Chapter 10 - The Last LaughDown on Michigan Avenue, two blocks away from the glittering entrance of Crowe & Harper Holdings, a sleek black town car sat idling in the shadows of an alleyway.
In the back seat, Caleb Whitmore—released on a technicality that wouldn't hold up past sunrise—clutched a cheap plastic coffee cup in his trembling, manicured hands. His face was gaunt, his tailored suit rumpled, his eyes bloodshot and hollow.
He stared up at the towering skyscraper, watching the illuminated windows of the forty-second floor where two silhouettes stood framed against the Chicago skyline, flanked by a massive, shadowy dog.
His phone buzzed in his lap. An anonymous text message flashed on the screen:
“Your remaining Swiss accounts have been liquidated. Welcome back to the real world, Caleb.”
Caleb let out a ragged, hysterical breath, dropping the phone onto the floorboards as the reality of his total, absolute ruin finally set in. He had thought he was the apex predator. He had thought money and cruelty could buy him immunity forever.
He had forgotten the oldest rule of the city:
May you like
In Chicago, you never know whose dog you’re kicking—and you never, ever underestimate the woman who knows how to tame a monster.
Up on the penthouse balcony, Sebastian pulled Nina a little closer as the city lights twinkled below them like a million scattered diamonds. Cerberus let out one final, contented thump of his tail against the concrete, and the night closed in around them, quiet, invincible, and entirely theirs.
