A tiny blue hand was the first thing I saw when I lifted the dumpster lid behind the Valente estate. Minutes later, I was on my knees in the Chicago rain, accused of trying to murder a seven-month-old baby, while her father, one of the city's most feared crime bosses, ordered his guards to drag me into his basement.

The rain had not stopped when the transport van pulled away from the loading dock of the Cook County detention center at 2:03 a.m.

True to her word, when the van hit the red light at 4th and Wabash, the driver tapped the brakes twice—the prearranged signal. A soft click echoed from the rear door.

I didn't hesitate. I shoved the heavy steel door open, slipped out into the dark, rain-slicked alley, and dissolved into the shadows of the Chicago night before the driver had even shifted back into drive.

By 3:15 a.m., standing in the cramped, damp safehouse apartment on the north side with the burner phone glowing in my hand, I stared at the screen.

Detective Santos had given me a choice: run, disappear, let the police handle the shadows while I saved my sister.

But as I looked at the photograph of Viktor Petrov standing beside Karen Mitchell, a cold, hard realization settled over my heart.

Running wouldn't save Maya. Hiding in a safehouse wouldn't stop Viktor from finishing what he started. If Viktor was still hunting the Valentes, and if Adrian Valente was too proud and paranoid to see the knife sliding between his ribs from the inside, then Emma—that seven-month-old baby whose tiny hand I had pulled out of the dark—was still in mortal danger.

And more importantly: Adrian Valente was the only man in Chicago with enough money, power, and medical connections to clear my name and pay for Maya’s fifty-thousand-dollar heart valve surgery before her two months ran out.

I didn't call the number for the safehouse.

Instead, I dialed a number I had memorized from a business card Dante Moretti had dropped on the interrogation room floor three nights ago.

It rang twice.

"Speak," a deep, gravelly voice answered on the other end.

"Dante," I said, my voice steady, stripped of all fear, of all hesitation. "Tell your boss that the girl he locked in the basement wants to make a deal."

Silence stretched across the line for three agonizing seconds. Then Dante’s voice came back, cold and sharp as a switchblade.

"You've got ten seconds to give me a reason not to put a bullet in your head the moment you step foot near this estate."

"Tell him I have the name of the person who put the sedative in Emma’s bottle," I said clearly. "And tell him I have the photograph that proves who’s really running the coup inside his own house."