"I texted my brother for help after my boyfriend broke my ribs—a stranger replied: 'Not Ben. But I'm on my way.'"

Inside a high-security, soundproof office beneath Pier 42, Trent sat bound tightly to an iron chair, his face bruised, his broken wrist wrapped in crude bandages.

Standing five feet away, bound to a second chair, looking pale, sweating profusely, and trembling in terror, was my brother, Ben.

Standing between them, wearing a dark wool overcoat, holding a silver sidearm, flanked by four tactical operators, was Damon.

"Damon! Please!" Ben stammered, his voice cracking into a high, frantic squeak as he looked at the king of Chicago's underground. "I didn't know Trent was beating her like this! I told her to leave him months ago! I'm a paramedic! I save lives!"

Damon walked slowly across the concrete floor, stopping two inches from Ben's chair. He didn't raise his voice. His deep baritone was smooth, cold, and carrying an absolute, terrifying weight that made both men freeze.

"You told your sister that she was choosing her own funeral, Ben," Damon quoted deadpan, pulling his encrypted phone from his coat, displaying the text records his cyber team had recovered from my old phone. "You told her not to expect you to carry her coffin."

Ben's jaw sagged open in total, speech-bound horror. "I... I was angry! She kept going back to him!"

"She went back to him because she had no money, no shelter, and no family to hold her hand!" Damon roared, his baritone echoing through the concrete room like thunder. "A real brother doesn't offer a coffin, Ben! A real brother burns the house down to keep his sister warm!"

He turned his storm-gray eyes slowly onto Trent, who was cowering in his iron chair, clutching his broken wrist.

"And you," Damon spoke, stepping close to Trent, looking down into his pale, pathetic face with a look of chilling disdain. "You kicked a five-foot-four woman across a floor because your beer was warm."

Trent wept pathetically, thrashing against his restraints. "I'm sorry, Mr. Vance! Please! I'll leave Chicago! I'll never touch her again! Just let me go!"

Damon pulled out a thick legal document, dropping it flat onto the table in front of Trent.

"That is a full confession to felony domestic battery, extortion, and attempted murder," Damon revealed flatly. "You are signing it now. And thirty minutes from now... you will be transferred to the Cook County Department of Corrections to serve twenty years in a maximum-security cell."

Trent grabbed the pen with his trembling uninjured hand, signing his name across the parchment in frantic, desperate strokes.

Damon took the signed document, handing it to his legal director, Marco.