Chapter 2

The Maybach engine purred over the crashing rain.

Those ice-blue eyes tracked my every move from the shadows of the backseat.

I knew exactly who sat inside.

Victor.

He was the ruthless new boss of the Russian Bratva and Leo’s absolute worst nightmare.

I kept walking without a single glance at his tinted windows.

The last thing I needed was another violent mobster dragging me into his twisted games.

My bare feet moved quickly against the flooded pavement.

The jagged asphalt tore at my soles.

I ignored the stinging pain and disappeared into the pitch-black alleys of the South Side.

The icy rain washed away the lingering traces of Leo's cologne from my skin.

I pushed through the rusted metal door of a slum basement.

The underground bar smelled like cheap tobacco and stale tequila.

Drunks and junkies lined the peeling walls.

A few dangerous men eyed me from the corner booths.

Nobody paid any real attention to a soaked woman in a ruined designer dress.

This was the gutter of Chicago.

People came here to disappear.

I walked straight to the scarred wooden counter.

I ripped the diamond earrings out of my earlobes and tossed the bloody jewelry onto the bar.

The bartender caught them with a greedy smirk.

He tossed me the brass keys to the back room and a heavy canvas duffel bag.

I walked down the narrow hallway.

I locked the reinforced steel door behind me.

The room was completely dark and freezing.

I didn't care.

I unzipped the duffel bag on a wobbly table.

I pulled out the disassembled pieces of a military-grade encrypted laptop.

My fingers flew over the metal components as muscle memory took over completely.

I snapped the motherboard into place and connected the untraceable satellite uplink.

The system booted up smoothly.

Lines of green code reflected in my eyes.

I tapped into the Moretti family's private server.

I bypassed Leo's million-dollar firewall in less than three minutes.

I pulled up the security camera feed from the penthouse.

Leo stood by the shattered window.

His assistant stood rigidly behind him.

"I froze all her bank accounts, Boss," Marcus said.

The audio crackled through my cheap speakers.

"I blacklisted her name across the city. Nobody will hire her. Nobody will house her."

Leo let out a cruel sneer.

"Good," Leo spat.

He poured himself another glass of whiskey.

"Tell the guards to keep the front gates open. I want to watch her crawl back before she freezes to death tonight."

I stared at his smug face on the screen.

I felt absolutely nothing but intense disgust.

He really thought I was just a helpless ballerina.

He forgot who actually built his entire intelligence network.

I closed the security feed and opened a secure Tor browser.

I navigated straight to the darkest corner of the dark web.

My fingers typed out a username I hadn't touched in five long years.

Nightingale.

I hit enter.

The underground forums instantly exploded.

Notifications flooded my screen like a waterfall.

The top information broker in Chicago was back online.

Every syndicate and street gang in the city went completely crazy.

My encrypted inbox pinged with a high-priority message.

The sender was Victor.

The Bratva boss didn't waste any time with pleasantries.

I want the security blind spot for the Moretti family's main armory, Victor wrote. Name your price.

I stared at the glowing text.

I knew that blind spot better than anyone alive.

I typed a string of untraceable offshore account numbers.

Fifty million. Non-negotiable.

Ten seconds later, my screen flashed bright green.

The funds cleared instantly.

I hit send.

I transferred the complete blueprints and patrol schedules of Leo's most guarded fortress straight to his worst enemy.

I earned my first bucket of gold.

I leaned back in the broken desk chair.

A phantom pain shot through my ribs.

I closed my eyes.

I remembered my past life.

I remembered finding that exact security flaw for Leo.

I went deep undercover to patch that fatal leak.

A rival gang cornered me in an abandoned warehouse.

They tore my clothes and pinned me to the filthy concrete floor.

I fought like a wild animal to protect my body and Leo's secrets.

I took a rusted knife to the gut just to keep his empire safe.

I bled for him.

I almost got gang-raped for him.

He called me a filthy whore.

He threw me to the wolves without a second thought.

My eyes snapped open.

The old love completely evaporated.

Bone-chilling hatred pumped violently through my veins.

I was going to tear down his empire brick by brick.

The laptop chimed with a low-level alert.

I intercepted a text message bouncing off a local cell tower.

It came from Chloe's burner phone.

She sent a hit order to a local street gang.

Find the bitch in the South Side slums. Ruin her face. Make it hurt.

Chloe couldn't even wait one single night.

She wanted me destroyed before I could ever expose her sick lies.

I let out a dark laugh.

I reached into the bottom of the canvas duffel bag.

My fingers wrapped tightly around the heavy grip of a Glock 19.

I slammed a full magazine into the weapon and racked the slide.

The metallic clack echoed loudly in the small room.

Heavy footsteps pounded down the basement hallway.

Men shouted in rough voices.

They stopped right outside my door.

The cheap wood splintered under a massive kick.

The door flew open and slammed violently against the wall.

Three massive thugs rushed into the room.

They held switchblades and brass knuckles.

They expected a crying ballerina.

I stood dead center in the room.

I raised the gun.

I aimed the black barrel straight at the lead thug's forehead.