Chapter 1 - DON’T WAKE HER
“Don’t wake her.”
The warning stopped Gabriel Kane in the doorway.
Not because anyone had dared give Chicago’s most feared mafia boss an order.
Because the woman sleeping on the bloodstained couch was holding the baby his entire organization had spent three hours trying to find.
Six-month-old Eli Kane was alive.
And his tiny fist was wrapped around Claire Bennett’s torn blouse.
Gabriel forgot how to breathe.
Blood had dried dark along the bottom of Claire’s beige coat. One shoe was missing. Her cheek was swollen. Her hands were scraped raw.
Still, even unconscious, she held Eli against her chest like somebody would have to kill her before taking him again.
Mason Reed, Gabriel’s security chief, stepped between Gabriel and the couch.
“Boss,” Mason whispered. “Seriously. Don’t wake her.”
Gabriel slowly looked at him.
“You’re blocking my path.”
“I know.”
Men had disappeared for less.
But Mason didn’t move.
“The doctor said she’s running on nothing. She stayed awake almost six hours after the attack.”
Gabriel looked back at Claire.
Rain hammered the windows of the Lincoln Park safe house.
Three hours earlier, Damian Cross’s men had ambushed Gabriel’s convoy under Lower Wacker Drive.
Four guards wounded.
Two dead.
Eli taken.
Gabriel had responded the only way he knew how.
He shut down half the criminal network in Chicago looking for his nephew.
And somehow Claire Bennett—a quiet accountant who worked for one of Gabriel’s legitimate corporations—had brought Eli home.
Gabriel walked past Mason.
He dropped to one knee beside the couch.
Eli’s breathing was soft.
Normal.
Gabriel touched his nephew’s cheek.
Warm.
His eyes closed for one second.
Nathan.
His older brother had been dead eleven months.
Nathan and his wife, Sarah, had died when their SUV went through a highway barrier during a rainstorm.
Eli had been only weeks old.
Standing beside Nathan’s grave, Gabriel had made a promise.
No one would ever hurt Nathan’s son.
Tonight, Gabriel had failed.
Claire hadn’t.
“How?” he asked.
Mason leaned against the wall.
“She was in the third SUV.”
Gabriel turned.
“Why?”
“Her car died in the company garage. She needed to get downtown for the Reynolds audit. One of our drivers offered her a ride.”
Gabriel swore under his breath.
Mason continued.
“When Cross’s crew hit the convoy, Claire was trapped with Eli.”
“They took both of them?”
“Yes.”
“And she escaped?”
Mason gave a humorless laugh.
“You might want to sit down.”
Gabriel didn’t smile.
“Mason.”
“They took her to an old shipping warehouse near Hammond. Zip-tied her hands. Put one guard outside the room.”
Gabriel looked at Claire.
Five-foot-five.
Soft voice.
Cardigans.
Sensible shoes.
The kind of woman who apologized when someone else bumped into her.
“What happened to the guard?”
“She hit him with a fire extinguisher.”
Gabriel stared.
Mason almost smiled.
“Then she stole his key card, grabbed Eli, triggered the sprinkler system, killed the lights, hid under a loading dock, stole one of their delivery trucks, and drove through a steel gate.”
“With those injuries?”
“Twenty-eight miles.”
Gabriel looked at her split knuckles.
Something inside him changed.
He had noticed Claire two years earlier when she discovered nearly two million dollars being stolen through fake invoices.
He had promoted her.
Moved her office into the safest building he owned.
Watched her quietly from a distance.
Once, in January, he saw Claire give her coat to a homeless woman and walk three blocks through freezing wind wearing only a sweater.
She never knew he saw her.
She also never knew that was the night Gabriel realized he wanted her.
Which was why he stayed away.
His world destroyed decent people.
Tonight proved it.
Mason cleared his throat.
“There’s something else.”
Gabriel looked up.
“The doctor found older bruises.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“How old?”
“Some maybe a week. Some older.”
“Who hurt her?”
“We don’t know.”
Claire suddenly moved.
Her eyes flew open.
Her right hand disappeared beneath her coat.
A gun clicked.
Mason reached for his weapon.
“Don’t.”
Gabriel raised one hand.
Claire was pointing a stolen pistol directly at his chest.
Her breathing came fast.
“Don’t touch him.”
“Claire.”
Recognition slowly entered her eyes.
“Mr. Kane?”
“You’re safe.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“No, we’re not.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Cross’s men can’t reach you here.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Claire glanced toward Mason.
Then back at Gabriel.
“They knew the convoy route.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“They knew which car Eli was in.”
“That could have been surveillance.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“They knew about the route change twenty minutes before we left.”
The room went silent.
Only six people had known.
Gabriel.
Mason.
Two drivers.
Operations chief Daniel Rourke.
And Gabriel’s uncle, Vincent Kane.
Claire slowly lowered the gun.
“Someone inside your family gave Eli to them.”
Eli shifted against her.
His tiny hand released her blouse.
Something slipped from beneath Claire’s shirt.
A silver chain fell against her chest.
A heavy black ring hung from it.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
He knew that ring.
He had watched his father give it to Nathan on his twenty-first birthday.
It had been missing since Nathan died.
Gabriel stared at Claire.
“Where did you get my brother’s ring?”
Claire’s face went white.
May you like
And suddenly Gabriel understood something terrifying.
Saving Eli wasn’t Claire Bennett’s only secret.
