The air in the bedroom smelled of cheap eucalyptus vapor and old iron, heavy enough to choke a man. Sarah shifted against the flattened pillow, her breath rattling like dry leaves inside a tin box.

Before Sarah could answer, the single overhead light outside the partition flickered and died.

Total darkness dropped over the basement like a lead blanket, thick, cold, and absolute.

"Stay behind me," I growled, reaching out blindly in the dark until my hand brushed against Sarah’s shoulder, pulling her down behind the heavy iron door of the safe just as the heavy thud of boots echoed down the wooden cellar stairs.

It wasn't one pair of boots. It sounded like half a dozen men moving in professional, military formation—the heavy, purposeful tread of syndicate hitmen who knew the floor plan better than I did.

"Moretti!" a voice called out from the darkness near the stairs. It wasn't the man I had pistol-whipped in the hallway; this voice was older, smoother, with an educated eastern accent that didn't belong on the South Side of Chicago. "We know you're down there, Nate. And we know you've got the red book."

I didn't answer. I reached into my pocket, pulling out my heavy steel Zippo lighter, flicking the wheel with my thumb.

The small yellow flame sputtered to life, casting long, dancing shadows against the damp brick walls.

"You're making a mistake, whoever you are," I called out into the dark, my voice steady, carrying the weight of every bad decision my family had made for fifty years. "That book goes to the FBI task force in the morning. The digital copies are already uploaded to a server in Zurich."

A low, dry laugh echoed from the darkness near the entrance to the partition.

"There are no servers, Nate," the voice said, stepping closer until a tall silhouette blocked the dim light from the stairs. The man was wearing an expensive trench coat, his face obscured by the brim of a fedora, but the silver signet ring on his right hand caught the tiny flicker of my lighter flame.

I knew that ring. It belonged to the syndicate’s chief legal counsel—the man who had kept half the aldermen in Chicago out of prison during the nineties.

"Mr. Sterling," I said, the name tasting like copper and bile.

"The very same," Sterling said, stepping into the small circle of light cast by my Zippo. He didn't have a gun in his hand; he had a small, matte-black laptop case. "Your father was a clever man, Nate. He built an empire out of concrete and broken bones. But he made one fatal error."

"What's that?" I asked, keeping my body between Sterling and Sarah, who was leaning against the safe, her breathing coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

"He trusted his family," Sterling smiled, his teeth gleaming white in the dark. "And he didn't realize that debts don't die when the debtor goes into the ground. They just compound interest."

Behind Sterling, at the top of the cellar stairs, a tiny shadow appeared against the dim gray light of the street.

It was Lily.