My name is Sophie Clark, and until ten-thirty on a frigid November night, I was a ghost in a room full of gods.

"Sophie! Get back!" one of the guards shouted behind me, but I ignored him.

I sprinted across the muddy, rain-slicked pavement toward my brother. "LEO!"

Leo collapsed onto his knees in the mud, clutching his throat, his chest heaving in violent, silent spasms. His face was blue in the pale beam of the streetlights—a full-blown, life-threatening asthma attack triggered by sheer terror.

"I'm here! I'm here, Leo!" I dropped to my knees beside him in the mud, wrapping my arms around his shaking frame. I fumbled frantically with my purse, pulling out the red plastic inhaler, shaking it violently, and pressing it against his lips. "Breathe, baby, breathe! Inhale!"

Leo took a desperate, shuddering breath, the medicine rushing into his constricted lungs. He wheezed heavily, collapsing against my chest, sobbing into my wet wool coat. "Soph... Soph... they said they were gonna kill me..."

"You're safe, you're safe," I wept, kissing his wet hair, holding him as tightly as I could. "I've got you."

A few yards away, the brutal struggle on the ground reached its terrifying conclusion.

Viktor Petrov lay on his back in the mud, his face bloodied, gasping for air. Lorenzo stood towering over him, his tactical jacket torn, rain washing the blood off his sharp cheekbones. Lorenzo's eyes were completely dead—void of any humanity, pure obsidian rage.

Lorenzo pressed the heavy steel barrel of his custom pistol directly against Petrov's forehead.

"Wait!" Petrov choked out in a thick Russian accent, throwing his hands up in the mud. "Moretti! Wait! It was business! Just business!"

"You touched a child," Lorenzo's voice echoed through the dark yard, low and lethal. "You brought terror to my family."

"I have information!" Petrov pleaded desperately, his eyes wide with wild, frantic terror. "The Senator! Charles Vane! He paid me to grab the boy! He wanted leverage against you! He gave us the boy's location!"

Lorenzo didn't blink. He didn't hesitate.

"I know," Lorenzo whispered.

THUD.

A single suppressed shot cut through the sound of the falling rain. Petrov went limp in the mud.

Lorenzo slowly lowered his weapon, standing motionless in the storm for a long moment as his men emerged from the warehouse, securing the perimeter. The gunfire inside had ceased entirely. Petrov's syndicate in Chicago was dead.

Lorenzo turned slowly. He wiped the rainwater and blood from his brow, his dark eyes falling upon me and Leo sitting together in the mud.

The terrifying, murderous aura surrounding him instantly melted away. He dropped his weapon into his holster and walked over to us, sinking down onto one knee in the wet dirt.

"Is he breathing?" Lorenzo asked softly, his voice trembling slightly.

"Yes," I sobbed, holding Leo close. "The inhaler worked. He's okay."

Lorenzo reached out, his large, warm hand gently resting on the back of Leo's neck, pulling the terrified sixteen-year-old into a firm, protective embrace. "I'm sorry, kid," Lorenzo whispered against Leo's hair. "I am so sorry I let this touch you."

Leo clung to Lorenzo's jacket, nodding weakly. "You... you came for me."

"Always," Lorenzo said fiercely, looking over Leo's shoulder directly into my eyes. "I will always come for you."

He offered his hand to me. I took it, letting him pull me up out of the mud. He pulled both of us close against his chest, wrapping his heavy arms around us in the middle of the dark, rain-soaked stockyards, shielding us from the cold world.

"It's over," Lorenzo whispered into my wet hair. "Petrov is gone."

I looked up into his dark eyes, wiping the rain from my face. "What about the Senator?"