He Told Chicago She Was Nobody to Him... Then He Found Her Bruised in the Snow and Burned His Own Empire to Bring Her Home

The fall of Gerald Hatch was swift, but he was not a man to go quietly into the night.

Realizing he was a dead man walking, Gerald managed to break away from Marcus’s men during a chaotic transfer, fleeing deep into the industrial underbelly of Gary, Indiana. He was desperate, armed, and backed by a small faction of loyalists who had been paid too much to back out now.

Back at the Lake Forest estate, Silas spent every waking moment coordinating the hunt, but he never let the darkness enter the rooms where Ren was recovering.

Ren was sitting in the library, a massive room filled with leather-bound books and the scent of old paper. She was working on her laptop, her fingers flying across the keys, tracking the remaining assets of the Dunmore Capital Group.

Earl, the basset hound, was snoring loudly at her feet, his head resting on her slipper.

Silas entered the room, carrying a tray with fresh tea and sliced apples.

"You shouldn't be working," he said gently, setting the tray down.

"If I don't work, I think," Ren replied, looking up at him. The swelling around her eye had gone down, leaving only a faint greenish-yellow bruise that she didn't bother to hide. "And if I think, I get angry. Gerald still has access to one dormant account. It’s a logistics company called 'Morrow Freight 109'. It’s an old, discontinued route."

Silas froze. "Freight 109 was a rail line we abandoned five years ago. It runs through the old steel mills."

"Exactly," Ren said, turning the laptop toward him. "A transaction just pending there. He’s trying to clear out the final half-million dollars to buy a passage out of the country on a cargo ship."

Silas stared at the screen, a grim satisfaction settling over his features. "He’s at the old railyard. He has nowhere else to go."

"Silas," Ren said, grabbing his hand. "Promise me. No more blood than necessary. Let the police have him. If you kill him, you validate everything the other families think about you. You become the monster they want you to be."

Silas looked at her. He saw the pure, uncorrupted goodness in her eyes—the very thing he had fallen in love with. She didn't want revenge; she wanted justice. She wanted him to be safe.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I promise, Ren. I’ll let Reed handle the arrest. I won't pull the trigger."

"Thank you," she whispered.

As Silas turned to leave, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, and his face darkened.