5
1381 Words
The night air hit cool and sharp as Ramsi and Sage stepped out of the pasta place.
Streetlights reflected off damp pavement, the city humming in that late-evening rhythm—cars passing, laughter drifting from nearby bars, life continuing like nothing dangerous ever hid beneath it.
Ramsi zipped her jacket, shoulders relaxing only a fraction.
Sage exhaled dramatically. “Wow. That was—”
“Do not,” Ramsi warned.
“I was going to say educational.”
Ramsi shot her a look as they started down the sidewalk. “You deliberately poked a situation you knew I was monitoring.”
“And,” Sage countered lightly, “you didn’t hate it.”
Ramsi didn’t answer. Her boots struck the pavement in a steady cadence, eyes flicking to reflections in windows, mirrors of parked cars.
Two blocks back, Dominic and Enzo stood near the corner, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp that buzzed faintly overhead.
They didn’t follow.
They didn’t need to.
Dominic watched Ramsi walk—the controlled pace, the way she never once checked behind her even though she knew she was being observed. That confidence wasn’t arrogance. It was earned.
“She knows,” Enzo said quietly.
“Yes,” Dominic replied. “And she’s allowing it.”
Across the street, Ramsi’s phone vibrated in her hand.
Once.
She didn’t stop walking. Just glanced down.
TATE:
You’re in Chicago for a reason. Just got a tip.
Her jaw tightened.
TATE:
Someone put a hit out on a mafia king. Big name. Quiet whispers, but it’s real.
Sage noticed immediately. “That’s not a dinner text.”
“No,” Ramsi said softly.
She typed back one-handed, eyes still scanning the street ahead.
RAMSI:
Who.
The response came almost instantly.
TATE:
Moretti.
Ramsi slowed for the first time that night.
Just a fraction. Enough.
Sage felt it. “Rams?”
Ramsi stopped under a streetlight, glow catching the edge of her expression—focused, cold, already recalibrating.
“How recent?” Ramsi texted.
TATE:
Active. Not public. Whoever’s behind it is confident and very well-funded. Figured you’d want to know why you were pulled into Chicago without being told.
Ramsi exhaled slowly through her nose.
Behind them, Dominic noticed the shift immediately—the pause, the way her posture hardened, the way the city seemed to fall out of focus around her.
“She just got new information,” Enzo said.
Dominic nodded. “Bad.”
Ramsi slid her phone into her pocket.
Sage searched her face. “Okay. That’s the face you make when plans change.”
“There’s a hit out,” Ramsi said quietly. “On Moretti.”
Sage blinked once. Then smiled faintly. “Of course there is.”
Ramsi’s gaze drifted, unintentional but precise—catching Dominic’s silhouette across the street. His eyes were already on her.
She didn’t look away.
Neither did he.
The distance between them suddenly felt smaller. Thinner. Charged with something new and dangerous.
Dominic tilted his head slightly, like he was asking a question without words.
Ramsi held his gaze, then turned away.
“Come on,” she said to Sage. “We’re not done tonight.”
As they disappeared down the street, Enzo glanced at Dominic. “She knows.”
Dominic’s mouth curved—not a smile, not quite. “Yes.”
“And?”
Dominic stepped back into the shadows. “That makes her either a problem… or an ally.”
Across the city, Ramsi walked faster, mind already mapping threats, timelines, names.
Chicago had just gone from coincidence to collision.
And the king she wasn’t supposed to see?
She’d already decided—
ghost or not—
she wasn’t letting him die.
Later that night, the city peeled back its polish.
The lead took them to a forgotten stretch of warehouses along the river—brick sweating damp, sodium lights flickering like they were tired of pretending to work. Ramsi parked two blocks out, engine off, keys already pocketed.
Sage checked her weapon out of habit. “You think he runs?”
“No,” Ramsi said, eyes on the building. “He thinks he’s invisible.”
They slipped inside through a side door that hadn’t been locked in years.
The suspect—mid-thirties, lean, posture too disciplined for a petty runner—sat at a metal table under a single hanging light. Hands loose. Ankles crossed. Calm in the way only trained people ever were.
He looked up when they entered. Smiled.
“Ladies,” he said easily. “You lost?”
Sage pulled out a chair and sat backward in it, arms draped over the backrest. “We’re just here to chat.”
Ramsi stayed standing.
Always standing.
“Don’t know what you think I did,” the man continued, shrugging. “I move packages. That’s it.”
Ramsi circled slowly, boots soft against concrete. She didn’t rush. Didn’t threaten. Just watched the way his eyes tracked her reflection instead of her body.
“You’re lying,” she said calmly.
He chuckled. “You got nothing.”
“Your breathing didn’t change when you said that,” Ramsi replied. “Which means you rehearsed it. Also—” she stopped behind him “—your pulse spiked when you heard the name Moretti on the phone an hour ago.”
Silence stretched.
Sage tilted her head. “She’s very good at this.”
The man exhaled, finally. “You’re not cops.”
“No,” Ramsi said. “And that’s why you’re still alive.”
That did it.
His shoulders dropped a fraction. Just enough.
“Who hired you?” Sage asked.
He hesitated. Then shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t know names.”
“But you know methods,” Ramsi said. “And you know training.”
His jaw tightened.
“They’re like you,” he admitted. “Clean. Quiet. Military-adjacent. Private, but not sloppy.”
Ramsi’s eyes sharpened. “How many?”
“Enough.”
“And the target?”
He swallowed. “High-profile. Untouchable. That’s the point.”
Sage leaned forward. “You’re stalling.”
“I’m deciding,” he snapped. “Because whoever hired them doesn’t miss.”
Ramsi bent down, meeting his eye level. “Neither do I.”
He opened his mouth to speak—
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the warehouse.
Measured. Unhurried.
Ramsi straightened instantly, body angling without thought.
Dominic Moretti stepped into the light, coat dark, expression unreadable. Enzo flanked him, eyes already on the suspect, cataloging weaknesses like second nature.
The man’s face drained of color.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “That was fast.”
Dominic’s gaze flicked to Ramsi—brief, loaded, unmistakably aware—before settling back on the man at the table.
“You were about to explain something,” Dominic said calmly. “Please continue.”
The suspect laughed once, hollow. “Didn’t know the king hunted his own assassins.”
“I don’t,” Dominic replied. “But she does.”
Ramsi met his gaze again, heat and irritation colliding under the surface. “You weren’t invited.”
Dominic’s mouth curved faintly. “Neither were they.”
Enzo stepped closer to the table, voice low. “Start talking. You won’t get another audience like this.”
The man looked between them—ghost, king, executioner—and finally broke.
“They want chaos,” he said. “They want you distracted. Moving. Vulnerable.”
“Who,” Ramsi pressed.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t know the name. But the money came through three shells and a private fund tied to Eastern Europe. Old blood. Old grudges.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
Ramsi felt it click into place.
“This wasn’t about killing you,” she said quietly, eyes never leaving the suspect. “It was about pulling you into the open.”
Dominic looked at her then—not as a curiosity, not as a stranger.
As an equal.
“And now?” he asked.
Ramsi straightened, already moving. “Now we shut it down.”
The warehouse hummed with tension, alliances forming in real time.
Outside, Chicago kept breathing.
Inside, a ghost and a king stood on the same side of the table—
and nothing about the city would be the same after tonight.
- Writer
