I HAD POWER, MONEY, AND MEN WHO WOULD KILL FOR ME, BUT NONE OF IT MATTERED WHEN MY WIFE ARRIVED ALONE AND BLEEDING—UNTIL I OPENED HER CRACKED PHONE AND DISCOVERED WHO SHE HAD BEEN MEETING.

Two hours bled into a terrifying eternity under the glaring lights of the waiting room.

Armed men—my inner circle, loyal soldiers in tailored suits—swarmed the third floor of Northwestern Memorial, turning the sterile medical wing into an armed fortress. Doctors and nurses whispered in terror as they passed, but I didn't care. My eyes were fixed on the heavy double doors of the operating suite where Clara’s life was being measured in heartbeats.

Finally, Mateo emerged from the private elevator.

He was my most trusted caporegime, a man who had bled for the Valente name through three turf wars. But as he walked toward me across the polished floor, his face was carved from ash. He looked sick.

I stood up slowly, my legs feeling like lead. “Mateo.”

He stopped two feet away, swallowing hard.

“Tommy’s dead.”

The air rushed out of my lungs as if I’d been kicked by a mule.

Tommy was our most reliable driver. For three years, he had been assigned exclusively to Clara whenever she drove into the city. He drove an up-armored, bulletproof Lincoln Navigator specifically engineered to withstand a military-grade ambush.

“How?” I whispered, the word tasting like copper.

“He was driving Clara back from a charity auction in the Loop,” Mateo said, his voice dropping to a harsh, trembling murmur. “An armored commercial SUV—stolen plates, heavy steel plating welded to the front—rammed them at nearly seventy miles an hour on a blind curve. They hit the driver’s side directly, crushing Tommy instantly. Then they forced Clara’s vehicle off the overpass.”

My jaw locked so hard my teeth ached. “Where?”

Mateo hesitated, his eyes darting away for a split second.

“The South Side.”

The blood froze in my veins.

The South Side was Moretti territory. Lorenzo Moretti was a ruthless, aging monster who controlled the docks, the unions, and the drug trade south of Roosevelt Road. He and I had maintained an uneasy, blood-soaked truce for five years, but Moretti had been gunning for my territory, looking for any excuse to spark an all-out war.

Striking my wife was a declaration of total annihilation.

Yet, as the puzzle pieces began to assemble in my hyper-focused, adrenaline-fueled brain, something didn't fit. Something was fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong.

Clara hated city traffic. She never drove into the South Side, especially not late at night. She avoided those neighborhoods with the precision of someone who knew the invisible borders of Chicago’s underworld.

She had no business being down there.

I stared hard at Mateo, my eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.

“Why was she down there, Mateo?” I demanded, grabbing his lapel. “Tommy knew better than to take that route. Who told them to go south?”

Mateo didn't pull away. Instead, his expression darkened into something deeply conflicted. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out an object wrapped in a biohazard evidence bag.