GILDED CAGES AND BLOODY HANDS

The tunnels beneath Chicago’s jewelry district were a labyrinth of forgotten prohibition-era bootlegging routes and old bank vaults. It was pitch black, cold, and smelled of stagnant water and rust. We navigated entirely by the beam of Alessandro’s tactical flashlight.

For thirty minutes, we walked in tense silence. The sounds of sirens screaming above ground were muffled by thick concrete.

“How is she?” Alessandro finally asked, his voice echoing softly against the damp walls. “Camila.”

“Missing a finger,” I replied bluntly. “Leah has her stabilized. Why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you warn me about the dinner?”

He stopped walking. The beam of the flashlight dropped to the muddy floor. “Because you wouldn’t have let me do it. You would have insisted on staying. On fighting. And I couldn’t risk you.” He reached out, his hand hovering inches from my face before he pulled it back. “Victor Marino is a butcher. When I realized he had a mole in my crew, I knew he would come for you. I had to sever our ties publicly. Brutally. I had to make the city believe I had discarded you for a younger, prettier toy.”

“And you think that makes it okay?” My voice trembled, anger and a deep, agonizing sorrow battling for control. “You stripped me of my dignity in front of the people I called family.”

“I stripped you of the target on your back,” he countered fiercely. “I would rather you hate me from a distance than bury you. Camila was Marino’s daughter. She came to me begging for asylum because her father was going to sell her to the Russian Bratva. I took her in. I used the dinner to show Marino she was under my roof. I didn't know his men would hit the transport convoy.”

I absorbed his words in the dark. The cold, ruthless monster I thought I saw last night was bleeding in front of me, driven by a twisted, desperate need to protect.