chapter 4

“If you’re asking me to fight your war, I’m not interested.”

He shook his head and held up his hands. “Something simpler, actually. There’s a girl that came to live with me, daughter of a capo in the Chicago family. She went through something recently, they’re having their own problems out there, and she was sent here to get away from the heat. Unfortunately, things are getting hot around here now, too.”

I thought of the girl I’d seen with the long dark hair and the intense expression. She must’ve been twenty, maybe a little older. It must’ve been the same girl he was talking about.

“Not sure what she would have to do with me.”

“I need you to be her bodyguard.”

I let that sink in for a second then burst out laughing. He stared at me, eyes hard and cold, and I knew this wasn’t a joke—but it had to be.

I wasn’t a bodyguard. I was a thief, and the occasional thug. I had a reputation for myself, sure enough, but nobody entrusted a life in my hands—much less the life of a young, bea