Gabriel stared at Evan for three long, agonizing seconds, searching the face of the man who had stood beside him through turf wars, federal investigations, and the long, blood-soaked transition into legitimate enterprise.

By midnight, the blizzard had hit Chicago in full force. Whiteout conditions enveloped the city, turning Lake Shore Drive into an abandoned tundra.

Inside the secure penthouse apartment four blocks from the freight headquarters, Gabriel stood in front of a giant wall map of the city. Marcus Vance, a tall man with a scarred neck and eyes like polished flint, was pinning photographs to the corkboard.

In the center was Frank Moretti. To his left was Nolan Pierce. To his right was Evan Cross.

“We secured the maid and her daughter at the Drake,” Vance reported, placing two fresh magazines of 9mm ammunition on the glass table. “They’re on the penthouse floor under twenty-four-hour guard. The girl was smart, boss. She didn't say a word to anyone in the lobby.”

“Keep them safe, Marcus,” Gabriel said, staring at Evan’s picture. “They are the only innocent things left in this city.”

“What’s the play?” Vance asked, pulling up a chair. “Evan is still at the office. We could take him right now. Drop him in the river before sunrise. Nobody would ever find the body under the ice.”

“No,” Gabriel said coldly. “If Evan disappears tonight, Nolan Pierce immediately delivers the stolen document to the federal prosecutors to save his own skin, and Moretti goes to ground. If I strike too early, the leak still happens, and I lose everything. I need to catch all three of them in the same room, with the original document in hand.”

“How do you force that?”

Gabriel turned away from the map. “Evan thinks he’s three steps ahead of me. He thinks I have no idea the document was stolen. Tomorrow morning at nine, I’m calling an emergency meeting of the senior executive board.”

“To announce the restructuring?”

“No,” Gabriel smiled—a terrifying, sharp expression that held no warmth. “To announce that the restructuring document was a decoy.”

Vance frowned. “A decoy?”

“I’m going to tell the board that I discovered a security leak three weeks ago,” Gabriel explained, his mind working with terrifying speed. “I will tell them that the eighteen pages in my house cabinet were filled with falsified offshore accounts designed specifically to trace whoever tried to leak them. I’ll claim that the real restructuring documents—the ones that actually contain the master keys to the freight accounts—are held in a mechanical vault at the South Side Rail Depot.”

Vance let out a low whistle. “You’re baiting the trap.”

“Evan knows that if Moretti hands a fake document to the feds, the prosecution falls apart and Moretti realizes Evan gave him worthless intelligence,” Gabriel said. “Evan will panic. He’ll have to stop Moretti from using the stolen pages, and he’ll be forced to mobilize Nolan Pierce to break into the South Side vault tomorrow night to get the 'real' files before I present them to the auditors.”

“And Moretti will send his best hitters to back them up,” Vance added, nodding slowly. “Because eighty million dollars is on the line.”

“Precisely,” Gabriel said. “They will bring every asset they have to that depot. And that is where I will end this.”

Gabriel walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the white storm consuming the city. Fourteen years of trust had been murdered in five minutes by a squeaking shoe and an ambition poisoned by greed. Evan Cross had forgotten who Gabriel Rowan was before he wore five-thousand-dollar suits.

He was about to remind him.

Gabriel’s phone buzzed on the glass table.

It was a text from Evan.

Evan: Great dinner tonight, Gabriel. Get some rest. Big things coming tomorrow.