Mara Chen's POV
The earpiece crackles to life.
"Check," Valentina's voice says through the tiny device in Mara's ear.
"Copy," Mara responds, her hand moving to the concealed gun at her hip. Standard bodyguard protocol. She's learned it. She's lived it for the past week.
But this is the first time it's real.
The penthouse conference room is on the forty-second floor of a downtown Chicago building. Expensive. Official. Safe, supposedly. Valentina is meeting with Alderman Pierce—a corrupt city official who's been taking Russo money for three years. A routine business meeting. Just Valentina, Mara, and Lucia stationed outside.
Nothing should go wrong.
But everything does.
Valentina sits across from Pierce at a mahogany table, discussing zoning permits and bribes disguised as consulting fees. She's calm, professional, utterly controlled. Mara stands near the door, watching. Always watching.
She notices Pierce glancing at his phone too much. She notices his hand trembling slightly when he reaches for his coffee. She notices the small sweat bead at his temple.
Fear.
He's scared.
Mara's instincts scream that something's wrong.
She moves closer to Valentina, positioning herself better. Valentina glances up at her, and their eyes meet for just a second. Valentina sees the warning in Mara's expression. She nods slightly—acknowledged.
Then the conference room door explodes inward.
A man in a dark suit storms in, gun already drawn. His movements are trained, efficient, lethal. He's not here to talk.
He's here to kill.
Everything slows.
Mara's training takes over her fear. She doesn't think. She doesn't hesitate.
She moves.
In one fluid motion, she shoves Valentina hard—sending her flying sideways off her chair, out of the enforcer's sightline. Mara's own hand is already drawing her weapon, her body pivoting to face the threat.
The enforcer's gun swings toward her.
Mara fires.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The shots are loud in the enclosed space—deafening, immediate, final. The enforcer's chest erupts in red. He staggers backward, confusion blooming across his face as he tries to understand what's happening.
He's dead before he hits the ground.
Chaos explodes.
Lucia crashes through the door, gun drawn. More men flood in—Valentina's guards, returning fire at shadows and threats. The window shatters. Someone screams. Blood sprays across expensive mahogany.
Mara is still firing, muscle memory and training moving her body. She covers Valentina, her gun trained on every entrance and window.
"Clear!" someone shouts.
The gunfire stops.
Mara's ears ring. Her hands shake. Adrenaline floods her system like liquid fire. She's breathing hard, and for a moment—just one moment—she stares at the man she just killed.
Blood pools beneath him. His eyes are open but unseeing. His chest has three perfect bullet holes.
She did that.
She killed him.
Valentina suddenly rises from behind the overturned chair and immediately moves to Mara. She grabs Mara's face gently, forcing their eyes to meet.
"Are you hit?" Valentina demands.
"No," Mara whispers.
"Anyone else?" Valentina asks Lucia.
"Alderman Pierce took a stray bullet," Lucia reports. "He's alive but bleeding. Nothing critical."
Valentina's attention snaps back to Mara. She touches Mara's shoulder softly, reverently, like touching something precious.
"You saved my life," Valentina says quietly. "You moved on instinct. You didn't hesitate."
Her dark eyes are blazing with something Mara can't quite name—admiration, maybe. Or hunger.
"I killed someone," Mara says, staring at her hands.
"Yes," Valentina says. "And you're alive because of it. He came here to kill me. You stopped him." Valentina steps closer, her hand moving to cup Mara's face. "You protected me."
The kiss Valentina gives her is brief but intense—a reward, a promise, a claim. When she pulls back, her eyes are fierce.
"That's what I needed to see," Valentina whispers. "That you could do it. That you would do it."
That night, Mara lies in her room at the penthouse, unable to sleep.
She stares at her hands in the darkness, turning them over and over like she might see blood written there. But they're clean. Lucia made sure of that. Hot water and soap in the training facility bathroom scrubbed away every trace of evidence.
But the blood is still there. In her mind. On her conscience.
She killed someone.
She should feel guilty. She should feel terrified. She should feel haunted.
Instead, she feels powerful.
The knowledge sits inside her like a secret—dark and thrilling and utterly wrong. She can kill. She's proven it. And the most disturbing part?
She'd do it again.
She'd do it for Valentina without hesitation.
The thought should scare her. Instead, it feels like freedom.
A soft knock interrupts her spiral.
Mara's hand instinctively moves to the gun on her nightstand before she realizes it's just Valentina.
Valentina enters without waiting for permission, still dressed in the blood-red suit from earlier. She looks exhausted and powerful at the same time.
"Can't sleep?" Valentina asks, sitting on the edge of Mara's bed.
"Kept seeing his face," Mara admits.
"That's normal," Valentina says. She reaches out and takes Mara's hand. "The first kill is always haunting. After a few more, it gets easier."
"Will it?" Mara asks.
"Yes," Valentina says simply. "And that will scare you more than anything else."
Valentina lies back on the bed, fully clothed, and pulls Mara against her chest. She strokes Mara's hair softly, like comforting a child.
"You did what you were trained to do," Valentina whispers. "You protected me. You were perfect."
Mara falls asleep to the rhythm of Valentina's heartbeat and the knowledge that she's becoming someone she doesn't recognize.
Someone dangerous.
Someone Valentina needs.
The next morning, everything changes.
Mara wakes to Lucia shaking her roughly.
"Get up," Lucia says urgently. "Valentina needs you."
Mara follows her downstairs, still half-asleep. In the penthouse's main living room, Lucia has pulled up multiple screens showing security footage.
Valentina is watching, her entire body rigid with fury.
"What happened?" Mara asks.
"Tommy found something," Lucia says. She points to the footage. "The enforcer who came after Valentina yesterday? His death was a trap. Konstantin wanted us to kill him. Wanted us to think we won."
"Why?" Mara asks.
Valentina turns to look at her, and her expression is cold—colder than Mara has ever seen it.
"Because while we were dealing with the enforcer," Valentina says quietly, "Konstantin's people were hitting our other operations. Three warehouses. Two casinos. One of our money laundering fronts. They coordinated the attack perfectly."
"How bad?" Mara whispers.
"We lost forty million in cash," Lucia says. "Thirty soldiers dead. And worse..."
She swipes to a new video.
It's footage of Rosa—Valentina's sister. She's in a car, and Konstantin's men are dragging her from it. She's struggling, screaming, fighting.
But they're too strong.
The video cuts off.
"That was taken three hours ago," Lucia says. "Rosa's gone. And Marco... Marco just sent a message. He's with them. He's been with them the whole time."
Valentina's hand clenches into a fist so tight her knuckles go white.
"They want a trade," Valentina says coldly. "My territory. My organization. My power. In exchange for Rosa's life."
She turns to look at Mara, and her eyes are absolutely lethal.
"And they want proof that I'm serious," Valentina continues. "They're demanding something... personal."
"What?" Mara asks.
Valentina's jaw tightens.
"They want you," she says quietly. "They want the girl who killed their enforcer. They want Mara Chen, or they start sending Rosa back to me in pieces."
Mara's entire world tilts.
"Why would they—"
"Because they're smart," Lucia interrupts bitterly. "They know what Mara means to you. They know you'll do anything to protect her. So they're using her as leverage. Either you surrender Mara, or you lose your sister."
Valentina stands abruptly and walks to the window, staring out at Chicago like the city has personally betrayed her.
"I won't do it," Valentina says. "I won't surrender her."
"Then we lose Rosa," Lucia says quietly.
"Maybe," Valentina says. "Or maybe we go on offense. Maybe we stop playing defense and start making Konstantin bleed."
She turns back to Mara, and something fierce flashes across her face.
"Pack a bag," Valentina commands. "You're coming with me. We're going to get my sister back. And we're going to end this war, once and for all."
But before Mara can respond, her phone buzzes.
A text from an unknown number: We have Rosa. We have the warehouse locations. We have your secrets. And we have a message for you, Mara Chen: You killed one of ours. So we're going to kill everyone you love. Starting with the woman you can't take your eyes off.
Attached is a photo.
It's of Valentina, taken through the penthouse window just moments ago.
Someone has been watching them the entire time.
Someone is closer than they realized.
And they're running out of time.