""I THREATENED MY DRIVER WITH A 1-STAR REVIEW... THEN GAVE HIM THE ADDRESS TO HIS OWN MAFIA HEADQUARTERS"

The rain pounded against the reinforced glass of the black Cadillac Escalade, turning the neon glare of Chicago’s downtown into smeared ribbons of amber and scarlet. Beatrice Gallagher hugged her damp woolen coat tighter around her shivering frame, completely oblivious to the lethal silence radiating from the front seat. The air smelled of expensive sandalwood, cured Italian leather, and an undercurrent of gun oil that her exhausted, sleep-deprived brain merely registered as high-end car wax. She dug into her canvas bag, retrieved a crushed cracker, and chewed slowly while watching the raindrops race across the window.

Up front, Roman Cavali’s hands remained clamped at ten and two, his knuckles pale against the custom leather-stitched steering wheel. His mind was calculating probabilities with the cold efficiency of a chess master. Tommy Gallagher—a mid-level logistics dispatcher who skimmed off the port books—had vanished forty-eight hours ago. Dante’s crew had turned the city upside down looking for him, assuming the idiot had hopped a train to Mexico. Instead, Tommy’s older sister had casually strolled into Roman’s idling vehicle, carrying the most damning piece of encrypted financial evidence in North America between two damp high-heel shoes.

""You're very quiet, Roman,"" Bee remarked, shifting her posture as warmth finally seeped into her chilled joints. ""Most rideshare drivers usually complain about the potholes or talk about their side hustles. Crypto, mostly. Or how the Cubs are throwing away another season.""

""I prefer listening,"" Roman replied smoothly, his baritone dipping into an octave that resonated deep within the cabin's acoustics. He caught her reflection in the rearview mirror. Dark circles bruised the pale skin beneath her hazel eyes, her hair curled with untamed frizz from the humidity, yet there was a stubborn, fierce tilt to her jaw that made something sharp twist in his chest. ""You said you intend to get there first. What exactly is your plan when you arrive at a meatpacking facility in the middle of a November deluge?""

Bee snorted, rubbing a smear of dried salt off her left shoe. ""Plan? That implies foresight. I have an audit strategy, which is vastly superior. Tommy is a gambling addict with the survival instinct of a blind lemming. He thinks this ledger gives him leverage. He thinks he can trade it for his two-hundred-thousand-dollar debt, walk away clean, and start a juice bar in San Diego."" She leaned forward, resting her forearms against the center console, bringing her face inches away from Roman’s broad shoulder. ""Men like this Cavali character don't negotiate with cornered mice. They crush them. I'm going to intercept Tommy before Cavali’s enforcers show up, drag him into the river if necessary, and hand the ledger over to the federal prosecutor I worked with on the Union Trust fraud case.""

Roman didn't flinch, though a muscle ticked along his sculpted jawline. ""You think the federal government moves faster than Cavali’s men?""

""No,"" Bee conceded, leaning back with a sigh that fogged the glass. ""I know they don’t. But an encrypted external hard drive hidden inside an antique Italian goatskin ledger doesn't just contain debt receipts. I ran a quick decryption trace on the partition before my laptop died at the office. There are secondary accounts. Shell companies tied to offshore construction contracts. If Cavali kills Tommy, that data triggers an automated dead-man drop directly to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice."" She tapped her temple with a tired smirk. ""Forensic accountant, remember? Numbers don't bleed, but they can certainly choke you to death.""

Roman stared through the windshield, watching the wipers sweep away the sheets of gray water. The dead-man switch was news to him. If Dante had cornered Tommy at Cermak and put a bullet in his skull, the family's entire Caribbean offshore network would have detonated by sunrise. This fragile, shivering woman sitting in his backseat with soggy hair and peanut butter crackers had unknowingly averted an empire-wide catastrophe before she had even finished her first snack.

""Smart,"" Roman murmured, taking a sharp turn onto Canal Street, bypassing the interstate route her phone’s navigation had recommended.