THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME CARRY HIS LATE MOTHER’S WEDDING GOWN THROUGH THE ENGAGEMENT DINNER WITH ONE ARM HELD AGAINST MY SIDE—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE FELL IN THE CEDAR ROOM,” BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED WHY I WAS HURT.

The ballroom was bathed in the cold, opulent light of crystal chandeliers, but the atmosphere was suffocatingly dark.

Victor Moretti stood behind Vanessa’s guards, looking impeccably dressed and entirely unbothered by the fact that he was standing next to the woman who had supposedly declared war on his family.

“Victor,” Luca breathed, stepping out of the elevator, his gun raised but his eyes wide with betrayal. “You’re working with her?”

Victor chuckled, a dry, hollow sound that echoed across the polished marble floor.

“I’m not working with her, Luca,” Victor corrected smoothly, walking slowly toward the center of the room. “I’m using her. Just like I used your mother thirty years ago.”

He stopped a few feet away from Vanessa, aiming his suppressed pistol casually toward the floor.

“Vanessa thought she orchestrated a brilliant coup tonight by killing her father and blaming it on a hit,” Victor sneered, looking at the terrified woman. “But she was too stupid to realize I was the one who gave her the idea. I leaked Rosa’s journals to her. I knew she’d read them, panic, and try to take over the Bellini syndicate to protect herself from the Rossis.”

Vanessa stared at Victor, her arrogance completely shattered, realizing she had been nothing more than a pawn in a much larger, older game.

“Why?” Luca demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Why orchestrate a war between our families again?”

“Because of him,” Victor said coldly, pointing his gun directly at Lorenzo Rossi.

Lorenzo didn't flinch. He stood tall in his weather-beaten trench coat, looking at the man who had murdered his lover.

“Thirty years ago, Rosa convinced the Commission that Lorenzo was dead,” Victor explained, his voice thick with decades of festering resentment. “She brokered a peace that left me out in the cold. I was supposed to inherit the Moretti empire when your father died, Luca. But Rosa took it. And she gave the South Side ports to Lorenzo’s remaining lieutenants to keep the peace.”

Victor’s eyes burned with manic fury.

“She sold my inheritance for a bastard child!” Victor yelled, pointing the gun at me in the elevator.

I flinched, shrinking back against the mirrored wall.

“So I killed her,” Victor confessed smoothly, finally admitting to the crime that had haunted Luca his entire life. “And I waited thirty years for Lorenzo to surface so I could kill him too, and take back what is rightfully mine.”

He looked at Vanessa.

“And thanks to this idiot girl’s ambition,” Victor smiled cruelly, “the Bellini syndicate is now leaderless. When I kill Lorenzo, Luca, and the bastard girl tonight, I will tell the Commission that Vanessa orchestrated the massacre. I will execute her for treason, and I will absorb both the Moretti and Bellini empires by morning.”

It was a masterstroke of evil. Victor had manipulated two syndicates into destroying each other, leaving him as the sole survivor and supreme ruler of Chicago’s underworld.

“You’re a monster,” Luca whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger of his weapon.

“I’m a pragmatist, nephew,” Victor corrected.

He raised his suppressed pistol, aiming directly at Lorenzo’s chest.

“Goodbye, Lorenzo,” Victor said softly.

“No!” I screamed, tearing out of the elevator before I could stop myself.

I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a weapon. I just couldn't watch my father die again.

I lunged forward, throwing myself blindly toward Lorenzo.

The muted thwip of the suppressed pistol sounded in the massive ballroom.

I braced for the burning impact of a bullet.

But the impact never came.

Instead, a heavy, solid body slammed into me from the side, knocking me violently to the marble floor.

I hit the ground hard, gasping for air, the wind knocked out of me.

I looked up, my vision spinning.

It wasn't Lorenzo who had pushed me.

It was Luca.

He was lying on the floor beside me, clutching his stomach, a dark, rapidly expanding stain blooming across his white dress shirt.

“Luca!” I shrieked, scrambling toward him, pressing my hands frantically over the bleeding wound. “No, no, no!”

“I told you to stay in the elevator,” Luca choked out, a bloody, desperate smile on his face as he looked at me.

“You stupid boy,” Victor sighed, shaking his head in mock disappointment. He aimed the gun down at us. “You always were too soft for this life.”

Victor prepared to fire again.

But before he could pull the trigger, a deafening roar echoed through the ballroom.

It wasn't a gunshot.

It was the sound of the heavy, reinforced glass of the penthouse windows shattering inward with catastrophic force.

Victor and his guards spun around, distracted by the explosion of glass.

Swinging through the shattered window on a heavy tactical rope, dressed in full combat gear, was Marco.

And he wasn't alone.

Dozens of heavily armed Moretti loyalists poured through the broken windows, repelling down from the roof above, opening fire on Victor’s guards with devastating precision.

Chaos erupted in the ballroom.

“Cover them!” Lorenzo roared, pulling a heavy revolver from his trench coat and firing over our heads, pinning Victor down behind a marble pillar.

“Get him out of here, Hannah!” Lorenzo yelled, providing covering fire.

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed Luca by the lapels of his ruined suit jacket, fueled by pure, blinding adrenaline, and hauled him backward toward the elevator.

“I’ve got you,” I sobbed, dragging his heavy weight across the slick marble floor.

Luca groaned, trying to push himself up with his good arm. “Leave me, Hannah. Run.”

“I’m not leaving my brother!” I screamed, hauling him the final few feet and collapsing backward into the elevator car.

I slammed my bloody hand against the button panel, hitting the button for the underground parking garage.

The heavy metal doors began to slide shut.

Through the narrowing gap, I saw Victor break from cover, raising his gun toward the elevator.

But before he could fire, Lorenzo stepped directly into his path, blocking his shot.

The two older men raised their weapons at each other, locking eyes in a final, deadly standoff.

The elevator doors closed, sealing us in silence.

The car plunged downward.

I dropped to my knees beside Luca, pressing my apron against his bleeding stomach, crying hysterically as his skin grew pale and cold.

“Stay with me, Luca,” I pleaded, pressing harder, the blood soaking through the white fabric. “Please, you promised me we were family now.”

Luca looked up at me, his breathing shallow and ragged, but his dark eyes were filled with a profound, terrifying peace.

He reached into his jacket pocket with a trembling, bloodstained hand, and pulled out a small, heavy object.

He pressed it into my hand, closing my fingers tightly over it.

It was a small, ornate iron key.

“The safe house,” Luca gasped, his eyes beginning to lose focus. “If I don't make it… use this key. There is something hidden in the floorboards of the safe house.”

“I’m not leaving you to go to a safe house!” I cried, shaking my head violently.

“You have to,” Luca choked out, blood speckling his lips. “Victor didn't just steal the money thirty years ago, Hannah. He stole something else from your mother.”