When I opened my eyes, everything was still black. My head felt like it was full of concrete, and my arms and legs tingled with sleep. I tried to shake out my wrists, but realized my arms were tied behind me. When I tried to move my legs, I found my ankles were tied to chair legs. That explained why they’d fallen asleep. I blinked several more times, trying to let my eyes adjust, before I realized I had a blindfold on. When I strained my eyes down, I could see a faint sliver of artificial light peeking in from under the blindfold.

I tried to piece together what had happened to me, but it felt like waking up from a dream you can’t remember. I could recall the emotion of it, the fear, the panic, but nothing specific. I searched my mind for details, anything that could tell me where I was or why, but the only thing I knew for sure was that I was in trouble.

Loud footsteps pounded across the floor, and I held my breath, opening my eyes wider, though I knew it didn’t matter. The footsteps stopped just in front of me, and then suddenly my blindfold was ripped off, taking a chunk of my hair with it. The light was blinding, and I closed my eyes as my pupils adjusted.

“I’m sorry this had to happen.”

Immediately, I went rigid. I knew that voice. But surely not. It couldn’t be.

“You are a nice girl. One of the best assistants I’ve ever had. But unfortunately, business is business.”

The world was still over-exposed, but I squinted up at the figure standing in front of me. He cut a very familiar shape in his suit, but still I shook my head, trying to dispel what all my senses were telling me was true. Mr. Sabella was standing in front of me.

“You know,” Mr. Sabella said, crossing his arms behind his back and strolling away from me before pivoting and walking back. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t taken up with such shady company. Gabriel is not a nice guy, Lindsay. He is the reason you are here.”

“Gabriel?” I repeated his name, trying to piece together the puzzle of my situation. I’d been kidnapped by my boss, and now he was talking about my neighbor. How did any of this make any sense? At that moment, a memory rushed back.

Opening my front door to find Roger standing there, his bearded face pulled down in a scowl. Then, he launched himself at me, wrapped a hand around my neck and pressed something to my face. Then, everything went black.

I gasped. “You chloroformed me?”

Mr. Sabella had been talking, but suddenly he stopped, a smile on his lips. “No, that was Roger.”

“But on your orders?” I said.

He nodded. “You really ought to pay attention, Lindsay. I’ve already covered this. Your boyfriend took something that belonged to me, and I need it back. I’m sorry it had to happen this way, but I had no choice but to use you as ransom. Assuming he cares enough about you to return what he stole from me, you will be released and unharmed.”

“He stole something from you?” I wasn’t sure if it was the after effects of being knocked unconscious or the situation, but I was confused. Beyond confused. I felt like I’d fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up in an alternate universe.

Mr. Sabella stopped pacing to freeze in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. “Don’t play stupid, Lindsay. It’s unbecoming.”

“I’m not playing anything,” I said, nearly shouting. “None of this makes any sense.”

He narrowed his eyes at me as though trying to read my mind. I stared back at him, too confused and angry to be frightened. Someone needed to tell me what was going on, and Mr. Sabella appeared to be the only person in the room with me, so it would have to be him. At that thought, I glanced around the room. The only windows were up high on the concrete walls, meaning I was likely in a basement. It was a large room with metal doors and a maze of pipes running across the ceiling. Clearly, it was an office building of some kind. But as I’d first thought, Mr. Sabella and I appeared to be alone.

“I can’t decide if you’re being deceptive or if you really don’t understand what is going on,” he said.

“Either way, you don’t stand to lose anything by telling me the truth,” I said, surprised by my own quick thinking.

He shrugged and began to pace again. “I knew something was suspicious about Gabriel the first time I saw him. Call it a gut instinct, if you will. Then, you said he was from New York, and that piqued my interest even more, given the fact I had recently expanded my business to the city.”

I knew Sabella Security had begun working with out-of-state clients, some of which were in New York, but I still couldn’t see how that would have anything to do with Gabriel. Over eight million people lived in New York City, so there was no shortage of New Yorkers living in Chicago.

“The Bianchi family has always given me trouble—written warnings to keep off their territory, as if they are the city council telling me how tall my fence can be or how big I can make my garage. Nonsense, of course. I paid them no mind as I continued to expand both the gambling ring and my protection rackets.”

If my hands hadn’t been tied behind my back, I would have thrown them in the air. “What in the hell are you talking about? Gambling? Rackets? What?”

“I wanted you to figure it out on your own, but it seems as if my clever assistant is a bit slow today,” Mr. Sabella said with a sigh. “I’m the head of a crime ring, dear. A rather large one. And the family your boyfriend works for isn’t pleased about it.”

Mr. Sabella was the head of a crime ring. I wasn’t even sure I knew what that meant. I’d seen a few mob-themed movies that were set in the 1920s. They mostly featured men in fedoras shooting at one another from black cars. I had no precedent for what that would look like in modern-day. And what did he mean the family Gabriel worked for? “Gabriel works in the building. Mail and maintenance,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, but that’s a cover. His entire life here has been a cover. The Bianchi’s sent him to the city to steal information from me. They want to know who I’m working with in the city, so they can pull the rug out from under me. It has all been a lie.”

Finally, fear and panic began to break through the confusion. If Mr. Sabella was right, everything I knew was a lie. I’d been working for a mobster for years. My boyfriend—Gabriel wasn’t really my boyfriend, but I hardly had time to make that correction—was an errand boy for another mob family, and somehow, I’d found myself caught in the crossfire. Nothing made any sense.

“Gabriel used you. How else do you think he ended up living across the hall from you? And working in the same building as you? He needed you to get to me.”

I felt like I would be sick. Gabriel and I had only been getting to know one another, but I liked him, a lot. In fact, recently, I’d been thinking I could grow to love him. The smooth planes of his tan face, the way light brought out the green and yellow flecks of his impossibly blue eyes, the way he cradled my hips in his big hands as he thrust into me. Somehow, managing to hold me like I was precious, while being perfectly rough. How had I let myself get swept up in a lie? How had I not noticed the feelings weren’t mutual?

Mr. Sabella made a low-throated humming sound. “I can see now that you really didn’t know the truth. I’m sorry you had to learn the truth this way. But, perhaps, this will encourage you to more thoroughly vet your friends in the future.”

“And my employers,” I snapped, shooting daggers at him.

Mr. Sabella smiled. “Well, hopefully, Gabriel will return the information he stole from me, and you will have that chance.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I asked, already afraid of the answer.

“I can’t be seen as a man who doesn’t follow through on my threats,” he said with a shrug. “But I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Hot tears pressed against the back of my eyes and squeezed my throat, but I held them back. I didn’t want him to see me cry. I didn’t want him to see me afraid. I’d get out of here. I had to. This couldn’t be how everything ended for me.

Mr. Sabella began walking away, but then stopped when he was halfway to the door. He pulled his lips up in a half-grimace. “And I’m sorry about offering to buy a painting. I know you’ve been a struggling artist all these years. I just wanted your guard to be down when Roger arrived, but it was cruel. If everything turns out the way I hope it will, I’ll buy a painting from you. In fact, I’ll fund your life as an artist,” he said, holding both arms wide as though he were granting me three wishes. “If you get out of here and keep this whole situation hush-hush, you can keep your job with me and paint all you want. What do you say?”

Acid was creeping up my throat as he spoke. When he finished, I hawked it back and spit as far as I could. It landed on the concrete floor between us with a splat. “When I get out of here, I don’t want anything from you. Ever.”

Mr. Sabella smiled, though his eyes were narrowed. He shrugged and then left the room. It was only then that I let myself cry.