With a survivor's testimony confirming her worst fears, Detective Janna Castillo faces a truth she's not ready to accept.
The hospital corridors crawl with killers from every crime family in Chicago, all hunting the same witness.
When Chief Novack's cryptic warning forces her partner into an impossible choice, Janna realizes the real danger isn't the ghosts from her past.
In the sterile maze of Chicago General, every ally might be an enemy, and every exit leads deeper into a trap twelve years in the making.
Janna clawed her way back from the dark, every nerve screaming as her mind fought to steady itself.
The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth, thick and bitter.
A steady throb hammered behind her temple where she'd been struck, and the sharp sting in her cheek told her skin had split.
Her wrists ached, bound tight with zip ties behind the chair.
She flexed subtly, too tight, plastic biting her skin.
No easy way out.
She forced her breathing to slow, eyes adjusting to the dim warehouse light.
One exposed bulb swayed overhead, its weak glow carving jagged shadows along stacked crates.
Gasoline clung to the air, cut with damp concrete and the iron scent of rust.
Somewhere distant, water dripped into a pool with hollow regularity.
She cataloged it all:
Size of the space.
Two guards by the door, alert, not bored.
Crates marked with faded import stamps, some blank.
A flickering neon Cerveza sign against the far wall, buzzing faintly like an insect.
Everything about this place screamed temporary.
A holding ground, not a headquarters.
And then Hector.
He sat across from her, legs crossed, hands clasped loosely, studying her with quiet amusement.
But Janna saw what most would miss—the tension in his jaw, the faint drumming of his fingers against his knee, the careful distance he kept.
He wasn't here to break her body.
He was here to measure her.
"Detective Castillo," Hector said at last, voice smooth as oil. "You’re a sight for sore eyes. Well…you are…normally."
Janna kept her gaze steady, lips dry and cracked, her face throbbing with every heartbeat.
She didn't answer.
Instead, she read the room.
One enforcer's hand rested a little too close to his holster.
The other shifted weight from foot to foot, impatient, itching for permission.
They were eager.
Which meant Hector was the leash.
Hector leaned forward, elbows on his knees, smirk softening into something that almost resembled sympathy.
"You think this is about the Devil's Sons? No, detective. This goes deeper than one crew getting wiped out." He let the words settle. "Three days of blood. Different crews, different territories. Families torn apart. The whole city's on edge."
"There's a lot at stake," he continued, voice low, deliberate. "We've kept the peace for years. Paid for it in blood. Families were safe, businesses ran quietly, we were thriving in the shadows to maintain order. But now?" He paused, eyes darkening. "Someone is using the shadows against us. And no one knows who he is. Well, at least that’s what everyone is claiming. No?"
Janna tilted her head slightly, ignoring the sharp tug in her scalp from dried blood.
His word choice was calculated.
Order.
Structure.
Systematic.
If El Reyes were rattled, the killings had struck at the heart of organized crime in Chicago.
Hector gestured lazily with one hand, as if appealing to her sense of reason.
"So if you know anything, Detective… if you can help me understand who's behind this coordinated attack… you're not just helping me. You'll be preventing a war that will consume every street in this city that you work so hard to protect."
Janna's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
Her voice rasped, but her tone carried bite.
"You rehearsed that speech, Hector? Sounds almost noble."
One of the guards twitched, fists clenching, but Hector flicked two fingers without looking.
The man froze, jaw tight, rage leashed.
Hector's smirk thinned, revealing the edge beneath.
"Don't mistake restraint for weakness. I could let them loose, let you bleed out right here. But my bosses?" He tapped his chest with two fingers. "They see opportunity. Information is gold. You, Castillo, you're a cave waiting to be mined."
Janna's pulse kicked harder, but her eyes swept him, calm, searching.
He wanted her rattled.
Instead, she dissected his words.
Bosses. Plural. He wasn't El Jefe.
He was middle-tier, answering upward.
And if they were leaning on her, that meant they were as lost as everyone else.
Her silence was deliberate.
Silence makes people talk.
And Hector did.
"The word on the street is you had a reaction when you saw that footage," he said softly, studying her face like a hawk. "Maybe someone from your past hmm?" He leaned closer. "Look, it doesn't matter who. What matters is this coordinated killing spree ends before it brings federal heat down on all of us. Or more lives are lost."
Janna let a slow breath through her nose.
Despite the pounding in her skull, she forced her mind to work.
The footage.
That split second of hesitation when she'd seen the figure move.
For just a moment, she had a ghost of recognition, a flicker of impossible hope.
Could it be Grayson?
But the rational part of her mind crushed it immediately.
Grayson Gatswana had been gone for twelve years.
Exiled from his family after his brother's murder.
No one had seen him since.
And even if he'd somehow survived in the shadows all these years, the Gatswana family had been systematically destroyed just months ago.
If he'd been anywhere near Chicago, he would have died with the rest of them.
“The man in the footage was just another thug…”
…Is what she was telling herself in the moment.
Knowing that the man in the hospital confirmed that the shooter was Grayson.
Still she had to sure for herself…before saying she saw a ghost to a very rattled Cartel.
She was a detective on official police business, investigating a sensitive case that threatened to tear the city apart.
She couldn't afford to let personal ghosts cloud her judgment.
So she gave him nothing but a dry, razor-edged whisper.
"You talk too much for a man in control."
For the first time, Hector's smirk faltered.
Just for a moment.
His eyes cooled, voice dropping lower.
"Careful, Detective. Men have died for saying less."
Then his phone buzzed on the crate beside him.
The sound cracked the atmosphere like glass.
One of the guards glanced instinctively toward it, grip loosening on his weapon.
Hector's expression shifted: annoyance, reluctance.
He plucked the phone up, glanced at the caller ID.
Janna caught the flicker in his eyes before he masked it.
Matías Alvarez.
She filed it away instantly.
Name.
Rank.
Importance.
He answered, voice clipped. "Dime."
On the other end, calm and steady: Matías.
Controlled.
Unshaken.
"Don't kill her."
Janna's eyes narrowed, catching the frustration in Hector's posture, the way his jaw ticked even as he replied. "She's not talking."
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