A Mafia Boss Paid $90,000 to Transform a Homeless Woman With Six Feet of Filthy, Matted Hair

The sharp *crack* of a high-caliber rifle shattered the winter silence.

A round struck the brick wall six inches from Wren’s head, spraying masonry dust across her face. Adrian’s reaction was instantaneous: his left arm hooked around her waist, dragging her down behind the protective ledge of the foundation wall, while his right arm came up, his Sig Sauer barking three rapid shots toward the silhouette on the rim.

A scream echoed from above, followed by the heavy, crashing sound of a body tumbling through burned joists and hitting the flooded floor with a massive splash.

"Two more on the east ledge!" Marco yelled, leaning out from behind an iron pillar to fire a controlled burst from his submachine gun. "Boss, we're pinned in a fishbowl! If they drop a grenade down here, we're done!"

"Finish the lock!" Adrian roared at Wren. His face was spattered with gray brick dust, his eyes burning with an animal rage she had never seen in a Kane. "Julianna! Finish it!"

Wren didn't look at the gunfight. The terror that had paralyzed her for ten years seemed to snap, replaced by the cold, survival-hardened focus of a woman who had fought off winter packs of dogs for crusts of bread. She slammed her palm against the fourth dial, spinning it counter-clockwise until the brass clicked with a heavy, internal *thud*.

*Ker-chunk.*

The iron lid popped open two inches, releasing a blast of dry, hermetically sealed air that smelled of ozone and seventy-year-old paper.

Adrian didn't wait. He shoved the heavy lid back, reached into the dark cavity, and pulled out an aluminum courier case, followed by a thick, ribbon-tied bundle of vellum documents sealed with blue wax.

"Got it!" Adrian shouted. "Marco! Culvert! Now!"

"Moving!" Marco fired another burst into the rafters, suppressing the remaining shooter, then slid down the mound of debris into the stagnant water.

A bullet struck the stone inches from Adrian’s boots as he pulled Wren down the slope. They hit the water together. Wren didn't hesitate; she dove straight toward the low arch of the drainage culvert.

Behind them, an explosion ripped through the upper ruins—a concussion grenade meant to clear the cistern. The shockwave threw Adrian forward onto the slime-slick stones of the tunnel mouth, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending a searing spear of agony through his stitched side.

He grunted, his vision blurring gray.

"Adrian!"

Small hands grabbed the heavy collar of his tactical coat. Wren wasn't hiding now. She dug her heels into the mud of the culvert floor, her teeth bared, hauling his two-hundred-pound frame through the opening with the frantic, terrifying strength of someone who refused to let the darkness take her twice.

"Move!" she screamed into his ear. "Adrian, move your legs! Don't you dare die in this house!"

The cold water washed over his face, snapping his consciousness back into focus. He drove his boots into the stone, scrambling through the dark tunnel alongside her while Marco covered their rear, sending single, echoing shots back into the cistern.

When they broke out onto the beach, the winter sea hit them with freezing fury.

The Sikorsky was hovering ten feet above the surf, the crew chief leaning out with a rescue sling. High on the bluffs, two hundred yards away, black-clad figures were running toward the cliff edge, raising rifles.

"Hook her first!" Adrian roared, shoving Wren toward the crew chief as the helicopter dipped into the spray.

"Adrian, no!" Wren screamed, clutching his lapels.

"Hook her!"

Marco snapped the carabiner onto Wren’s harness and slapped the cable. The winch screamed, hoisting her into the air through the blinding cloud of sea salt and rotor wash just as a hail of automatic gunfire chipped the wet sand around Adrian’s feet.

Adrian grabbed the second cable, his arm hooking through the loop. "Up! Up!"

The helicopter banked violently out toward the open water of the Sound, its engines roaring at maximum pitch. Hanging beneath the belly of the machine, suspended between the freezing sea and the gray winter sky, Adrian looked up.

Wren was leaning out of the open cabin door, her cropped hair whipping wild in the wind, reaching down toward him with both hands, her face streaked with tears and gunpowder.