A DEADLY VINTAGE

The realization was a physical blow to Hazel’s stomach. The poison that had almost killed Silas Thorne had come from the exact laboratory she had been forced to leave two months ago.

"Your lab," Silas repeated, the ice in his voice hardening. "So this is a coincidence? A waitress who happens to be a biochemist just happens to save me from a poison developed in her own facility?"

"It’s not a coincidence," Hazel said, her mind racing, desperate to connect the dots before Silas decided she was part of the plot. "The blue binding agent... it’s a proprietary polymer. I helped synthesize it. But it’s heavily restricted. The only way it got out of that lab is if someone with high-level keycard access stole it."

Silas stood up, towering over the desk. He didn't draw a weapon, but he didn't need to. He radiated absolute danger. "Who has access?"

"Myself. The lead professor. And..." Hazel’s voice trailed off. A sickening wave of nausea washed over her.

"And who, Hazel?"

"My brother, Leo," she whispered, a tear spilling over her lashes. "He was the night-shift maintenance supervisor for the science building. It’s how I got him the job."

Silas’s eyes went dark. "The brother who owes the Petrovs seventy thousand dollars."

Hazel shook her head violently. "No! Leo is an idiot, but he’s not a killer. He wouldn't assassinate you. He doesn't even know who you are!"

"He doesn't have to know me to sell a weapon to someone who does," Silas said coldly. He grabbed his coat from the leather sofa. "We are leaving. You are going to take me to your brother. Right now."

Ten minutes later, Hazel was sitting in the passenger seat of Silas’s heavily armored black SUV. A massive, silent driver navigated the slick, rain-soaked streets of Chicago. Silas sat in the back, running a trace on Leo’s burner phone through his syndicate’s network.

"He’s pinging at an abandoned warehouse in the South Side railyards," Silas said, looking up from his phone. "Not exactly a place you go for a midnight stroll."

Hazel gripped the door handle, praying her brother was alive.

They arrived at the rusted, towering structure. The rain was coming down in sheets. Silas told his driver to wait. He drew a suppressed pistol from a shoulder holster and gestured for Hazel to stay behind him.

They slipped through a broken side door into the cavernous, dark warehouse. It smelled of wet concrete and rust.

"Leo?" Hazel called out softly, her voice echoing in the gloom.

A sharp groan came from behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets.

Hazel bolted forward, ignoring Silas’s warning hiss. She rounded the corner and dropped to her knees. Leo was slumped against a concrete pillar, his face brutally beaten, blood seeping through his cheap flannel shirt from a deep wound in his side.

"Leo! Oh my god!" Hazel cried, pressing her hands over his bleeding side.

Leo’s eyes fluttered open. He looked at Hazel in terror. "Haze... you shouldn't be here. They’re coming back."

Silas stepped out of the shadows, his gun lowered but ready. He looked down at the bleeding man. "Did you steal the Aconitine compound from the university lab, Leo?"

Leo coughed, spitting blood onto the concrete. He looked at Silas, realizing exactly who he was. "I didn't have a choice," he sobbed. "I didn't do it for the money. The Petrov debt... it was a lie, Hazel."

Hazel froze. "What are you talking about? I sold my entire life to pay them off!"

"It was never the Petrovs," Leo cried, clutching his sister’s hand. He reached into his blood-soaked pocket and pulled out a tiny, tarnished silver baby bracelet. The clasp was broken.

Hazel stared at the bracelet. Her breath caught in her throat. It belonged to Mia, Leo’s six-year-old daughter.

"They took her, Hazel," Leo wept, his body shaking. "Three days ago. The man on the phone... he said if I didn't steal the chemical from your lab, I would never see my little girl again. I didn't know who they were going to use it on. I swear to God."

The "Answer One, Open Two" rule of the criminal underworld had just violently manifested. The poison's origin was answered. But the motive had mutated. This wasn't a simple mafia hit. It was extortion involving a child.

Silas crouched down, his imposing frame casting a long shadow over the bleeding father. He looked at the silver baby bracelet. A flicker of something profound and painful flashed in the mob boss’s cold eyes.

"Who gave you the order, Leo?" Silas asked, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Who has your daughter?"

Before Leo could answer, the heavy metal doors of the warehouse screeched open. The blinding beams of four high-powered flashlights cut through the darkness, sweeping across the floor.

"Well, well," a smooth, cultured voice echoed through the massive space. "I expected the brother to bleed out. I certainly didn't expect the King of Chicago to walk right into my trap."