The adrenaline from the basement game had faded, leaving a cold, hollow ache in my chest that no amount of money could fill. The envelope tucked inside my inner coat pocket felt like a lead weight—fifty thousand dollars in crumpled, scent-stained bills. To the world, it was a fortune; to the predators circling my family, it was barely an appetizer.
I pulled my trench coat tighter against the biting Chicago wind as the yellow taxi screeched to a halt in front of St. Jude's Hospital. The neon sign above the ER entrance buzzed with a low, sick hum, the letter 'E' flickering like a dying heartbeat. I hurried inside, the sterile smell of bleach and old sorrow hitting me like a physical blow.
My father, Arthur Sterling, was once a man of terrifying brilliance. A professor of statistics who could predict the weather by looking at the clouds and win a bridge game with his eyes closed. But genius is a dangerous thing when it turns inward. He became a cautionary tale—a man who thought he could outsmart the house algorithms but ended up being devoured by his own addiction. Now, he was just a body in a bed, kept alive by tubes and a legacy of debt.
I reached the reception desk, my heels clicking sharply on the linoleum. "Room 304. Arthur Sterling. I'm his daughter."
The nurse didn't look up from her monitor. Her skin was the color of parchment. "Sterling, Arthur... He's been discharged."
My blood ran cold, a prickling sensation spreading down my spine. "Discharged? That's impossible. He's in a deep coma. He can't breathe without a ventilator, let alone check himself out."
"He didn't check himself out, honey." The nurse finally looked up, her eyes showing a flicker of pity. "Two men in dark suits arrived an hour ago with notarized transfer papers. They claimed to be moving him to a high-end private facility for specialized care. We couldn't stop them."
Private facility. I knew exactly what that meant. It was a cage.
Just as I turned to run toward the exit, my phone vibrated in my hand. An unknown number flashed on the screen. My fingers trembled as I swiped to answer.
"Where is he?" I demanded, my voice raw.
"Ivy, Ivy, Ivy..." The voice on the other end was smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of mercy. It was Lucian, the primary enforcer for the Syndicate. "Your father is comfortable for the moment. He has the best view of the city—though, of course, he's not awake to see it. But rent for a penthouse suite is expensive, darling. And that fifty thousand you picked up tonight? It barely covers the late fees."
"I have the money," I said, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the phone. "I can get you more. Just let me see him."
"The total debt, with interest and 'protection fees,' is five million dollars, Ivy. You're a smart girl. You know the math." A pause, punctuated by the sound of a lighter clicking. "You have thirty days. Every day you're late, we start sending him back to you... one piece at a time. Do we have an understanding?"
The line went dead before I could scream. I stood in the middle of the crowded hospital lobby, surrounded by people in pain, yet I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Five million. It was a number so large it felt abstract, like a distance in light-years.
I looked at my hands. They were steady. That was the Sterling curse—even when the world was ending, our heart rates stayed low. If I was going to save him, I had to stop being a lucky amateur. I had to become the very thing my father warned me about. I needed to learn the dark mathematics of the underworld.
I needed the woman who supposedly died ten years ago in a Macau casino fire. I needed Josephine "The Butcher" Cross.