Sophie did not.
Matteo looked at Chloe.
“You will never take anything from me again.”
Chloe swallowed.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“I don’t care what you plan.
I care what happens.”
Then his gaze moved to Sophie.
“The arrangement stands.”
Sophie nodded once.
Outside, Chicago was turning gray with morning.
Somewhere across the city, Matteo’s people were withdrawing from positions built around chasing Chloe and redirecting their attention toward the compromised intelligence that had cost them again and again.
The war had not ended.
It had changed direction.
The woman Matteo Romano had ordered hunted was no longer the center of it.
The people who had manipulated him were.
Sophie had not fired a gun.
She had not threatened anyone.
She had simply refused to panic long enough to notice that the numbers did not add up.
Matteo walked the sisters toward the warehouse exit.
At the door, Sophie stopped.
“My apartment lock is destroyed.”
Leo looked at her as though he could not believe this was the issue she had chosen.
Matteo reached into his coat, removed a folded stack of cash, and held it out.
Sophie looked at the money.
“No.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“You broke the door,” she said.
“You fix the door.”
Leo turned his head and laughed openly this time.
Even Chloe covered her mouth.
Matteo stared at Sophie for several seconds.
Then he put the money away.
“It’ll be fixed before noon.”
“And cleaned.”
“Sophie,” Chloe whispered.
“What? They tracked warehouse dirt across hardwood.”
Matteo shook his head once, somewhere between disbelief and respect.
“Anything else?”
Sophie considered him.
“Yes.”
Leo groaned.
“If one of your people ever comes through my door again, they knock.”
Matteo’s eyes held hers.
“That depends on the circumstances.”
“No,” Sophie said.
“That depends on whether you learned anything tonight.”
For several seconds the most feared man in the room said nothing.
Then he opened the warehouse door.
Cold morning air rushed inside.
“Goodbye, Sophie Gallagher.”
She stepped out beside her sister.
Behind them, Chicago’s criminal machinery was already turning in a new direction.
Ahead of them waited a ruined apartment, police questions, damaged trust, and a conversation between sisters that Sophie knew would be far more exhausting than facing Matteo Romano.
Chloe shoved her hands into her coat pockets.
“So,” she said carefully, “are you going to kill me?”
