THE MOMENT THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE CALLED ME “A WORTHLESS LITTLE MAID,” I PLACED A HAND-SEWN BLACK TIE BESIDE HIS CHAMPAGNE GLASS DURING HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER—BECAUSE THE GRANDFATHER WHO RAISED HIM HAD BEEN TOLD HIS OLD SUIT WAS TOO EMBARRASSING TO BE SEEN AT THE TABLE.

The underground parking garage felt as cold as a tomb.

The words echoed off the concrete pillars, hanging in the damp air like a death sentence.

Your sweet, loving grandfather was the one driving the hit car.

Dominic’s gun wavered for the first time in his life. He stared at Frank, his dark eyes wide with a horrified, desperate denial.

“Grandpa?” Dominic’s voice cracked. He sounded like a terrified eleven-year-old boy again. “Tell him he’s lying. Tell him it’s a lie.”

Frank didn’t speak. He just squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his deeply lined face, mixing with the blood from a small nick Leo’s knife had made on his neck.

His silence was a confession.

“No,” Dominic whispered, taking a stumbling step backward. “No, you raised me. You loved me.”

“I did love you!” Frank wailed, his voice echoing in the cavernous garage. “I still do! Dominic, please! You have to understand why I did it!”

“You killed my father!” Dominic roared, the grief finally exploding into pure, unadulterated rage. He raised his gun, pointing it not at Leo, but directly at Frank’s chest.

I panicked. I reached into my apron pocket and pulled out the heavy silver watch.

“Dominic, wait!” I screamed, stepping into his line of fire. “He didn’t have a choice!”

Dominic didn’t lower the gun. He glared at me, his eyes completely hollow. “Move, Rachel. He murdered my parents.”

“Your father was a traitor!” I yelled, holding up the bloodstained contract from the watch. “Look at this! The Bellinis sent Frank his own wife’s severed finger! They forced him to sign the hit order on your father because your father was trying to hand the syndicate over to them!”

Dominic froze.

“Your grandfather had to choose between his son, who had already betrayed the family, and his wife, who was being tortured,” I sobbed, tears spilling down my face. “He made the hardest choice a man could ever make. And he has lived in agony every single day to protect you from the truth!”

Dominic slowly lowered the gun, his hands shaking violently. He looked at the contract in my hand, recognizing the Bellini crest.

Leo laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “What a tragic little family reunion. But it doesn’t change anything. I still need the old man’s head to save my kids.”

Leo shifted his grip on the knife, preparing to slit Frank’s throat.

But in that fraction of a second, Frank did something nobody expected.

The frail, eighty-one-year-old man, who had supposedly lived a life of quiet subservience, suddenly shifted his weight, grabbed Leo’s wrist with astonishing speed, and twisted it violently backward.

A sickening snap echoed through the garage as Leo’s wrist broke.

Leo screamed, dropping the knife.

Before Leo could recover, Frank drove his elbow hard into Leo’s ribs, dropping the younger man to his knees.

Frank staggered backward, clutching his own chest, gasping for air. The sudden burst of adrenaline was too much for his failing heart.

Dominic didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward and drove the butt of his handgun into the back of Leo’s skull, knocking the traitor out cold.

Then, Dominic dropped the gun and caught Frank just as the old man collapsed toward the concrete.

“Grandpa! Grandpa, stay with me!” Dominic yelled, cradling Frank’s head in his lap.

Frank’s face was completely gray. He clawed at his chest, his breaths coming in shallow, ragged wheezes.

“My boy,” Frank gasped, reaching up with a trembling hand to touch Dominic’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Dominic wept, pressing his forehead against Frank’s. “I understand. I understand why you did it. Just breathe. Rachel, call an ambulance!”

“No ambulance,” Frank wheezed, grabbing Dominic’s shirt. “The Bellinis… they have doctors everywhere. They’ll kill you.”

“I don’t care!” Dominic shouted.

“Listen to me,” Frank commanded, his voice suddenly firm despite his fading strength. He reached into the torn lining of his suit and pulled out the wax-sealed parchment—the deed to the Brooklyn Ports.

He pressed it into Dominic’s hand.

“Victoria needs this tonight,” Frank gasped. “The Syndicate Commission is meeting at your mansion at 4:00 AM. If she presents this deed, she takes everything.”

“I don’t care about the syndicate,” Dominic cried. “I only care about you.”

Frank smiled, a beautiful, heartbreaking expression of pure love.

“You have to care,” Frank whispered. “Because if Victoria takes the Commission, she will kill Rachel’s mother. And she will never stop hunting you.”

Frank’s hand slowly slipped from Dominic’s chest, falling limply to the concrete floor.

His eyes fluttered shut. His chest stopped moving.

“Grandpa?” Dominic whispered, shaking him gently. “Grandpa, wake up.”

Silence.

“No. No, no, no!” Dominic roared, pulling Frank’s lifeless body against his chest, screaming into the cold, empty parking garage.

I stood frozen, tears streaming down my face, witnessing the destruction of the most powerful man in New York. The grandfather who had sewed his ties, the man who had carried the ultimate sin to protect him, was gone.

I looked at the black cotton tie still knotted around Dominic’s neck. It was soaked with rain and Frank’s blood.

Dominic stayed on the floor for five full minutes, rocking his grandfather’s body.

Then, slowly, he laid Frank down. He took off his expensive suit jacket and draped it over the old man’s face, a final act of reverence.

Dominic stood up.

The grief in his eyes had burned away, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute void. He picked up his handgun from the concrete. He checked the magazine.

He turned to me.

“Rachel.”

“Yes, Dominic?” I whispered, trembling.

“Do you know how to drive a stick shift?”

I nodded slowly.

Dominic pointed to a heavy, armored black muscle car parked in the VIP section of the garage. It was Leo’s car.

“Get in the driver’s seat,” Dominic ordered, picking up the wax-sealed deed from the floor.

“Where are we going?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

Dominic looked at his watch. It was 3:15 AM.

“The Syndicate Commission meets at my house in forty-five minutes,” Dominic said, his voice as cold as ice. “Victoria is going to stand at the head of my table and tell the Five Families that I fled the city like a coward.”