The rain had turned into a thick, blinding sleet by the time the three-car convoy reached the southern industrial belt.

Huge, decaying concrete cylinders rose out of the dark near the edge of the river like the ruins of an ancient civilization. Rusting iron conveyor belts stretched between the towers, creaking violently in the gale-force wind sweeping off the water.

Gabriel’s driver doused the SUV’s headlights half a mile before the main gate, rolling through the rutted mud on night-vision radar alone.

The vehicle stopped behind an overturned boxcar seventy yards from the main processing building.

Outside, the cold was brutal, biting through clothes and settling deep into the bones. The air smelled of sulfur, wet concrete, and stagnant river water.

Viktor opened the door, holding a suppressed carbine close to his chest.

“Two guards at the lower entrance, boss,” Viktor whispered, crouching behind the snow-draped tire. “They’re carrying automatic weapons. Lombard’s men, for sure. There’s a light burning on the fourth floor of the central silo.”

Gabriel stepped out into the freeze, pulling his dark coat tight around his shoulders. He turned and helped Nora out, keeping her low behind the rusty iron frame of the boxcar.

“Nora stays with the rear team,” Gabriel ordered Viktor.

“No,” Nora said firmly, her voice small against the howling wind but utterly unyielding. “I saw the girl with the red coat. If Julian’s sister or assistant is inside, I’m the only one who can identify her before she slips out through a side door.”

Gabriel stared at her through the darkness, the sleet collecting on his dark hair.

“It’s dangerous inside,” he warned.

“It’s dangerous out here,” she countered, holding the SIG Nexter steady beneath her coat.

Gabriel let out a short, cold breath of air, a ghost of a smile touching his mouth. “If I tell you to get down, you drop instantly. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Viktor, clear the lower door. Quietly.”

Viktor nodded to two tactical operators behind him. They moved like shadows across the snow-covered yard, slipping around the perimeter of the rusted machinery.

Ten seconds later, two soft, muffled thuds sounded through the storm. The two guards near the doorway collapsed into the mud without making a sound.

Gabriel moved fast, his gun drawn, leading Nora and Viktor through the open heavy steel door into the cavernous interior of the grain silo.

Inside, the noise of the wind was amplified, echoing down massive metal chutes that hung like giant intestines from the ceiling eighty feet above. Water dripped continuously into stagnant puddles on the cracked concrete floor.

They moved up a narrow, rusting spiral staircase attached to the inner wall of the main tower. Every step creaked under their boots, forcing them to move with excruciating slowness.

On the third-floor landing, Gabriel stopped abruptly, placing his hand back against Nora’s chest.

Voices were drifting down from the level above.

“...tell you he’s already dead!” a man’s voice snarled, punctuated by the sound of a heavy slap echoing off the concrete. “Rick was supposed to pour the glass at eight-fifteen! Gabriel is lying on the floor of the Northstar Room right now!”

A woman’s voice answered—weak, bruised, but defiant.

“My brother... will tear your heart out, Julian... he knows what you are...”

Nora felt Gabriel’s entire body go rigid beside her. His grip on his firearm tightened until his knuckles turned ghost-white.

It was Sofia.

“Your brother was an arrogant fool who thought he owned this city,” Julian Lombard’s voice sneered from above. “He trusted Anthony. He trusted the truce. By tomorrow morning, the Moretti family assets will be split between my father and the council, and you, my dear wife, will sign over the harbor deeds as his grieving widow.”

“I’ll die before I sign anything,” Sofia spat.

“That can be arranged too,” a second, higher-pitched female voice chimed in.

Nora caught her breath. It was the voice of the girl from the Northstar Room—the girl in the crimson coat.

“The poison was slow enough to look like a heart attack, Julian,” the female voice continued smoothly. “The paramedics won't suspect a thing for forty-eight hours. By then, the harbor papers will already be filed in Cook County.”

Gabriel looked back at Viktor, gesturing with two fingers toward the left catwalk, then pointed himself toward the main central doorway.

He looked at Nora, his gray eyes burning with an incandescent, terrifying promise.

“Stay behind me,” he whispered.

Gabriel didn't wait for the tactical team to take their positions.

He kicked the heavy steel fire door off its latch, blowing it wide open into the fourth-floor chamber, his weapon raised into the floodlights.

“Julian!” Gabriel shouted, his voice booming through the silo like thunder.

The scene inside froze in a terrifying instant.

In the center of the vast, dusty floor, Sofia Moretti was tied to a heavy wooden chair, her face bruised and her lip bleeding, but her eyes alive with wild shock.

Standing beside her was Julian Lombard, dressed in an expensive shearling coat, a gold-plated revolver in his hand. Beside him stood the girl—wearing her crimson coat with brass lion buttons, holding a leather briefcase full of legal deeds.

Julian’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated horror.

“Gabriel...?” Julian stammered, stepping back as if looking at a ghost returned from the grave. “How... how are you alive?”

Gabriel stepped into the light, his dark suit dusted with snow, his face carved from stone, his gun locked onto Julian’s forehead.

“Because,” Gabriel said softly, “you hired a terrible bartender. And my wife-to-be pays attention to details.”

Nora, stepping through the door behind him with her weapon raised, froze in absolute shock at the words that had just left Gabriel Moretti’s mouth.