Page 111 of The Cost of Silence

Traffic is a blur. I don’t remember most of the drive. I just know the engine growls when I push it and that I’m gripping the wheel too tight and that if a cop tried to pull me over right now, I’d probably end up on the news for assaulting an NYPD officer.

By the time I hit the garage, Rossi has texted.

Floor secure. Building management told it was a prank. Nobody is touching the scene till you get here.

Good.

The elevator ride up is too slow and not nearly long enough at the same time. My reflection in the steel doors looks like someone you cross the street to avoid. Jaw set, eyes too dark, tie yanked half loose. An accident had snarled up the traffic, turning a fifteen-minute drive into a fucking forty-minute one.

When the doors open, two of my men straighten. I don’t slow down.

“Anything?” I ask as I pass.

“Nothing since the alarm, boss,” one says. “We’ve got the feed pulled. Guy came up the stairs, in and out fast. Cap. Mask. Head down.”

Of course they fucking did. This is my uncle, and he isn’t an amateur.

I step inside, and the smell hits me first. Not blood, that’s faint under good cleaning products and the ghost of Thanksgiving. It’sus,her shampoo, the coffee she made this morning, the cinnamon candle she lit last night because “it smells like Christmas,” whatever the fuck that means.

And under it all, a wrong note. Something metallic. Dark.

She’s near the window, arms wrapped tight around herself, Rossi a steady wall half a step in front of her.

Her eyes find me instantly.

Everything in me unclenches and tightens at the same time. She’s upright. She’s whole. She’s here.

Then my gaze catches on the coffee table.

And yeah. There it is.

A rat. Throat slit, fur matted, blood dried in rust-colored drops like somebody flicked a paintbrush. Little gray body arranged right in the center of the glass, like an art installation in hell.

They wanted it seen.

I walk past it.

If I look too long, I’ll put my fist through the table and that won’t help anyone.

“How bad?” I ask, eyes on Isabella.

She swallows. Her voice is steady, but just. “I’m okay. Scared. Pissed off. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

I don’t believe it until I’ve closed the space and run a quick scan myself, hands on her arms, her sides, the line of her jaw. No flinch of pain. Just a tremor I don’t like.

I pull her in.

She comes without argument, face pressing into my chest, hands curling in my shirt like she’s not sure if she’s holding on or holding me back.

Probably both.

“You’re okay,” I murmur into her hair. “You’re okay, Belle.”

Her shoulders shake once, a silent aftershock, then settle. “I was working,” she says into my shirt. “The alarm went off. Rossi got me down the stairs. They kept us out there forever, and when we came back up…” Her fingers tighten. “It was justthere.”