Chapter 3 - WHISPERS IN THE UNDERWORLD
The velvet box felt impossibly heavy in my palm as the SUV glided through the chaotic Chicago traffic. I traced the worn engraving on the inside of the silver band, a private joke only Gemma and I understood.
“Where did you find this?” I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper against the hum of the engine.
“On the floor of her secondary apartment near the harbor,” Dominic replied, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “The lock wasn't picked. She let whoever it was inside.”
I looked up from the ring, studying his profile in the dim dashboard light. The usual mask of absolute control had slipped, revealing the jagged edges of a worried older brother. “Gemma wouldn't just vanish. Did she owe someone money? Did she get mixed up in…” I swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence.
“My business doesn't touch her,” Dominic said sharply, his voice dropping in temperature. “She stays entirely outside of it. That was my rule.”
“People like you don't get to have rules that protect the people you love forever,” I fired back, surprising even myself with the sudden surge of defiance.
Dominic glanced sideways at me, a dangerous glint flickering in his dark eyes. Instead of being angry, he looked oddly intrigued. “You have a fierce streak hiding underneath all that quiet caution, don't you?”
“I have a survival instinct,” I corrected him, clutching the ring tighter. “And right now, my best friend is missing, and you're driving me into the middle of a war zone.”
“We aren't going to a war zone,” he said as the vehicle slowed to a crawl. “We're going to a neutral meeting ground.”
The SUV pulled up behind an unassuming Italian restaurant in the warehouse district, closed for renovations. Two armed men nodded as Dominic ushered me through a side alley and into a private dining room lit by crystal chandeliers.
Sitting at the center of a mahogany table was an older man with silver hair and a tailored suit that screamed old-money mafia. Marco Vance.
“Dominic,” the man purred, his eyes sliding over to me like a predator sizing up a stray lamb. “And you brought an audience. How touching.”
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“Cut the act, Marco,” Dominic said, stepping seamlessly in front of me, planting his broad shoulders as an absolute shield. “Gemma's apartment was tossed. Her ring was left behind. You know something about it.”
Marco smiled slowly, swirling amber liquid in a crystal glass. “The little princess always did love playing with fire. But maybe this time, she finally got burned by someone outside our family.”
