Chapter 1 - The Alleyway Debt
The 1998 Honda Civic shrieked in protest as Mave yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, fish-tailing out of the alley just as the high beams of the black SUV washed across the brick wall she had vacated seconds earlier. The sound of tires crunching on broken glass echoed behind them. Mave didn’t check the rearview mirror. In Chicago, if you looked back, you invited a bullet; if you kept driving, you bought yourself another five minutes of breathing.
"Hold on, big guy," Mave gasped, her foot flat on the floor as the Civic rattled down Ashland Avenue, the heater blowing a pathetic stream of lukewarm air that smelled faintly of old gasoline and desperation.
In the passenger seat, the man—whose custom wool suit was now entirely ruined by arterial blood and muddy water—slumped heavily against the door. His breath came in shallow, ragged hitches. The Cane Corso, jammed into the cramped backseat with its massive head resting between the two front seats, let out a low, vibrating hum that sounded like an engine idling in distress.
"We're going to my place," Mave said, mostly to keep herself from screaming. "Which means we're driving twenty blocks past a district police station while you bleed out on upholstery I still haven't paid off. Do not die in my car, you hear me? The cleanup fee alone will ruin me."
The man didn't answer. His gray eye was shut tight now, his face pale under the streetlamps that flashed overhead like strobe lights.
Mave’s apartment was a third-floor walk-up in a building where the front door lock had been broken since the Bush administration. She killed the Civic's engine three houses down, killing the lights so the alternator didn't die completely. Getting him out of the car was an exercise in pure, unadulterated agony. With the dog nudging his heels and Mave pulling him by his good arm, they crawled up the stairwell like three survivors of a shipwreck dragging themselves onto a jagged shore.
When she finally shoved her apartment door open, the stale scent of instant ramen and laundry detergent hit her. She dumped him on her sagging futon.
"Don't touch the cushions with the blood," she muttered automatically, before reality slammed back into her chest. "Right. You're bleeding out."
She locked the door, pulled the cheap vertical blinds shut, and sprinted to the bathroom for her meager first-aid kit—a box containing half a roll of gauze, a bottle of off-brand hydrogen peroxide, and a packet of butterfly closures she’d stolen from Carmichael’s first-aid station three years ago.
When she knelt beside the futon, the man’s eyes flickered open. The gray iris was sharp, tracking her every movement with predatory precision despite the blood loss.
"You're an idiot," he rasped, his voice like gravel grinding in a cement mixer. "They'll find the car. They'll find this address in thirty minutes."
"Then they'll have to climb three flights of stairs and deal with me, and trust me, I'm having a really bad week," Mave snapped, ripping open his ruined shirt with a pair of kitchen shears.
The entry wound was just below his right ribs—neat, circular, cauterized around the edges. A suppressed pistol. Close range.
"Hold still. This is going to hurt worse than whatever your friends did to you."
She poured the hydrogen peroxide straight into the wound. The man didn't yell. He didn't even flinch. But the muscles in his jaw locked so hard she thought her teeth would crack just looking at him. His large hand shot out, wrapping around her wrist with a grip that felt like a hydraulic clamp.
"What's your name?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the terrifying weight of absolute authority.
"Mave. Now let go of my wrist before I finish the job with the kitchen knife."
He stared at her for three long, agonizing seconds. Then, slowly, his fingers uncoopered and dropped away. "Vane," he whispered. "Vane Rossi."
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Mave froze, the gauze pad hovering inches from his chest. The name hung in the air of the cramped apartment like a physical weight. Vane Rossi. The ghost at the top of the North Side syndicate. The man who owned three shipping ports, four city councilmen, and half the federal judges in Cook County. The man people whispered about in dark booths at Carmichael’s when they wanted to disappear.
"Oh," Mave whispered, her throat suddenly dry. "Fantastic. I rescued a mob boss. My mother was right; I really am terrible at making life choices."
