didn't answer.
We slept in separate rooms.
Or tried to.
At sunrise I found him in the kitchen making coffee.
His sleeves were rolled up.
There was a scar along his forearm.
Another near his collarbone.
"You look less terrifying making coffee."
"I'll work on that."
He handed me a cup.
I tasted it.
"Terrible."
He frowned.
"I own seventeen restaurants."
"Apparently you don't cook in any of them."
That almost-smile again.
Then his phone rang.
Marco.
Anthony Vale had survived.
So had most of Christian's men.
But whoever attacked the penthouse had escaped before police arrived.
More importantly, Anthony had asked to speak with Lena.
Alone.
Christian refused.
I insisted.
Two hours later, we entered a private medical facility controlled by the Russos.
Anthony lay handcuffed to a hospital bed.
He looked twenty years older.
Christian remained outside the glass door.
Anthony glanced toward him.
"He cares about you."
"He met me three days ago."
"Russo men don't need time. They need reasons."
"Tell me where my mother is."
Anthony closed his eyes.
"I don't know."
I grabbed my chair.
"Then why am I here?"
"Because I know who does."
"Moretti."
"No."
"Who?"
"Your mother."
I stared.
Anthony explained.
Six years earlier, Evelyn discovered that Moretti's network had finally located her.
She staged the accident.
Anthony helped.
"Why?"
"Because she saved my wife once."
"So you helped her disappear?"
"Yes."
"Then why betray Christian?"
His eyes filled with shame.
"Because Moretti found my son."
Silence.
"He threatened him?"
Anthony looked away.
"He owned him. Gambling debt. Drugs. People make themselves easy to control when they're desperate."
"So you gave Moretti information."
"Piece by piece."
"You nearly got us killed."
"I know."
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me did.
But another part understood the terrible mathematics of loving someone.
"What did my mother do after the crash?"
Anthony swallowed.
"She went north."
"Where?"
"I only knew a code name."
"What?"
"Bluebird."
Christian entered.
"Bluebird?"
Anthony looked startled.
Christian's face had changed.
"You know it?" I asked.
"Bluebird was Daniel's name for a cabin."
My father.
"Where?"
"Wisconsin."
Four hours later, Christian and I were driving north.
Marco followed with another vehicle.
The city disappeared behind us.
Trees replaced skyscrapers.
Silence filled the car.
"Tell me about him."
Christian knew who I meant.
"Daniel?"
"Yes."
He gripped the steering wheel.
"He hated violence."
"That seems inconvenient in your family."
"It was."
"What was he like?"
Christian smiled faintly.
"He played piano badly. He read everything. He wanted to teach history."
I looked out the window.
Nobody had ever told me anything about my father.
My mother had claimed he'd died before I was born in a construction accident.
"Did he love her?"
"Evelyn?"
"Yes."
Christian glanced at me.
"More than anything."
I cried silently for several miles.
He didn't tell me not to.
He didn't say it would be okay.
He simply drove.
That was somehow better.
The cabin sat beside a lake surrounded by pine trees.
Old.
Small.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
I stopped breathing.
Christian drew his gun.
"Stay behind me."
For once, I obeyed.
We approached.
The front door opened.
A woman stepped onto the porch.
Her hair was gray now.
Her face thinner.
But I knew her.
"Mama?"
The word broke inside me.
Evelyn Hart covered her mouth.
Then she ran.
I ran too.
When she wrapped her arms around me, six years disappeared.
I became twenty-four again.
A daughter burying an empty coffin.
I held her.
Then I shoved her away.
"You let me think you were dead."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I know."
"I buried you."
"I know."
"I spent six years thinking I was alone!"
"I know."
I slapped her.
Christian moved.
Then stopped.
My mother didn't.
She simply took it.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
I collapsed into her arms again.
Inside the cabin, she told us everything.
Daniel had discovered that Victor Moretti wasn't acting alone.
Someone in the Russo family had helped murder Christian's father and Daniel.
Someone Christian still trusted.
"Who?" Christian asked.
Evelyn looked at him.
"Your uncle."
Christian's expression went blank.
"Salvatore?"
"Yes."
I had heard the name.
Salvatore Russo.
Christian's father's younger brother.
Retired.
Respected.
The man newspapers occasionally photographed at charity dinners.
Christian stood.
"No."
Evelyn placed an old document on the table.
Daniel's handwriting.
Payments tied Salvatore to Moretti.
Christian read them.
Again.
Again.
His hands began shaking.
"My uncle raised me after my father died."
"That was the point," Evelyn said.
Christian looked up.
"He raised me."
"He controlled you."
The truth hit him harder than a bullet ever could.
I reached for his hand.
He looked down at my fingers.
Then closed his around mine.
That was the first time I held Christian Russo's hand.
Not because I was afraid.
Because he was.
Evelyn watched us.
Something almost maternal crossed her face.
Then the cabin window shattered.
Christian pushed me down.
Gunfire ripped through the walls.
"Back room!" Marco shouted.
Moretti had found us.
Christian fired through the window.
I crawled toward my mother.
She opened a trapdoor beneath a rug.
"Daniel built this."
We climbed into a narrow cellar.
Christian followed last.
Marco's men fought outside.
The cellar led to a tunnel ending near the lake.
We emerged among trees.
Then a man stepped from behind a pine.
Gun raised.
Christian lifted his weapon.
Both froze.
The stranger lowered his gun first.
Christian didn't.
"Uncle Sal."
Salvatore Russo smiled.
He looked gentle.
That terrified me.
"Christian."
"You led them here."
"I came to help."
Evelyn whispered, "Liar."
Salvatore looked at her.
"Still alive. You've always been difficult."
Christian's gun rose.
Salvatore's smile disappeared.
"Careful, son."
"Don't call me that."
"I raised you."
"You killed my father."
Silence.
Then Salvatore shrugged.
"I saved the family."
Christian's face shattered.
Not visibly.
But I felt it.
Salvatore continued.
"Your father was weak. Daniel was weaker. They wanted legitimacy. They wanted to abandon everything generations built."
"So you murdered them?"
"I protected what belonged to us."
Christian's finger tightened on the trigger.
Salvatore smiled again.
"Do it."
I stepped beside Christian.
"No."
Everyone looked at me.
"Don't give him what he wants."
Salvatore laughed.
"The girl thinks she knows you."
Christian kept the gun raised.
I touched his wrist.
"If you kill him here, he's just another body. Expose him."
"He'll never see prison."
"Then take everything else."
Christian looked at me.
Slowly, he lowered the weapon.
Salvatore's confidence returned.
Big mistake.
Christian's men emerged from the trees behind him.
Marco took Salvatore's gun.
Christian stepped close to his uncle.
"You taught me something when I was sixteen."
Salvatore stared.
"Fear lasts longer than pain."
Christian's voice became quiet.
"So I'm going to let you live long enough to watch everything you built disappear."
We drove back toward Chicago with Salvatore in restraints.
My mother sat beside me.
Christian sat across from us.
For the first time, we had the truth.
But truth wasn't enough.
We needed proof that couldn't disappear.
And Chicago was waiting.
---