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.

A single gunshot cracked from the upper catwalk, the round pinging off the iron railing inches from my ear. I didn't flinch. I tracked the muzzle flash through the grain dust, raised the Benelli, and fired three rapid, devastating rounds into the darkness above.

A heavy body broke through the safety railing forty feet up, plummeting through the air and landing with a sickening, wet crunch onto the concrete floor below. It was Moretti’s final bodyguard.

Now, there was only Lorenzo.

I climbed the narrow iron spiral staircase leading to the primary observation platform. My footsteps clanged methodically against the metal, a slow, deliberate march toward execution.

At the top of the silo, near the immense discharge chutes that dropped tons of corn into waiting railcars, Lorenzo Moretti sat slumped against an iron support beam. He was clutching his left shoulder, blood soaking through his shearling coat. His customized silver pistol lay five feet away from his trembling fingers, discarded in his agony.

Outside, the gunfire had ceased. The terminal was silent, save for the crackle of burning wreckage and the distant, howling wind off Lake Michigan. Mateo and my men had secured the perimeter. Chicago belonged to me once more, but the prize felt like ashes in my mouth.

I stopped three feet from Lorenzo, lowering the shotgun.

The old don looked up at me, his face pale, sweat beading on his forehead despite the freezing air. He tried to muster a sneering laugh, but it dissolved into a ragged, bloody cough.

“You think you’re a king, Valente,” Lorenzo spat, his eyes wild with malice. “You think you won. But your wife knows what you are. Did she tell you what she said to me on the phone before I ran her off the road?”

My jaw clenched, but I remained silent.

“I offered her an out,” Lorenzo hissed, grinning through his bloodied teeth. “Two days ago. I called her directly. I told her you were sleeping with Hayes. I told her you were going to be indicted within a month. I offered to escort her to Switzerland with ten million dollars of our offshore reserves if she just gave me your security encryptions.”

Lorenzo leaned forward, his eyes burning with venom.

“Do you know what that proud, stubborn bitch told me, Dominic? She laughed in my face. She said, *‘My husband may be a sinner, Lorenzo, but he is ten times the man you will ever be. And I would rather burn in Chicago beside him than sit in paradise with a rat like you.’*”

The words hit me harder than any physical blow ever could. A profound, agonizing ache ripped through my chest, piercing the stone I had built around my heart. Clara had known about Serena. She had known about my betrayal, my infidelity, my pathetic, childish games. And yet, when offered an escape, when offered safety and riches to betray the man who had dishonored her, she had chosen to walk into the fire to defend my worthless name.

“She died for nothing, Dominic,” Lorenzo mocked, his voice weakening as blood loss claimed him. “She died for a man who didn't even have the decency to be at her side when she needed him most. You killed her just as sure as I did.”

I looked down at the pathetic creature bleeding against the iron beam.

“She isn't dead,” I said softly.

Lorenzo’s sneer froze.

“She is fighting for her life in the best hospital in this country,” I continued, my voice chillingly steady. “And she will wake up to find that every man who ever dared to threaten her has been wiped from the face of the earth. Starting with you.”

I did not use the shotgun. I drew my father’s .45 from my holster, pressed the cold muzzle against the center of Lorenzo Moretti’s forehead, and pulled the trigger without blinking.