The most feared mafia boss in Chicago came home three hours early and found his housekeeper secretly feeding four identical little boys at the dining table no one had touched since his wife died. He was about to demand an explanation when one boy pointed at him and asked, “Elena, is that the man from the picture?” The spoon fell from her hand. My name is Alejandro Moretti. For twenty years, men across Chicago had learned

The garage was spinning.

I stood there, staring at the ghost of my wife.

Sofia.

Alive.

Breathing. Holding four boys who shared my face.

"You're dead," I whispered, the words scraping against my throat. "I buried you."

Sofia stood up, gently pushing the boys behind her legs.

"You buried an empty casket full of sand, Alejandro," she said, her voice raspy. The sweet, melodic tone I remembered was gone. "Marcus bribed the mortician. He burned the car so badly there was nothing left to identify."

My chest heaved. Five years of agony. Five years of waking up screaming in empty rooms.

"Why?" I asked, taking a step toward her.

She flinched. She actually stepped back, shielding the boys from me.

That movement shattered my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.

"Because of the train ticket," she said softly.

I stopped. "What train ticket?"

Sofia reached into her trench coat. She pulled out a faded, wrinkled piece of paper. It was a first-class ticket from Chicago to Montreal. Dated five years ago.

"Do you remember the night before I 'died'?" she asked. "You came home drunk. You had blood on your shirt. You threw this ticket on my dresser and told me to pack."

"I was trying to protect you," I said, my voice rising. "The feds were closing in. The Five Families were threatening a war. I needed you out of the city!"

"But you didn't tell me that!" she yelled, tears finally spilling over her scarred cheeks. "You just demanded obedience. Like I was one of your soldiers! And when I asked you what the blood was from, you hit me."

Silence fell over the garage.

I stared at her.

"I have never raised a hand to you in my life, Sofia."

Her face hardened. "Don't lie to me. I woke up on the floor with a bruised jaw. That was the night I realized I was pregnant. That was the night I realized I couldn't let my children grow up in a house where violence was the only language spoken."

I shook my head slowly. I felt completely unmoored from reality.

"Sofia... I was in a shootout that night. A rival family ambushed my car. I came home bleeding from a grazing wound to my arm. I gave you the ticket. You told me you wouldn't go. We argued. I slammed the door and left."

She stared at me, searching my eyes.

"You hit me," she repeated, but her voice was smaller now. Less certain.

"No," a new voice echoed through the garage.

We all turned.

Marcus stood in the doorway of the tunnel, his gun still in his hand, though lowered.

He looked at Sofia with a heavy, sorrowful expression.

"He didn't hit you, Sofia," Marcus said quietly. "I did."

Sofia gasped, pulling the boys closer. "What?"

"Alejandro left the room," Marcus confessed, stepping fully into the light. "I came in right after him. I struck you. I told you it was Alejandro's orders because you refused to leave. I made you believe your husband was a monster."

Answer one. Sofia ran because she thought I had abused her.

But the room instantly felt colder.

"Why, Marcus?" I asked, raising my gun again, aiming it right between his eyes. "Why would you do that to her?"

Before Marcus could answer, the heavy metal roll-up door of the garage exploded inward with a deafening screech of tearing metal.

Dante’s SUV smashed into the garage, pinning my Mercedes against the wall.

Gunfire erupted instantly.

"Get them down!" I roared, throwing myself over Sofia and the boys.

Concrete dusted the air as bullets chewed the walls.

Marcus didn't take cover. He stood in the open, firing his weapon furiously at the SUV, trying to buy us time.

A burst of machine-gun fire caught him in the chest.

Marcus fell backward, landing hard on the cement.

Dante stepped out of the smoke, flanked by four men with assault rifles.