My dying wife was rushed past me covered in blood while I sat inside Northwestern Memorial Hospital holding my mistress’s hand. But the sickening humiliation of being caught beside another woman was nothing compared to what came next: Clara had been deliberately run off the road, and the reason she was on the South Side threatened to destroy everything I thought I knew.

The rain over Chicago had turned into an icy sleet by two in the morning, slicking the industrial corridors of the South Side with a mirror-like sheen. My black Mercedes Maybach cut through the desolate stretches of 114th Street like a wraith, accompanied by three unmarked Suburbans carrying eight of my most trusted shooters. We were entering Moretti territory without an invitation, without an envoy, and without the slightest intention of observing syndicate treaties.

We arrived at the salvage yard near Torrence Avenue. The perimeter was ringed by rusted corrugated metal and stacks of flattened vehicles that loomed like prehistoric monoliths in the dark. Mateo brought the car to a halt two blocks out, cutting the headlights.

“Thermal scopes show four men inside the main office,” Mateo reported from the front passenger seat, glancing down at a digital tablet. “Two more patrolling the perimeter with submachine guns. The Freightliner that hit Tommy is parked beneath a blue tarp behind the crusher.”

“No survivors on the perimeter,” I said coldly. “We take the yard boss alive. The rest are fertilizer.”

We moved through the sleet with practiced, lethal efficiency. My men were not undisciplined street soldiers; they were ex-military contractors trained to operate in complete silence. Within three minutes, the muffled *thwip-thwip* of suppressed carbines echoed softly against the rain. The two sentries collapsed into the muddy slush before they could raise their radios, their blood washing away into the industrial runoff.

I kicked the rusted metal door of the salvage office inward with a splintering crack.

The room smelled of stale coffee, cheap tobacco, and wet grease. Three men leaped from a laminate poker table, reaching for holstered pistols, but my men poured in behind me, their weapons barking instantly. Two of the mechanics dropped instantly, drilled cleanly through the center of mass. The third—a burly, scarred enforcer named Vinnie ‘The Anvil’ Cole, a known hitman for Moretti’s South Side operations—dived behind an iron desk, firing a single wild shot from a .45 revolver before Mateo flanked him, driving the butt of his rifle into Cole's jaw.

Cole hit the floor with a wet thud, spitting blood and teeth. Mateo pinned him down with a heavy combat boot pressed against his throat.

I walked slowly into the center of the room, my polished Italian shoes crunching over shattered glass and spent shell casings. I pulled a wooden chair toward the bleeding man and sat down, resting my hands on my knees, staring down at him with dead eyes.

“Dominic…” Cole wheezed, his eyes wide with recognition and sheer terror. “You can’t be here… this is Lorenzo’s dirt… you’re breaking the accord…”

“The accord died the second you rammed your steel into my wife’s car, Vinnie,” I replied, my voice chillingly calm.

“I didn't drive it!” he spat, blood bubbling on his lips. “I just chopped the plates! I swear to God, Valente, I was just following orders from the top!”

“Who gave the order, Vinnie?”

“Lorenzo! Lorenzo and your guy! They said she had the ledgers—they said if she made it back north with those documents, the whole joint operation was blown!”

“What joint operation?” I asked, leaning closer.

Cole hesitated, his eyes shifting toward the open door where his dead comrades lay sprawled in the mud. Mateo pressed his boot down harder, cutting off the man’s windpipe until his face turned a mottled purple.

“Talk,” Mateo growled.

Cole clawed at Mateo’s boot, gasping frantically. When Mateo eased the pressure slightly, Cole sobbed into the filthy linoleum. “The docks. Cassian sold you out three months ago. He gave Moretti the security codes for the river terminals. They’ve been moving uncut narcotics through your grain silos. Clara found the paper trail because your firm’s accountants flagged the dummy shell company Cassian set up in Delaware. She came down here tonight because she thought she was meeting the auditor to buy the original hard drive before Cassian wiped it.”

A cold fury settled into my marrow. Clara had walked directly into their crosshairs because she believed she could shield me from a corporate coup. She had taken on the entire criminal underworld of Chicago armed with nothing more than her dignity and a checkbook, while I had wallowed in the cheap adulation of a paid distraction.

“Where is the hard drive now?” I demanded.

“Cassian took it,” Cole whimpered. “He was here an hour ago. He inspected Tommy’s car to make sure Clara wasn't breathing, grabbed the briefcase from her trunk, and drove toward his penthouse in the Gold Coast.”

I stood up. I didn't say another word.

Mateo looked at me, waiting for the signal.

I turned my back and walked toward the exit into the freezing rain. Behind me, the suppressed crack of Mateo’s pistol ended Vinnie Cole’s miserable existence.