"You are the shame of my name," the mafia boss whispered—completely unaware his silent wife was walking out before dawn.

Forty miles outside the city limits, I stopped at a dilapidated diner tucked between an abandoned timber yard and a dormant railway line.

I needed coffee, black and bitter, to burn away the phantom scent of Adrian’s cedarwood cologne that seemed trapped in the lining of my coat. I ordered at the grease-stained counter, watching the highway through the cracked window blinds.

The morning news was playing on an old television mounted above the fryers. Anchorpersons in garish makeup discussed the upcoming municipal elections and harbor shipping delays. Nothing about the Moretti family. Adrian would never let the press know his wife had walked out. To the outside world, a mafia boss who cannot control his own woman cannot control five thousand square miles of territory.

I took my paper cup and walked back outside into the biting autumn air.

As I opened the sedan’s door, I noticed the tire tracks in the gravel three yards behind me. A black SUV with tinted glass sat idling near the edge of the timber lot. It had no front plates.

My heart hammered against my ribs, but my fingers remained steady. I slipped into the driver’s seat, set the coffee in the cupholder, and reached into my bag. My hand closed around the small .38 revolver my father had tucked into my mattress the night before the Morettis absorbed our family debt.

I waited.

The driver of the SUV stepped out. He was tall, dressed in a charcoal overcoat, moving with the languid, dangerous confidence of a man who didn't fear the police or the mafia.

It wasn't Adrian.

It was Marcus Kane—Victor Moretti’s personal fixer.

Marcus walked straight to my driver-side window and tapped twice on the glass with a knuckle. I rolled it down two inches, keeping the gun concealed beneath my coat on my lap.

"Mrs. Moretti," Marcus said smoothly, his breath fogging in the cold air.

"It's Vance," I replied coldly. "Sophia Vance. And you're trespassing on my morning."

A thin smile touched Marcus’s lips. "Victor sends his regards. He said you'd take Route 9, but he thought you'd be smarter than stopping at the only diner within ten miles of the county line."

"If Victor wanted me dead, he wouldn't have sent you with warm greetings. What do you want, Marcus?"

Marcus produced a heavy manila envelope from inside his coat and slid it through the crack in the window. It landed squarely on my lap.

"Victor says Adrian has already torn the west wing apart. He pulled the gate footage twenty minutes ago. By noon, every port, runway, and train station within three states will have men checking IDs."

I stared at the envelope. "And what does Victor get out of helping me escape his cousin?"

"Victor isn't helping you escape, Sophia," Marcus murmured, leaning down slightly so his dark eyes locked onto mine. "Victor knows you took the North Harbor balance sheets before you walked out the gate. He wants the offshore codes. In exchange, you get safe passage to Chicago, a clean identity, and the protection of the only man Adrian cannot kill."

I looked down at the envelope, then looked back at Marcus.

Slowly, deliberately, I pushed the envelope back out through the window. It dropped onto the damp gravel at his feet.

"Tell Victor I don't trade one cage for another," I said, my voice steady as stone. "I earned those ledgers. If Adrian wants them back, he can bleed for them. And if Victor tries to take them from me, he’ll find out why my father called me his sharpest knife."