Bootleg Queen of Chicago

The gas lamps flickered as Angelo Genna's men filled the doorway. Rose froze behind the bar, whiskey bottle halfway to the glass. Her father Sean straightened, hands visible, palms out.

"Protection payment's due," Angelo said. He straightened his cufflinks, jaw grinding. "Five hundred. Now."

Sean's voice stayed calm. "I paid last week. Check your books."

"I'm checking them now." Angelo pulled the ledger from his coat. Ripped pages out. Let them flutter to the sticky floor. "Says here you're three weeks behind."

Rose's pulse hammered in her ears. She set the bottle down. Her hand found the brass cash register, fingers curling around cold metal.

"That's not—"

The pistol crack split the air.

Sean crumpled behind the register. His head hit the brass with a wet thunk. The broken bell tried to ring, choked, went silent.

Rose lunged forward. Her scream died in her throat. She grabbed for the whiskey bottle, glass shattering in her palm as Angelo's men slammed her against the sweating brick wall.

Blood ran hot down her wrist. The copper smell mixed with cigarette smoke that hung in the low-ceilinged basement like a shroud. Her father's blood pooled across floorboards, black in the gaslight.

Angelo holstered his weapon. Smoothed his tie. Straightened each cufflink with deliberate precision.

"This speakeasy belongs to the Genna family now." He jabbed his index finger at her chest. "You have twenty-four hours to disappear, puttana. Or you'll join your father."

His men released her. She slid down the wall, palm screaming. Angelo's footsteps echoed up the stairs. The door slammed. Silence rushed in like water filling lungs.

Rose knelt beside her father's body. Her bleeding palm touched the brass register. The metal was still warm from his hands. Blood—his blood, her blood—mixed on the broken bell.

Upstairs, Maggie sobbed. The sound was thin. Distant. Like hearing through water.

Rose reached for her father's vest pocket. Her fingers found his watch, pulled it free. The chain was slick with blood. She held it to the gaslight.

11:47 PM. The second hand had stopped.

Something crystallized inside her chest. Not grief. Not rage. Something colder. Harder. A calculation forming like ice.

She stood. Her shoes stuck to the floorboards. She tucked the watch into her own pocket, its weight pressing against her hip.

The brass register sat silent. Its broken bell would never ring again. The gas lamps cast shadows that made every table look like a grave.

Rose touched her bleeding palm. Let the pain anchor her. Twenty-four hours to disappear, Angelo had said.

She wouldn't run.

She'd build what her father couldn't. She'd make them pay. Every last one of them.

Her hand closed around the scar forming on her palm. The choice was made. The woman who served drinks and smiled at customers was dead on that floor with her father.

The woman standing here was something else entirely.