Isobel Stout POV

The silence in the cellar stretched, taut as a wire ready to snap. Hugo Stokes stared at me, the calculation behind his dead eyes shifting like silt in murky water. The doctor stood frozen, a speculum dangling from his hand, waiting for the order to tear me apart.

"You think dropping a name like Flynn will save you?" Hugo’s voice was low, a rumble of thunder before the strike. "If you're lying, the pain you'll feel before you die will make this cellar look like a paradise."

"And if I'm not?" I countered, keeping my hand protectively over my stomach. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I forced my voice to remain steady. "If you kill the heir to the Chicago Outfit without proof, Elroy won't just kill you. He'll hand you over to Flynn piece by piece."

Hugo’s jaw tightened. He knew the rules. In our world, blood was currency, but power was law. And Damien Flynn was the law of the Midwest.

"I'll do it," I whispered, changing tactics. I needed to offer him a way out that didn't look like weakness. "I'll let the doctor... fix the mistake. But not here. Not in the filth."

Hugo narrowed his eyes. "You're in no position to negotiate, girl."

"It's a sin to spill blood without absolution," I said, appealing to the twisted Catholicism that every mobster clung to. "Let me go to my mother's grave. Let me ask her forgiveness for what I'm about to do. Then... you can do whatever my father wants."

Beside me, Arlene let out a choked sob, playing her part perfectly. Hugo looked from her to me, then spat on the floor. He pulled a heavy radio from his belt and stepped into the corridor.

Minutes later, he returned, holstering the device. "The Don finds your sudden piety amusing. He says you can say your goodbyes to the dead. But if you try anything, I'll gut the old woman first."

*

The drive to St. Raymond's Cemetery was a blur of rain-slicked streets and suffocating silence. When the car stopped, the darkness of the Bronx was absolute, broken only by the headlights cutting through the mist.

Hugo dragged us out. The cold air bit at my exposed skin, sharp and grounding. We marched past rows of silent angels and marble crosses until we reached the simple headstone of *Elsie Stout*.

I fell to my knees in the mud, not acting. The grief was real, a heavy stone in my chest. But survival was heavier.

"Water," I rasped, looking up at Hugo. "The stone is dirty. I need to wash it. Please."

Hugo checked his watch, impatient. He jerked his chin toward a dilapidated wooden shed near the perimeter wall. "Make it quick. Stokes, watch them."

Arlene helped me up, her grip on my arm surprisingly strong. We stumbled toward the shed. The moment we stepped inside, the smell of dry hay and kerosene hit me—a scent of salvation.

"Isobel," Arlene whispered, her eyes wide with terror and understanding.

"Do it," I hissed.

I grabbed a rusted lantern and smashed it against a pile of oil-soaked rags in the corner. I struck a match from the box on the shelf and dropped it. The fumes caught instantly. A roar of heat blasted us back as orange flames licked up the dry timber walls.

"Fire!" Arlene screamed, her voice shrill and piercing. "Help! Fire!"

Through the cracked window, I saw Hugo’s head snap toward us. The sudden blaze in the pitch-black night was blinding.

"Run," I commanded.

We burst out the back door of the shed, scrambling into the dense tree line just as Hugo shouted a curse. The crackling of the fire masked the sound of our footsteps on the wet leaves. We ran blindly, branches whipping my face, the darkness swallowing us whole.

But I was weak, my body ravaged by days of starvation and the life growing inside me. Arlene was limping, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"There!" Arlene pointed to a dip in the terrain, a ravine that led to the old logging road.

We were ten yards from the edge when a heavy hand clamped into my hair.

I screamed as I was yanked backward, hitting the ground hard. Hugo loomed over me, his face twisted in a mask of pure fury, illuminated by the distant glow of the burning shed.

"You stupid bitch," he snarled, drawing a serrated combat knife. "No more games."

He raised the blade.

"No!"

A blur of grey movement slammed into him. Arlene. She threw her entire weight against the massive Enforcer, knocking him off balance.

Hugo stumbled, roaring in rage. He recovered with terrifying speed, his arm lashing out. The sound was sickening—a wet thud of steel piercing flesh.

Arlene gasped, her body going rigid. Hugo shoved her off his blade, and she crumpled to the forest floor like a discarded doll.

"Arlene!" I shrieked, scrambling toward her.

Hugo stood over us, wiping the blood from his knife onto his pant leg. He looked down at Arlene’s twitching form, then at me, his eyes devoid of humanity.

"Loyalty is a bitch," he spat.

He took a step toward me to finish the job, but the wail of sirens cut through the night air. The fire had drawn the police.

Hugo cursed, looking toward the flashing lights bleeding through the trees. He couldn't be found here with a dead body and a Don's daughter. He gave me one last look—a promise of future violence—and vanished into the shadows.

I crawled to Arlene. Blood bubbled from her lips, dark and fast. Her eyes found mine, glazing over.

"Run... baby..." she wheezed, her hand tightening on my wrist one last time before going slack.

"Arlene? Arlene, please!"

She was gone. The only person who had ever loved me was dead.

The sirens grew louder, closer. I couldn't be found. Not by the police, who were in my father's pocket. Not by Hugo.

I forced myself up, my hands slick with Arlene's blood. The tears didn't come. Instead, a cold, hard knot formed in the center of my chest, replacing the fear. I looked at the darkness where Hugo had disappeared.

*I will kill them,* I vowed silently to the wet earth. *I will kill them all.*

But first, I had to disappear.

Isobel Stout POV

The rain did not wash away the sins of the night; it only made the blood slicker, harder to hold onto.

I dragged Arlene’s body through the mud, my fingers cramping around the fabric of her coat. Every inch was a battle against gravity and my own failing strength. The sirens that had scared Hugo off were fading into the distance, leaving me alone with the corpse of the only person who had ever loved me.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed, the sound torn from my throat raw and ragged. "I'm so sorry, Arlene."

We reached the edge of the old logging road where the skeleton of a Ford Model T sat rotting in the weeds, a ghost of a different era. It was a coffin of rust, but it was the only sanctuary the devil would grant us tonight.

With a strength born of pure hysteria, I heaved Arlene’s body into the trunk. Her limbs were already stiffening, her eyes staring blankly at the weeping sky. I forced the lid down. The metal groaned, a screech that sounded like a dying animal, sealing her in darkness.

I collapsed into the driver’s seat, curling into a ball beneath the dashboard. The smell of wet upholstery and old iron filled my lungs, mixing with the metallic tang of fresh blood on my hands.

*Crunch.*

A heavy boot snapped a twig nearby.

"Come out, little rat!" Hugo’s voice boomed through the trees, closer than I expected. "You can't hide forever!"

I clamped a hand over my mouth, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. He was hunting. And I was bleeding, exhausted, and carrying a child that felt heavier with every breath. I couldn't stay here. If he found the car, he found Arlene. He would desecrate her.

I waited until his footsteps crunched away toward the ravine, then I slipped out into the mist. I didn't look back at the rusted Ford. I just ran.

*

The neon sign of the speakeasy buzzed with an erratic hum, a beacon in the grey dawn. I stumbled through the heavy wooden door, bringing the scent of death into the den of vice.

The noise hit me first—a wall of jazz, laughter, and clinking glass. Then, the silence.

It spread outward from where I stood, rippling through the crowd like a shockwave. The piano player faltered and stopped. Dozens of eyes turned to me. I must have looked like a nightmare birthed from the storm—my silk dress torn and sodden, my skin pale as bone, and my hands... my hands were stained crimson with Arlene’s life.

"Help me," I rasped, but the words were swallowed by the sudden tension in the room.

Before anyone could move, the door behind me slammed open.

Hugo Stokes marched in, flanked by two Stout soldiers. He looked like a butcher fresh from the slaughterhouse, his chest heaving, his eyes scanning the room until they locked on me. A cruel, satisfied grin split his face.

"There you are."

The patrons scrambled back, clearing a circle around us. No one intervened. In our world, you didn't step between a wolf and its meal.

"Please," I whispered to the room at large, backing away until I hit a table. "He killed her. He'll kill me."

Hugo laughed, a dark, wet sound. He stepped into the circle, his knife glinting under the low amber lights. "This is a family matter," he announced, his voice booming with the arrogance of a man who believes he is untouchable. "A *Vendetta*. She is a traitor to the blood. Anyone who interferes declares war on the Stout family."

The threat hung heavy in the smoke-filled air. I closed my eyes, my hand instinctively going to my stomach. *I failed.*

"A Stout dog," a voice cut through the silence.

It was low, smooth, and colder than the grave I had just left. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Barking so far from home."

My eyes snapped open. The voice came from a booth in the darkest corner of the room, shrouded in shadow. A man leaned forward, the light catching the sharp angle of his jaw and eyes that burned with the intensity of blue ice.

Hugo froze, his knife hovering in mid-air. He squinted at the figure, confusion warring with recognition.

"Who the hell are you?" Hugo snarled, though his confidence wavered.

The man didn't stand. He didn't need to. He simply swirled the amber liquid in his glass, looking at Hugo with the boredom of a god watching an insect.

"You're in my city, boy," Damien Flynn said softly. "And you're making a mess on my floor."