CHAPTER ONE

Lea

Most people see power in Nico Varela’s smile; I see the architect of my father’s destruction.

The grainy photograph, blown up on my laptop screen, shows the exact moment he’d completed some deal, his face contorted with a smug, controlled curve of the lips that promises ruin disguised as opportunity.

Rain lashes against the cheap glass of my apartment window, blurring the gritty Chicago skyline. The distorted view mirrors the confusion churning inside me. This city, my father used to say, operates in the shadows. Power isn’t loud here, Lea. It’s silent. It waits. He learned that lesson the hard way.

My fingers touch the cool metal of the laptop. Tonight isn’t just the eve of my first day at the Chicago Investigative Journal; it is the eve of battle. Packing my bag feels less like preparing for work, more like donning armor. Laptop, my sword. Notepads, my shield. Pens, my daggers. Each item, carefully selected and placed into the worn leather satchel that belonged to my father. A relic from his time at the Journal, before Varela, before the silence.

The Journal. It isn’t just a building downtown, a prestigious byline I’d chased through four years of journalism school. It is the arena where my father’s reputation was destroyed. He’d gotten too close. Asked the wrong questions about the network of influence Varela commanded. It was a web spun through politics, business, and the city’s murky underworld. Then, suddenly, sources dried up, stories were killed, and my father, once a celebrated investigative reporter, found himself sidelined, discredited, broken. He never named Varela outright, not in the aftermath, but the fear in his eyes whenever that name surfaced spoke volumes. Some men cast long shadows, Lea. Don’t get lost in them.

I slam the laptop shut, the click loud in the small space. My apartment, usually a sanctuary of books and half-finished articles, feels tight, the walls pressing in. The rain intensifies, drumming a relentless rhythm against the fire escape. This isn’t just about vindicating my father. It is about finishing what he started. It is about dragging the shadows into the light. Tomorrow, I walk into the place that broke him. This time, the story won’t end with silence.

* * *

The Chicago Investigative Journal newsroom hits me like a fucking freight train. A storm of ringing phones, clattering keyboards, and overlapping conversations fills the vast, open-plan space, housed in what looks like a converted warehouse. Exposed brick walls climb toward high ceilings crisscrossed with industrial ductwork. Cheap fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare on the busy mess below. It smells of old paper, burnt coffee, and something unexplainable, like a hunter’s energy that hums beneath the surface noise. Desks are crammed together, islands adrift in a sea of discarded coffee cups, overflowing in-trays, and monitors displaying scrolling news feeds. Photos of past triumphs, exposés that had felled mayors and exposed corruption, line a far wall, a gallery of reporting coups.

“Song! Wells wants you. Now,” a harried-looking assignment editor commands, pointing a nicotine-stained finger toward a glass-walled office at the far end without breaking stride.

So much for easing in. I adjust the strap of my father’s satchel on my shoulder, take a breath, and navigate the maze of desks, sharply aware of the curious glances flicking my way. My skin prickles. The new kid. Fresh meat.

Harrison Wells’s office is proof of controlled chaos. Stacks of newspapers tilt precariously, threatening an avalanche onto the floor; manila folders overflow from every surface; the air hangs thick and acrid with the aroma of stale cigar smoke. Wells, a well-set man in his late fifties, himself looks like he slept in his clothes with his rumpled shirt, tie askew, silver hair defying gravity. He sits hunched behind a massive, cluttered desk, peering over reading glasses perched on his nose. His eyes, magnified and piercing, size me up with weary cynicism as I enter.

He doesn’t offer a handshake, doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. He gestures toward the worn visitor’s chair opposite him. “Sit.” His voice is gravelly, impatient.

I sit, placing my satchel by my feet.

He grunts, shuffling through a pile of papers before finally extracting a thick, battered manila folder. He tosses it onto the desk. It lands with a thud. The sound seems to suck the air from the room and from my lungs.

“Nico Varela,” he rasps, tapping the folder with a blunt finger. “Word is, you know the name.”

My insides hammers, a violent, thrilled surge colliding with a wave of pure, raw terror. Varela. On my first day. It is what I’d hoped for, prayed for, maneuvered for through application essays and interview answers hinting at my interest in Chicago’s power structures. And yet, the reality of it, the sheer nerve of being handed this assignment, now, feels like a trap sprung too soon. A cold dread washes over the initial thrill. This is too perfect. Why? I force my expression into neutral territory, a mask of professional interest.

“I know of him,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Everyone in Chicago does. Owner of Club Purgatorio, major political donor, incredibly well-connected.”

Wells snorts, a humorless sound. “Don’t bullshit me, Song. Your senior project paper was on navigating hidden power structures. You cited three articles your father wrote for this paper before he…” He trails off, waving a dismissive hand. “You didn’t just stumble in here wanting to cover city council meetings.”

He leans forward, the cynicism in his eyes hardening into something pointed. “Let’s get one thing straight. Your Northwestern degree means jack shit here. This,” he taps the Varela file again, harder this time, “isn’t some academic exercise. This isn’t play-acting journalism where you write a scathing piece and get an A. People who poke around Varela have a bad habit of disappearing. Or finding their careers torched.”

His gaze holds mine, intense, steady. He knows.

“Varela eats people like you for breakfast,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, gravel turning to granite. “He’s smarter, richer, and more ruthless than anyone you’ve ever met. He has judges in his pocket, cops on his payroll, and eyes everywhere. You think you’re walking into a story? You’re walking into a goddamn minefield.”

The warnings land like body blows, each one echoing my father’s hushed fears. But mixed with the fear is a fierce, stubborn determination. This is it. The chance.

“Why me?” I ask bluntly. “My first day. This feels…loaded.”

Wells leans back, the springs in his old chair groaning in protest, folding his hands behind his head. “Let’s just say, you weren’t my choice.”

The admission jolts me. “What?”

“Got the call yesterday,” he says, his gaze drifting toward the ceiling. “From the top floor. Said you were ambitious, hungry, had the right background. Said to give you Varela.” He shrugs, a gesture heavy with unspoken frustration. “Publisher wants you on this, Song. Don’t ask me why.”

He pushes the folder across the desk. The name NICO VARELA is scrawled in faded black marker. It feels heavier than it looks, pregnant with secrets and danger.

“That’s it. Go investigate. Report back to me at least once a week on all the events in details. And try not to get yourself killed.”

* * *

I find my assigned desk, a small gray island in the swirling sea of the newsroom. Tucked away near the back, flanked by towering filing cabinets and a pillar plastered with old union notices. Functional, anonymous, perfect for fading into the background. I sink into the standard-issue office chair. The Varela file lands in my lap, its physical weight nothing compared to the burden of its contents and the questions swirling around how it got there.

The Publisher. Why would the Publisher, someone more concerned with ad revenue than deep-dive investigations, hand a rookie the most dangerous target in the city? It makes no sense. Wells’s reluctance, his explicit statement I wasn’t his choice—the words ring through my mind. Am I being set up? Thrown to the wolves for some unseen political maneuvering upstairs? Or is it simpler? Did they genuinely believe my academic background made me suited for this, unaware of the personal firestorm Varela’s name ignites within me?

“You look like you went ten rounds with Wells and lost.”

I jump, startled. A woman stands beside my desk, holding out a steaming paper cup. She has keen, intelligent eyes that seem to take everything in, short dark hair in a stylish bob, and an air of calm competence striking in the surrounding frenzy.

“Uh, something like that,” I manage, accepting the coffee. Its warmth seeps into my stiff hands. The coffee itself tastes burned, institutional. “Thanks. I’m Lea Song.”

“Sienna Park,” she replies, pulling over an empty chair and sitting, lowering her voice. “And you didn’t lose. You just got handed the grenade with the pin already pulled.”

I blink, surprised by her directness and apparent knowledge. “You know about Varela?”

Sienna nods, her expression serious. “Wells pulled me aside. Assigned me as your handler, for lack of a better term. Unofficially.”

“My handler?” The term sounds illicit.

“Look,” Sienna leans closer, her voice dropping further, compelling me to lean in. “Wells doesn’t trust this. The Publisher giving Varela to a rookie on day one? Especially when the order comes directly from the Publisher, who wouldn’t normally hand out the assignments to junior journalists? It stinks. He thinks you’re being set up to fail, or worse, being fed to Varela.”

Her words solidify my churning suspicions. “So, what’s your role in this?”

“To watch your back,” Sienna says bluntly. “Help you navigate the inner secrets to investigating high society in this city. I’ve been here five years, doing photography, but I’ve covered the crime and politics intersection. I know the players, the landscape. Wells wants me to provide intel, whatever you need. But, and this matters, we keep our arrangement, and the real depth of our work on Varela, completely off the radar. Especially from the top floor.”

A handler. A secret ally. Relief wars with suspicion. Why would this seasoned reporter agree to babysit a newbie on a suicide mission? Is this another layer of the game?

Sienna seems to read my hesitation. “Look, Lea, I heard about your father. Getting pushed out for doing his job too well. It was bullshit. Maybe Wells feels guilty, maybe he just hates seeing the Publisher play games with reporters’ lives. He asked me to help, and I said yes. Varela needs exposing. But you need to survive doing it.”

The mention of my father, the quiet understanding, chips away at my reserve. Maybe I am not entirely alone in this.

“Okay,” I say, the word feeling small. “Okay. Thank you, Sienna.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she warns, her gaze sweeping the bustling newsroom. “First rule: assume everyone is watching. Listening. Varela has ears everywhere. City Hall, CPD, probably even in here.”

She glances at the Varela file clutched in my lap. “We can’t plan a strategy here. Too many eyes.” Her gaze flickers around the open-plan chaos, lingering a split second on a figure near the elevators, then snaps back. “Let’s grab a proper coffee. There’s a place half a block away.”

The thought of escaping the overwhelming noise, of processing with someone who understands the stakes, is appealing. “Yes. Please.” I gather my things, reaching for the file.

“And Lea?” Sienna’s voice is crisp, stopping me. “That file? Never let it out of your sight. Ever. Consider it fused to your hand.”

The danger Wells described suddenly feels real. Caution isn’t just smart; it is survival. I tighten my grip on the folder, its cardboard edges digging into my fingers.

The elevator ride down feels like descending into a pressure cooker. Sienna, leaning against the cool metal wall, doesn’t waste time. “Second rule: trust no one. Cops, sources, colleagues. Verify everything. Twice. Varela’s network isn’t just wide; it’s deep. He builds loyalty through fear and favor.”

The doors open onto the skyscraper’s lobby with its polished marble, soaring ceilings. The newsroom’s frantic energy is replaced by hushed, reverberating calm. It feels like crossing a border, still potentially dangerous, but masked by expensive surfaces.

“He owns pieces of legitimate businesses all over,” Sienna continues, voice low but clear, as we walk toward the massive revolving doors. “Restaurants, real estate, distribution. Fronts, mostly.”

We approach the imposing glass and steel mouth of the revolving doors. Michigan Avenue vibrates beyond. A river of taxis and pedestrians under a gray sky threatening more rain. “Decent café around the corner,” Sienna says, nodding left.

My mind swirls with all the new information and questions: the Publisher’s motive, Wells’s distrust, Sienna’s sudden guardianship, Varela’s reach. Distracted, I push into an empty section of the heavy glass door as it begins its slow turn.

And then I freeze.

Coming through the adjacent section, moving with unnerving calm, is Nico Varela himself.

Time stretches. My eyes lock with his through the curved glass. Not movie-star handsome; his face is too sharp, angular, his presence predatory. His jaw-dropping fit body, way too fit for someone in his forties, radiates power, pulling the air taut. Dressed in an impeccable charcoal suit, dark hair perfect, he looks less like a businessman, more like a panther poured into expensive fabric.

He doesn’t look surprised. Why would he? He doesn’t know me.

Or does he?

As the door rotates, bringing us parallel, a slow, chilling smile spreads across his face. Not warm. Not friendly. The smile from the photograph. The smile of a man who owns the game. Recognition flickers in his cold, dark eyes. Not of a stranger, but of someone expected.

The glass partition slides away. Face-to-face for a fraction of a second, the lobby’s muffled sounds yielding to the city’s hum. His voice, low and smooth, cuts through, meant only for me.

“Careful there, Miss Song.”

He knows my name. How? The question steals the air from my lungs. A dizzying wave washes over me, making the polished lobby tilt.

His intense, assessing gaze flicks down to the manila folder clutched against my chest. The VARELA file. His smile widens, a predatory curve that makes my stomach plummet.

Then the door completes its turn. He is past me, stepping into the lobby, vanishing as I am deposited onto the damp sidewalk.

I stand rooted to the spot, the revolving door whispering shut, Michigan Avenue crashing back in with its horns blaring, people hurrying past. My muscles feel locked, unresponsive. He knew my name. He saw the file.

“Holy shit!” Sienna emerges a moment later, eyes wide, fixed on where Varela had entered. “Lea! Did you see—? That was Varela! How the hell? Did he talk to you? Did he just address you as Miss Song?”

I’m getting dizzy, spiraling. Numbly, instinctively, I reach into my satchel for my phone. Need normalcy, connection. Calling someone. My mother? No.

My thumb hovers over the screen. As it flickers to life, a tiny icon looking like a stylized microphone flashes briefly in the top status bar. There for less than a second, almost imperceptible, then gone.

“What was that?” Sienna asks, her reporter’s eyes missing nothing. She’d seen it too.

“I…I don’t know,” I stammer, voice thin. “A glitch?”

Assume everyone is listening. Sienna’s warning slams back. A glitch? Or confirmation? Is my phone compromised already? Is he listening now?

I look back toward the imposing skyscraper Varela had just entered, its doors now spitting out oblivious workers. The anonymity I’d craved, the chance to investigate from the shadows, had vanished before my first day had barely started. I feel stripped naked, exposed, and hunted.

The game hasn’t just begun. I am already marked. And Nico Varela is holding all the pieces.