The autumn rain poured over Chicago like liquid lead, washing the soot of the South Side into the gutters. Standing beneath a frayed black umbrella at Oak Ridge Cemetery, I stared down at the modest mahogany casket being lowered into the damp earth.
Hannah Carter was finally home.
There were no crowds, no grand tributes, and no television cameras. Only five people stood around the plot: Debbie, my supervisor from the hotel, two elderly retired women who had scrubbed floors alongside my mother for twenty years, and the cemetery chaplain who mumbled prayers against the howling wind.
"She would be proud of you, Bella," Debbie whispered, wrapping a wet woolen arm around my shoulders. "She worked herself into the grave so you wouldn't have to carry her burdens. God only knows how you came up with the hospital money so fast, but... you did right by her."
"She deserved better than dying in debt, Debbie," I choked out, a solitary tear cutting through the cold rain on my cheek. "She deserved a world that didn't take everything from her."
As the priest sprinkled the final handful of sacred dirt over the casket, a low rumble echoed from the cemetery road. I turned my head, my breath catching in my throat.
Idling fifty yards away under the weeping willows was a convoy of three obsidian-black Cadillac Escalades, their tinted windows impenetrable. Hazard lights flashed slowly through the gray mist. Standing beside the lead vehicle, holding a massive black umbrella, was an imposing man in an Italian wool coat.
Nathan Drake.
He didn't step forward. He didn't approach the grave or attempt to speak to the mourners. He stood motionless against the pouring rain, watching me with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Beside his car, two burly men in dark suits scanned the perimeter, their hands resting noticeably inside their coat lapels.
"Bella? Who is that?" Debbie gasped, noticing the ominous black fleet. Her voice shook with panic. "Is that... is that Drake's security?"
"Ignore them," I said quietly, though my heart was hammering against my ribs like a caged bird.
When the service ended and the others began walking toward the front gates, a young courier in a wet trench coat approached me, holding an enormous wreath of pristine white calla lilies—my mother's favorite flower, something I had never mentioned to a single soul in that penthouse.
Attached to the ribbon was a small, heavy silver card. No signature. Just five handwritten words in bold, decisive script:
Rest in peace, Hannah Carter.
I looked back toward the willow trees, but the black Escalades were already rolling smoothly into the street, vanishing into the Chicago rain like ghosts.
"Bella, you need to listen to me," Debbie said, pulling me toward her battered sedan, her face pale as flour. "Yesterday, two men in tailored suits came to the hotel asking about you. They weren't Drake's men. They were asking about the girl who stayed in the penthouse overnight. They belonged to Marcus Moretti."
The blood in my veins turned to ice. The Moretti family was the ruthless crime syndicate that had waged a decade-long war with Nathan for control of the Great Lakes shipping ports.
"I don't know any Morettis," I whispered.
"It doesn't matter," Debbie warned, her eyes darting nervously toward the foggy tree line. "In this city, if Nathan Drake gives you a single glance, you're a target. And honey... he just bought your mother her grave."
