"Her mother had worked 77 days without pay, so a four-year-old girl carried the evidence to Chicago’s most dangerous man—and accidentally changed her family’s life forever.

While Clara tried to catch her breath, Marcus—Vincent’s head of security—walked back into the dining room carrying a heavy leather binder and a small portable printer he had retrieved from David Sterling’s private office upstairs.

“Boss,” Marcus said, laying the binder on the table. “We pulled the payroll logs, the local bank statements, and the cash drawer reconciliations. It’s worse than we thought.”

David Sterling was still standing near the bar, flanked by two of Vincent’s enforcers who made sure he didn't take a single step toward the exit. The rest of the restaurant patrons had long since finished their meals and quietly slipped out the side doors, not wanting to be anywhere near a mob-adjacent financial audit.

Vincent sat back down, motioning for Clara to take the seat beside me. A waiter—shaking so badly he could barely hold the tray—brought over a glass of warm milk for me and a cup of black coffee for my mom.

“Walk me through it, Marcus,” Vincent ordered, opening the leather binder.

“It’s not just Ms. Carter,” Marcus reported, tapping his finger against a printed spreadsheet. “Sterling hasn’t paid his back-of-house staff in over a month either. He’s been diverting funds into a personal offshore account in the Caymans while telling the dishwashers and line cooks that supply chain issues are causing payroll delays.”

Clara gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “The line cooks? Mateo has a baby on the way! He told us last week his electricity was shut off!”

“It gets better,” Marcus said grimly. “According to these deposits, Sterling used company payroll to purchase that Porsche outside, along with a condo in Miami under a shell company.”

Across the room, David Sterling looked like he was about to faint. He stumbled backward against the mahogany bar, knocking over a stack of clean cocktail napkins.

“Mr. Kane, please!” David cried out, his voice cracking with desperation as he took a few unsteady steps toward our booth. “It’s a misunderstanding! The restaurant industry is tough! Margins are tight! I was going to pay them—I swear on my mother’s grave, I was going to settle every account by the end of the quarter!”

Vincent didn't even look at him. He continued reviewing the spreadsheet, his finger tracing a column of numbers.

“Margins are tight,” Vincent repeated slowly, tasting the words like a bad wine. “Yet you managed to spend twelve thousand dollars on a VIP table at the Lyric Opera last Saturday night.”

“That was a networking expense!” David shouted defensively, before instantly regretting his tone as Vincent’s eyes flicked up from the page.

“David,” Vincent said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a quiet, menacing weight that made the air in the room feel ten degrees colder. “When I was a boy growing up on the South Side, my mother worked eighty hours a week in a textile mill. A man named Miller ran that mill. He skipped her paycheck for two weeks because he wanted to buy a new Cadillac.”

Vincent paused, taking a slow sip of his water.

“My father went to see Mr. Miller,” Vincent continued smoothly. “Mr. Miller never bought another Cadillac. And the workers got paid on Friday, in cash, with a twenty-percent bonus for the inconvenience.”

David’s knees buckled slightly. He grabbed onto the back of a wooden chair to keep from falling.