Chaos erupted.
I dropped behind the steel console, shielding Lily with my body as bullets shattered the monitors.
Elena screamed.
Two loyal guards tackled the shooter. Another man drew his weapon and aimed at me.
Before he could fire, Elena struck him across the wrist with a metal emergency box. The gun skidded away.
I crossed the distance in two steps and drove him into the wall.
His mask of loyalty vanished.
I knew him.
Daniel Rizzo.
He had guarded my home for seven years.
He had eaten at my table.
“Who sent you?” I demanded.
He laughed through bloodied teeth.
“You still don’t understand.”
I slammed him harder against the wall.
“Who?”
His eyes moved past me.
Toward Vincent.
Vincent sat against the floor, one hand pressed to his wounded shoulder.
Daniel smiled.
“The man who has stood beside you since your father died.”
The room became unnaturally quiet.
I looked at Vincent.
Elena looked at Vincent.
Even the remaining guards hesitated.
Vincent’s face showed pain, shock, and anger.
“Don’t be stupid, Adrian,” he said. “He’s trying to divide us.”
Daniel laughed again.
“That’s what he always says.”
The ventilation warning flashed red.
Ninety seconds.
Matteo’s voice came through the speaker.
“Adrian, move!”
I dragged Daniel toward the wall panel.
“Open the north shaft.”
“I don’t know the code.”
I pressed my gun beneath his jaw.
“Then remember.”
He smiled.
“You won’t shoot me in front of the child.”
I looked at Lily.
Her face was buried against Elena’s shoulder.
Then I lowered the weapon.
Daniel’s smile widened.
I struck him with the grip instead.
He collapsed.
The remaining loyal guard forced open the emergency panel. Behind it was a narrow steel ladder leading upward.
“Go,” I told Elena.
She grabbed my arm.
“What about Matteo?”
“I’ll get him.”
“You don’t know where he is.”
“He’s my brother.”
“And Lily is his daughter.”
The words stopped me.
The gas warning flashed.
Sixty seconds.
Matteo’s face reappeared on the remaining monitor.
“Adrian, listen to me. Get them out. I sealed the tunnel behind me. I cannot reach you.”
“No.”
“Do not do this again.”
“Do what?”
“Choose guilt over the living.”
The words struck like a fist.
For years, I had mistaken punishment for love. I had believed suffering proved loyalty to the dead.
Matteo knew that.
He had always known me too well.
Lily suddenly pulled away from Elena and reached toward the screen.
“Daddy!”
Matteo’s expression shattered.
For the first time, he saw her clearly.
His daughter.
Three years old, terrified, clutching the sleeve of a man he had warned her mother not to trust.
“Lily,” he whispered.
She touched the screen.
“You came back.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
“Yes, little star.”
“Are you hurt?”
“A little.”
“I have Buttons.”
“I know.”
“He helped Uncle Adrian be brave.”
Matteo looked at me.
Despite the blood on his face, despite the years between us, I saw my younger brother again.
“Take care of her,” he said.
“That is not goodbye.”
“Adrian—”
“That is not goodbye.”
The timer reached thirty seconds.
Elena climbed into the shaft with Lily.
Vincent tried to stand.
I looked at the loyal guard.
“Take him.”
The guard hesitated.
Vincent’s eyes met mine.
“You believe Daniel?”
“I believe no one.”
Pain flashed across his face, but he nodded.
The guard helped him toward the ladder.
I remained by the monitor.
“Where is the gas source?” I asked Matteo.
“Main filtration room. West tunnel junction.”
“How do I stop it?”
“You can’t from there.”
“Then I come to you.”
“The tunnel is sealed.”
“Not from the wine cellar.”
Matteo understood.
“Adrian, no.”
I turned toward the door.
“Get them out.”
The emergency lights went dark.
The safe-room door unlocked with a heavy click.
I ran.
Behind me, Elena shouted my name.
I did not stop.
The hidden passage from the wine cellar opened into the lower tunnel. Smoke filled the corridor. Sprinklers had activated, sending freezing water over the concrete floor.
I moved through the darkness with one hand against the wall.
At the junction, I found two bodies.
Not my men.
Ahead, someone coughed.
“Matteo!”
“Here.”
I followed the sound.
He sat against a steel door, one hand pressed to his abdomen. Blood seeped between his fingers.
For five years, I had imagined this moment in a thousand ways.
I had dreamed of striking him.
Embracing him.
Demanding answers.
Instead, I dropped to my knees and pressed my hand over his wound.
“You look terrible,” I said.
He laughed weakly.
“You have a rainbow on your face.”
I had forgotten.
A sound escaped me that was almost a laugh and almost grief.
“You let a child paint you?”
“She is persuasive.”
“She gets that from Elena.”
I looked at him.
“You are really alive.”
“For the moment.”
“Do not say that.”
“Adrian.”
“No.”
He caught my wrist.
“The filtration room is behind this door. The system was designed to release gas into the safe room and kill everyone inside. I stopped the cycle, but the manual valve is jammed.”
“Then we unjam it.”
“There are armed men on the other side.”
“Good.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“I missed you.”
The words nearly broke me.
I gripped his shoulder.
“I hated you.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I stood at your grave every year.”
“I was there once.”
I stared at him.
“From a distance,” he said. “You looked older.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“I had proof that someone close to you arranged the explosion. I thought it was Vincent.”
My jaw tightened.
“Was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You disappeared for five years and still don’t know?”
“I learned the money passed through Vincent’s accounts, but the signatures were forged. Someone wanted me to blame him.”
“Who?”
Matteo reached inside his coat and pulled out a small waterproof drive.
“This has everything.”
I took it.
“Names?”
“One name appears more than any other.”
“Whose?”
Before he could answer, footsteps sounded behind us.
Slow.
Unhurried.
A man stepped into the emergency light.
He held a gun loosely at his side.
My body went cold.
He was older than I remembered, his hair silver at the temples, but the posture was unmistakable.
The man had been declared dead twelve years earlier.
The man whose funeral had brought half of Chicago to its knees.
