Blood was drying on my cuff when I returned home at 1:43 a.m., but the worst violence waiting for me wasn’t at the docks. Before I could turn on the lights, my housekeeper stepped from the darkness and whispered, “Don’t make a sound,” then showed me why my fiancée had been terrorizing my children for eleven weeks, and why losing my temper was exactly what she needed.

By midnight, the Drake Hotel was empty, and the press was outside reporting the biggest scandal in Chicago's history.

I returned to the glass penthouse on Lake Shore Drive. The silence in the home felt completely different now—it no longer felt heavy or terrifying. The toxic shadow that had hung over our lives for eleven weeks was gone.

Naomi stood in the kitchen, making a pot of tea.

"Where are the children?" she asked as I walked in.

"Sal is bringing them back from the safe house right now," I said, sitting at the counter. "They'll be home in ten minutes."

Naomi set a mug of hot tea in front of me. "What happens to the alliance with Patrick Sloane?"

"Patrick and I met in private before I left the hotel," I explained. "He’s surrendering control of the rail yards to Moretti Logistics as restitution for his daughter's actions. He wants no part of the fallout."

Naomi nodded slowly. "And Arthur?"

"Arthur’s legal career is destroyed. The evidence you gathered guarantees he and Camille will spend the next thirty years in a federal penitentiary."

I looked at Naomi, reaching across the counter to tap her mug with mine.

"You did something no mob boss, no lawyer, and no politician could ever do, Naomi," I said softly. "You protected what matters most."