Chicago Ruthless, #4

Keres

Name: Keres (Chicago Ruthless, #4)
Author: Sadie Kincaid

by Sadie Kincaid

Genre

Crime, Contemporary, Romance, Thriller

Contents

Overview

Keres follows Keres Sideris, a survivor of childhood trafficking who has spent her adult life turning trauma into a private war. After years of hunting the people connected to her abuse, she sets her sights on the powerful Moretti family, convinced their criminal empire holds the answers she needs and the blood debt she intends to collect.

Her path pulls her into the orbit of Ace Giarrusso and Romeo Castelli, bodyguards loyal to the Morettis whose attraction to Keres complicates every move she makes. As revenge, desire, loyalty, and family secrets collide, Keres must decide whether justice means destruction or whether survival can become something larger: protection, belonging, and a future built for others like her.

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

As a child, Keres is rescued from a nailed-shut box in a van after horrific abuse, alongside an older girl, Phoenix. A gentle rescuer covers her, promises safety, and calls her a warrior, giving her the first fragile reason to trust. Twelve years later, Keres has shaped that survival into vengeance. She tortures trafficker Oscar Lang for the name of his hidden partner, but Oscar dies before revealing it. Frustrated, Keres turns her focus to Chicago’s Moretti family, whose bloodline and old trafficking ties she believes are central to what happened to her and Phoenix.

Keres maintains a caring public face through Father Mike’s church while hiding her violent mission. She surveils the Morettis and chooses a route into their world through Joey Moretti’s bodyguards, Ace Giarrusso and Romeo Castelli. At Molino’s bar, she seduces them, goes home with them, and deepens the connection through intense consensual intimacy. Once they trust her enough to sleep beside her, she drugs them and clones Romeo’s phone, turning desire into access. Ace soon discovers inconsistencies in her cover story, but his suspicion is tangled with attraction.

Using intercepted information, Keres plans to abduct Joey at a charity event. A last-minute change sends Mia Moretti, Lorenzo Moretti’s pregnant wife, in Joey’s place. Keres adapts, posing as catering staff, spilling wine on Mia, isolating her under a cleaning pretext, and kidnapping her through a staff route. With Phoenix’s help, she hides Mia as leverage, insisting that Mia remain unharmed. Keres then contacts the Morettis and demands that Dante and Lorenzo help identify Oscar Lang’s remaining trafficking partner.

At a church meeting, Keres confronts Dante, Lorenzo, and Max DiMarco. Lorenzo’s fury intensifies when he reveals Mia is pregnant, and Keres draws a firm moral line: she does not intend to hurt Mia or the baby. The Morettis deny involvement in their father’s trafficking but agree to search old connections. Lorenzo then forces a bargain: Ace and Romeo will escort Keres while she follows the leads, and Keres must provide proof that Mia is alive. Their alliance is bitter, charged, and unstable, but each side needs the other.

The hunt first leads to Jeremiah Boone in Harrisburg. Keres violently interrogates him and learns only that he worked with Oscar Lang and Dominik Pushkin; Romeo kills Boone when he proves useless. Ace later calls Lorenzo and learns the painful truth that Lorenzo’s late father was involved in trafficking, though Lorenzo insists Ace was never part of that business. A New York lead from lawyer Nathan James sends the trio after Mason Michaelson, a transport contact tied to Lang. Ace interrogates Michaelson alone and extracts the concealed partner’s name: Theo Wynn. Realizing Michaelson knowingly profited from trafficking, Ace kills him but withholds Theo’s name from Keres to keep control until Mia is safe.

Meanwhile, Father Mike discovers what Keres has done and reveals the foundation of her vendetta is flawed: Salvatore Moretti was monstrous, but his sons were not responsible for her abduction. He also tells Lorenzo where Mia is and warns Phoenix. Keres races to the safe house, fearing Phoenix’s instability. Ace and Romeo arrive first and find Phoenix holding Mia at knifepoint. Keres enters armed but frightened, trying to save both Mia and Phoenix. When Lorenzo arrives, the standoff escalates. Phoenix moves to stab Mia, and Keres throws herself in the way, taking a deep wound. Phoenix is shot dead, Mia and the baby survive, and Keres collapses from blood loss and grief.

Keres wakes in the Moretti mansion, saved by Kat, Romeo, and Lorenzo. Phoenix is dead and buried by Father Mike. Keres admits the deeper reason for her hatred: Salvatore Moretti sold her mother while pregnant and was Keres’s father. Lorenzo confirms Dante killed Salvatore and spares Keres because Mia asked for mercy and because Keres saved her. In the following days, Keres remembers that Lorenzo was the rescuer who pulled her from the van years ago. He acknowledges their half-sibling bond and shows remorse for the family’s debt. He also sends Ace and Romeo to take Keres to her mother Kendra Sideris’s grave in Jackson, where Keres finally learns her mother was buried with honor beneath a headstone calling her a true warrior.

At the grave, Keres tells Ace and Romeo the full story: Kendra was sold to Hank Sizemore while pregnant after Salvatore raped her; traffickers later killed Hank and Kendra, took eleven-year-old Keres, and delivered her to the buyer who already held Phoenix. The confession shifts Ace and Romeo from enemies into protectors. Together they track Theo Wynn to Fort Wayne. Their infiltration is interrupted by Theo’s children, forcing them to hide. When Keres enters Theo’s supposed office, she realizes too late it is a panic room. Theo seals them inside, overpowers her, and threatens Ace and Romeo outside. Alone with him, Keres feigns surrender, then chokes and blinds him, killing him before opening the room and breaking down.

Ace and Romeo find Keres shattered beside Theo’s body, clean and comfort her, and bring her through the aftermath. Their relationship, already charged by desire and conflict, becomes openly emotional and possessive. Keres finally accepts love from both men, though she briefly leaves them to face Lorenzo and protect them from punishment over Mia. Lorenzo refuses revenge, reveals he expected her return, and offers her a choice: escape to Greece or accept a decommissioned convent to build the refuge she once dreamed of for women and children like herself, Phoenix, and her mother.

Keres chooses the refuge. Ace and Romeo, fired by Lorenzo but financially cushioned, find her at the convent and offer to run security and help renovate. Their personal and professional lives merge as Keres accepts that the future can be “ours.” Five months later, the Phoenix Center opens. Keres apologizes to Mia, who urges her toward self-forgiveness, and the center receives its first residents: Ellie and her younger siblings Jayden, Melody, and Iris, newly freed from abuse. Keres, Ace, and Romeo build a safe home around them.

Months later, Keres is fully woven into the Moretti family, and she, Ace, and Romeo begin considering what family might mean for them, including fostering or adoption. Four years later, they have become a stable family with Jayden, Melody, and Iris. Ellie returns as a top graduate, grateful for the love and security that changed her life. Surrounded by Ace, Romeo, the children, and the wider Moretti clan, Keres honors Phoenix’s memory and recognizes that her life has transformed from vengeance into belonging, protection, and hope.

Characters

Keres Sideris

The protagonist, a trafficking survivor and Salvatore Moretti’s daughter, who begins the story driven by revenge against the Morettis and the men tied to her abuse. Her arc moves from isolation, violence, and mistrust toward love with Ace and Romeo, reconciliation with her half siblings, and founding the Phoenix Center for vulnerable women and children.
Phoenix

Keres’s fellow survivor and closest companion from childhood captivity, whose instability and hatred of the Morettis shape Keres’s urgency and guilt. She helps hold Mia hostage but becomes a tragic embodiment of trauma that Keres cannot fully save.
Ace Giarrusso

One of Joey Moretti’s bodyguards and Romeo’s partner, initially used by Keres as a way into the Moretti circle. His controlled, protective nature drives the search for Mia and Theo Wynn, and his relationship with Keres evolves from suspicion and anger into committed love.
Romeo Castelli

Ace’s lover and fellow Moretti bodyguard, whose humor, volatility, and own abuse history help him connect with Keres. He supports Ace in the rescue and revenge plots and becomes part of Keres’s chosen family and future.
Lorenzo Moretti

A Moretti leader, Mia’s husband, and Keres’s half brother. At first he is Keres’s enemy because she kidnaps Mia, but he is later revealed as the man who rescued Keres as a child and becomes a key figure in her path toward truth and repair.
Mia Moretti

Lorenzo’s pregnant wife, abducted by Keres as leverage when Joey is unavailable. Her survival, mercy toward Keres, and later support of the Phoenix Center make her central to Keres’s shift from revenge to restitution.
Dante Moretti

Lorenzo’s brother and a major Moretti authority figure who helps manage the crisis after Mia’s abduction. He is also identified as the one who killed Salvatore Moretti, connecting him to the family’s attempt to end their father’s crimes.
Joey Moretti

The intended target of Keres’s charity-event abduction and the protected client of Ace and Romeo. Her absence causes Keres to take Mia instead, setting the main hostage crisis in motion.
Max DiMarco

Joey’s husband and a powerful Moretti ally who helps coordinate security and the search for Mia. He also advises Ace during the panic-room crisis and remains part of the family network around Keres’s later life.
Father Mike

The priest and caretaker who helped Keres and Phoenix after their rescue and anchors Keres’s public life at the church. He later forces Keres to confront the truth that the Moretti sons were not responsible for her abduction.
Salvatore Moretti

The deceased Moretti patriarch whose trafficking crimes and rape of Keres’s mother created the central bloodline betrayal behind Keres’s vendetta. Though dead before the main action, his actions drive Keres’s hatred and the family’s reckoning.
Kendra Sideris

Keres’s mother, trafficked while pregnant and later killed protecting her daughter. Her memory, stories, and grave become crucial to Keres’s identity and healing.
Theo Wynn

The hidden trafficking partner Keres has spent years trying to identify. He is the final target of the revenge plot, trapping Keres in his panic room before she kills him.
Oscar Lang

A trafficker tied to Keres’s past whom she tortures for the name of his partner. His death before revealing Theo Wynn forces Keres to seek leverage through the Morettis.
Jeremiah Boone

A Harrisburg laundromat owner connected to Oscar Lang and Dominik Pushkin. His interrogation yields partial information but not Theo’s name, escalating tension between Keres and Ace over methods.
Mason Michaelson

A former container-yard owner and transport contact tied to Lang’s trafficking operation. Under Ace’s interrogation, he reveals Theo Wynn’s name and is killed for his complicity.
Nathan James

A powerful New York attorney who provides hacker-sourced leads for the Morettis and Keres. His information points the trio toward Mason Michaelson and helps confirm Keres’s lineage.
Jessie

Nathan James’s hacker, responsible for sourcing key intelligence connected to Mia’s disappearance and Mason Michaelson. Jessie also analyzes evidence taken from Jeremiah Boone’s apartment.
Kat Moretti

Dante’s wife and a former nurse who treats Keres after the basement standoff. Her care and support help persuade Lorenzo to spare Keres.
Raven

Lorenzo’s young daughter, whose fear of a spider leads Lorenzo to repeat the warrior mantra from Keres’s childhood rescue. The moment triggers Keres’s memory that Lorenzo was the man who saved her.
Sabine

A Moretti family friend who lives on the Jackson property where Keres’s mother is buried. She guides Keres to the grave and explains how the Morettis laid Kendra to rest.
Hank Sizemore

The man to whom Kendra Sideris was sold while pregnant with Keres. His murder during Keres’s childhood abduction forms part of the traumatic history Keres recounts at her mother’s grave.
Ellie

The Phoenix Center’s first resident, an eighteen-year-old who escapes an abusive father with her younger siblings. Over time she becomes part of Keres, Ace, and Romeo’s family and later returns as a successful graduate.
Jayden

Ellie’s younger brother, first welcomed to the Phoenix Center as a seven-year-old curious about bikes and candy. Four years later, he is part of Keres, Ace, and Romeo’s family.
Melody

One of Ellie’s younger sisters, quiet and watchful when she arrives at the Phoenix Center. In the epilogue, her lively presence shows the stability the family has gained.
Iris

Ellie’s youngest sister, shy when she first reaches the Phoenix Center and later joyful and fearless within Keres’s family. Her growth helps demonstrate the long-term success of the refuge.
Jade

The social worker who alerts Keres that Ellie and her siblings are arriving during the Phoenix Center opening. Her call turns the center’s mission from a public event into immediate real work.
Angelo

Mia and Lorenzo’s baby, born after the kidnapping crisis. Watching Mia care for him prompts Keres, Ace, and Romeo to discuss children and their possible future family.

Themes

Keres is driven by revenge, but its deeper movement is from survival toward belonging. Keres begins as a child trapped in a box, rescued by a voice that tells her warriors conquer fear; as an adult, she has turned that lesson into armor, hunting traffickers with ferocious precision. Her pursuit of Oscar Lang, Jeremiah Boone, Mason Michaelson, and finally Theo Wynn shows vengeance as both fuel and prison: it keeps her alive, but it also narrows her world until every person becomes leverage or threat.

Trauma and the cost of survival recur through Keres, Phoenix, Romeo, Mia, and even the rescued children at the Phoenix Center. Keres’s nightmares, claustrophobia in Theo’s house, and inability to accept comfort reveal that rescue does not end harm. Phoenix embodies another path trauma can take: pain hardened into obsession, culminating in the basement standoff where she nearly kills Mia and the unborn child. Romeo’s confession about his abusive stepfather and mother’s suicide deepens the book’s insistence that broken people are not all broken the same way.

Family is redefined beyond blood, yet blood still matters. Keres believes Moretti blood is a curse, tied to Salvatore’s crimes against her mother. The revelation that Lorenzo was her rescuer, not her enemy, transforms inheritance from contamination into responsibility. Her half-sibling bond with Lorenzo, Mia’s unexpected mercy, and the Moretti family’s eventual welcome complicate the simple division between monsters and saviors.

Love becomes a counterforce to control. Keres initially uses Ace and Romeo as tools, drugging and surveilling them, while they respond with anger, suspicion, and desire. Over time, their triad develops through consent, confrontation, care, and difficult honesty. The recurring tension between Keres’s independence and Ace and Romeo’s protectiveness dramatizes the book’s central emotional question: can someone who survived by belonging to no one choose attachment without losing herself?

Finally, the Phoenix Center turns the novel’s violence into legacy. Keres rejects the fantasy of escape to an island and instead builds a refuge for women and children like her, Phoenix, Ellie, and Kendra. The epilogue’s adopted, fostered, and chosen family answers the prologue’s terror with abundance: not forgetting the dead, but making safety in their name.