The Mafia Boss Called Her a Thief—So She Broke the Necklace and Showed Him What Was Inside

The sedan didn’t wait for them to step onto the curb.

The moment Sebastian’s fingers brushed the brass latch of the front door, the black glass of the car’s rear window slid down two inches. The stutter of a suppressed submachine gun tore through the freezing Chicago night, stitching a ragged line of lead across the storefront of Vance Fine Jewelry.

Display glass shattered inward like diamond rain. Sebastian moved with terrifying, instantaneous instinct. His arm hooked around Norah’s waist, lifting her off her feet and slamming her down behind the reinforced mahogany display counter just as rounds chewed through the antique oak cases above them. Velvet trays exploded in plumes of red satin and crushed zircon.

"Stay down," Sebastian commanded, his voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute authority.

He didn't draw a pistol like a man in a panic; he unholstered a matte-black Sig Sauer from beneath his tailored wool coat with deliberate, fluid grace. From the street, a second shooter opened fire with heavy caliber rounds that blew chunks out of the shop’s brick entryway.

Norah pressed her back against the lower drawers of her bench, glass fragments biting into the wool of her sweater. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her mind didn't shatter. Years of holding five-thousand-dollar gems between tweezers under high magnification had bred into her an unusual variety of nerve. Panic was just an unstable setting; you tightened the clamp, or you ruined the stone.

"Rear exit?" Sebastian asked, ejecting a spent casing after firing three rhythmic shots through the jagged opening of the front window. A wet grunt and a heavy thud echoed from the pavement outside.

"Leads to the alley behind the bakery," Norah whispered, brushing glass dust from her forehead. "Heavy steel door with a deadbolt. I have the key on my belt."

"Good. Take the letter and the keycard. Put them in your inner pocket." Sebastian grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her close enough that she smelled gunpowder, cedarwood, and the bitter winter chill clinging to his coat. "The man who sent that card wants leverage. He knows I wouldn't cross an ocean for blood alone—he thinks bringing you makes me vulnerable."

"Are you?" she asked, meeting his piercing gray-green gaze.

"They're about to find out how expensive that mistake is," he said.

Sebastian fired two more suppression rounds into the windshield of the sedan, then hauled Norah to her feet. They sprinted through the narrow corridor dividing the workshop from the back room. Sebastian kicked through the rear delivery door, bursting into the sleet-slicked alley just as two of his own men—heavy-set enforcers in charcoal coats—converged from the corner, weapons drawn.

"Boss!" the lead man barked. "Transport is at the corner of Desplaines. The jet at Midway is fueled and waiting."

"Did you take one alive?" Sebastian asked, guiding Norah into the armored Yukon idling at the alley mouth.

"Driver's breathing. In the trunk of the secondary unit."

"Keep him conscious until we reach thirty thousand feet," Sebastian said, his tone devoid of cruelty, which only made it more terrifying. It was pure arithmetic. "Norah. Get in."

She didn't hesitate. She climbed into the leather interior, clutching the leather roll containing her precision bench tools and the Rotterdam keycard nestled next to the Romano heirloom. The heavy door thudded shut with the sound of a bank vault closing.

As the SUV surged forward into the blinding Chicago snowstorm, the city lights blurred into streaks of amber and crimson. Norah looked across the seat at Sebastian Romano. His jaw was set, a small crimson graze along his temple where a sliver of shattered window had kissed the skin. He reached into his coat, pulled out a linen handkerchief, and dabbed the cut without taking his eyes off her.

"You could have stayed in the back room," he murmured. "You could have told me to handle this alone."

"Your father’s killer left a card addressed to both of us," Norah said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline humming in her veins. "And nobody shoots up eighty years of my grandfather's craftsmanship and walks away without paying the bill."