Chapter 7 No.7

Isabella POV

I locked the heavy mahogany door behind me and turned to Lorenzo. His desk was covered in thick law books, but the rage in his eyes was purely street-level.

"Enzo," I said, my voice steady. I picked up a pen and wrote a single word on his notepad: Rats. "A rat for a rat. I need a cage of them. The biggest, filthiest ones you can find."

He stared at the paper, a flicker of shock crossing his handsome face. But the vicious rumors Elena had unleashed were a direct insult to my honor, and by extension, his. He didn't hesitate. Within the hour, my brother-the future legal shield of the Falcone family-dressed in a grease-stained worker's cap and drove his Ford out the back gates to meet an Associate who ran an underground rat-baiting ring by the docks.

I didn't know it then, but Enzo's departure did not go unnoticed.

I would learn much later that as my brother loaded that squeaking, foul-smelling cage into his trunk, a shadow detached from the street corner. Across the city, in the windowless, velvet-draped VIP lounge of a subterranean speakeasy called The Alchemist, Damien "The Phantom" Costello was nursing a glass of aged whiskey. The Gallo family's most feared Enforcer was already irritated by the dead-end investigation of the St. Jude's Orphanage fire-a blaze that had silenced a key witness against Alistair Gallo.

When his aide-de-camp, Sal, reported that the golden boy of the Falcone family was secretly buying sewer rats, Damien didn't dismiss it as a prank. He connected Enzo's bizarre errand to the treasonous warning I had whispered to him the night before. In that smoke-filled room, Damien realized I wasn't just a desperate girl seeking asylum; I was a player holding dangerous cards. He immediately ordered Sal to put a twenty-four-hour watch on me. Every breath I took was now property of the Phantom.

But in my own suite, completely blind to the invisible net closing around me, I was focused on my war.

When Luca returned, the violent, restless energy radiating from him made him the perfect accomplice. After a suffocating, silent family dinner, I pulled him aside. We met Enzo in the pristine, leather-scented garage.

"Let me come," Enzo insisted, gesturing to the iron cage in his trunk. The stench of the sewers was already bleeding into the clean air.

"No," I said softly, placing a hand on his chest. "Your battlefield is the courtroom, Enzo. You are the future Advisor. You can't have this kind of dirt on your hands. Tonight belongs to the streets."

Luca grinned, a cruel, excited curve of his lips, and hauled the heavy cage out.

Before we left, I caught my reflection in the dark glass of the garage window. Behind my cold eyes, I saw the ghost of my past-the girl who had slowly withered away, coughing up blood from a Sicilian poison I hadn't seen coming. I wouldn't just humiliate Jason and Elena tonight. I would use this chaos to feed Jason's treason and Alistair Gallo's conspiracy directly to Damien Costello. I needed the Phantom's power, and I would make myself indispensable to him.

The Chicago night was thick with the smell of impending rain and rotting garbage. Relying on the haunting memories of my past life, I knew every blind spot in the estate's security. Luca and I slipped through the back gates on foot, the cage rattling softly against his leg as we navigated the damp, narrow back alleys toward the West Loop apartment.

We thought we were ghosts. We thought we were the hunters.

But as we disappeared into the shadows of the brick walls, a figure stepped out from the corner of our street. The man picked up a public telephone, his eyes fixed on the alley we had just vanished into.

"The princess is on the move," he murmured into the receiver.