Chapter 5 - THE DARE
Nobody moved.
Forty armed men.
One dining room.
One bad breath away from a massacre.
Sera looked only at Eli.
His gun remained pointed at Marco.
But she saw what everyone else missed.
His index finger wasn't on the trigger.
It rested against the frame.
"Eli."
"Don't."
His voice sounded older.
"Look at me."
"I said don't."
Moretti smiled.
Marco stood completely still.
Sera understood.
Eli wasn't threatening Marco.
He was performing for Moretti.
So she performed too.
"You coward."
Eli's eyes flickered.
Good.
"You let me think you were dead for twelve years."
"Sera—"
"Twelve years."
She stepped closer.
Moretti's men tensed.
"Stop," Eli said.
"Make me."
That was an old phrase.
Their phrase.
When they were children, when one dared the other to climb higher, run faster, steal an extra cookie from a foster mother's kitchen.
Make me.
Eli understood.
His eyes shifted left.
Half a second.
Sera followed the signal.
Emergency exit.
Marco saw it too.
Then the lights went out.
Eli fired into the ceiling.
Sera moved.
She grabbed Marco and drove him toward the exit.
Chaos exploded behind them.
They reached the alley.
Carlo's SUV screamed around the corner.
Eli emerged seconds later.
Sera nearly attacked him before he said, "They're coming."
They escaped.
Nobody spoke until the vehicle crossed the river.
Then Sera slapped her brother.
The sound cracked through the SUV.
Eli accepted it.
She slapped him again.
Then she wrapped both arms around him.
Eli broke.
"I'm sorry."
Sera hit his chest while holding him.
"You were alive."
"I know."
"You were alive."
"I know."
Marco turned toward the window and gave them what little privacy a moving armored vehicle allowed.
Eli eventually explained everything.
Moretti had tortured him for the ledger.
Eli never surrendered it.
Moretti threatened Sera.
For twelve years, Eli performed jobs in exchange for assurances that his sister remained untouched.
"But why didn't you contact me?"
"I tried once."
"When?"
"Your twenty-third birthday."
Sera remembered.
A blank birthday card had appeared beneath her apartment door.
Nothing inside except a drawing of a bird.
She had assumed it was a cruel joke.
"I couldn't write anything," Eli said. "They checked."
Sera covered her mouth.
Marco watched her.
Something inside him shifted.
For years he'd believed power meant controlling enough territory that nobody could hurt what belonged to you.
Sera and Eli were proof of the opposite.
Love gave enemies something to aim at.
But looking at Sera, Marco realized another truth.
Love also gave people something worth surviving for.
Eli had one more secret.
The ledger still existed.
He had hidden it twelve years earlier.
Where?
Inside the walls of the first foster house he and Sera had shared.
By Saturday night, they had it.
Names.
Dates.
Bank transfers.
Judges.
Police commanders.
Corporate executives.
Moretti's empire wasn't a criminal organization.
It was an infection threaded through legitimate Chicago.
Marco could use it to destroy Moretti.
But Sera refused.
"You don't get to replace him."
Marco's expression hardened.
"What?"
"You heard me."
"This could give me everything."
"Exactly."
Eli watched them silently.
Marco stepped toward her.
"You think I'm the same as him?"
"I think power makes men very good at explaining why they deserve more power."
Marco's jaw tightened.
"Be careful."
There it was.
The tone.
The command.
Sera laughed bitterly.
"Or what?"
Marco stared.
She stepped closer.
"That's the problem with everyone around you. Nobody finishes that question."
"Sera."
"Or what, Marco?"
He didn't answer.
"Fire me?"
Silence.
"Threaten me?"
Nothing.
"Kill me?"
His face changed.
"Never."
The word came too quickly.
Too personally.
Sera saw it.
So did Eli.
She lowered her voice.
"Then stop talking to me like you own the room I'm standing in."
Marco's anger disappeared.
For once, somebody had challenged him without fear and without wanting something.
And she was right.
Three days later, Moretti answered publicly.
Marco hosted a business luncheon at the Bellweather Hotel.
Nearly two hundred guests attended.
Sera worked the room dressed as catering staff again, because anonymity remained her favorite weapon.
Moretti arrived uninvited.
Conversation died.
He walked directly toward Marco's table.
Then looked at Sera.
"I hear the waitress has become important."
Marco stood.
Moretti raised a hand.
"I'm only here for entertainment."
His gaze settled on Sera.
"You embarrassed my men."
"They embarrassed themselves."
Laughter rippled nervously.
Moretti's smile sharpened.
"Marco thinks you're dangerous."
Sera said nothing.
"I think you're a trick."
Moretti removed his jacket.
"Ten thousand dollars says you can't put me on the floor."
Marco's expression became lethal.
"Anthony."
But Sera stepped forward.
"Don't."
Marco looked at her.
She rolled up her sleeves.
Moretti laughed.
"You accept?"
"No."
She glanced around the room.
"Keep your money."
Then she looked directly into his eyes.
"If you want to find out, come find out."
Moretti lunged.
He was faster than his age suggested.
Sera shifted.
Caught his wrist.
Turned her hip.
Used his momentum.
Three seconds later, Anthony Moretti crashed across a dining table in front of two hundred stunned witnesses.
Wine glasses shattered.
Someone screamed.
Sera pinned his wrist behind his back.
The entire room froze.
She leaned close enough that only he could hear.
"Eli says hello."
Moretti's face changed.
And Sera knew immediately.
She had made a mistake.
Because Moretti smiled.
"I know," he whispered.
Then he looked toward the ballroom doors.
May you like
Sera followed his gaze.
Eli was gone.
