Chapter 2
Dominic Castile later stood in the ruins of his mother’s living room.
The fire had been extinguished, leaving behind a cold, wet tomb of charred wood and saturated drywall. Water dripped steadily from exposed beams and splashed into puddles of black slush across the ruined hardwood.
The air reeked of wet ash.
Dominic wore no coat. His tailored charcoal suit remained immaculate and looked entirely out of place amid the destruction.
His face was cold and unreadable.
He stared at the section of floor that had completely collapsed.
Heavy footsteps crunched through debris behind him.
Carmine, his underboss, approached cautiously.
Carmine was built like a brick wall, but when Dominic was in this state, even he moved carefully.
“Boss.”
Dominic did not turn.
“What did the fire marshal say?”
“Accelerant. Poured through the mail slot and along the foundation. Professional job. Fast ignition. They wanted the house gone before she could wake up.”
A muscle moved in Dominic’s cheek.
“The Morettis.”
It was not a question.
“Has to be,” Carmine said. “Retaliation for the docks. But going after Rosa? That’s breaking the old rules, Dom. They’re getting sloppy. Desperate.”
Dominic turned.
His eyes held no mercy.
“There are no old rules anymore. They went after my mother. I will dismantle their entire operation brick by brick. I want every Moretti captain found. I don’t care where they hide. Bleed them until they tell me who lit the match.”
Carmine nodded.
“It’s already being done.”
He hesitated.
“There’s something else, boss.”
Dominic waited.
“Rosa is stable. Smoke inhalation, minor burns. Doctors say she’ll recover. But she shouldn’t have.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Explain.”
“The fire chief said the house was structurally compromised within 8 minutes of ignition. Rosa’s bedroom is on the second floor. She was asleep. By the time the trucks arrived, the first floor was entirely engulfed. The stairs collapsed 2 minutes later.”
Carmine paused.
“And the firemen didn’t pull her out, Dom. They found her on the sidewalk. Someone else went in.”
Dominic frowned.
“Who?”
“We don’t know. Paramedics said it was a young woman. Dark hair. Trench coat. She was gone before the cops started taking statements. Vanished.”
Dominic looked toward the destroyed staircase.
Whoever had entered had walked through a furnace to reach his mother.
In Dominic’s world, there were no coincidences and no good Samaritans. People did not run into burning buildings for strangers. They ran away. They stood outside and recorded the destruction on their phones.
Was she a plant?
Someone hired by the Morettis who had lost her nerve and decided to become a savior?
Or someone attempting to get close to the Castile family by manufacturing a debt?
“I want her found,” Dominic said.
“Dom, she might just be a bystander.”
“I don’t care what she is.”
His voice dropped.
“She touched my mother. She put herself in the middle of a war she doesn’t understand. I need to know exactly who she is, what she wants, and who she works for.”
“And if she’s just a civilian?”
Dominic looked at Carmine.
“Find her.”
It took 24 hours.
With Dominic Castile’s resources, a city of millions became a manageable grid.
Traffic-camera footage from an intersection 3 blocks away revealed a blurry image of a woman in a dark coat limping away from the scene. They followed her through 2 additional cameras to a subway turnstile.
At 3:10 a.m., a MetroCard swipe was registered to Sadie Brooks.
Carmine placed the file on Dominic’s massive oak desk.
Dominic sat inside his penthouse office with the city spread below him in a grid of indifferent lights.
He opened the manila folder.
A DMV photograph stared back.
Sadie Brooks.
No criminal record.
No known connections to any crime family.
Her bank accounts contained almost nothing.
She worked double shifts at a diner in the Loop and carried substantial student debt from a nursing program she had abandoned 2 years earlier.
She lived in a 4th-floor walk-up in a neighborhood where the streetlights had been shot out since the late 1990s.
“She’s a ghost, boss,” Carmine said from the doorway. “Pays her taxes, keeps her head down. She hasn’t even been to a hospital for the burns. One of my guys saw her buying lidocaine and gauze at a pharmacy this morning.”
Dominic studied the photograph.
Sadie’s eyes looked tired. Her mouth was fixed in a straight, unsmiling line.
She looked like someone who had absorbed a great many blows from the world and simply expected another.
She was not a plant.
She was not an assassin.
She was simply a woman who had walked into a fire.
Dominic closed the folder.
His mother was alive because of a waitress who could not afford a doctor.
“The Morettis know the job failed,” he said. “They know my mother got out. Do they know how?”
“They’re confused. Their arsonists swore the house was sealed. They might be looking into how she escaped.”
“If they discover a civilian pulled her out, they’ll consider her a loose end. A witness.”
Carmine remained silent.
“They’ll kill her just to make a point,” Dominic finished.
That was exactly how the Morettis operated.
Dominic stood and buttoned his jacket.
“Get the cars ready.”
May you like
“Where are we going?”
“To pick up a stray.”
