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

Dr. Alistair Chen arrived at midnight under the escort of two armed guards who looked like they hadn't slept in three days.

Chen was an old man, thin, with wire-rimmed glasses and hands that never shook, even when he was sewing up gunshot wounds while federal agents battered the front door. He had been on the Moretti payroll since my father ran the docks.

In the library, under the glare of surgical lamps, he swabbed the inside of my cheek, then gently collected samples from Mateo, Dante, Leo, and Christian. The boys sat in a neat row on the long leather sofa, wrapped in identical woolen blankets, drinking warm milk that Elena had prepared under the watchful eye of three armed guards.

"How long?" I asked, standing by the high glass windows that looked out over the churning black water of Lake Michigan.

"The rapid PCR unit takes ninety minutes for a preliminary twenty-four-marker panel," Chen replied, snapping the vials into the portable centrifuge. "Though, Alejandro... looking at them, you don't need a machine to tell you what they are."

"I don't need the machine for myself, Alistair," I said cold-bloodedly. "I need the paper. Because tomorrow morning, the Five Families will convene at the Cathedral. And when I show them the heirs to the Moretti throne, I will not leave a single shadow of doubt for Marco to hide behind."

Chen paused, his hand hovering over the centrifuge dial. He looked up, his pale eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. "Marco? You think Rossi is behind this?"

"I don't think. I know."

Chen exhaled slowly, shaking his head. "If Marco moves against you with the Commission's backing, it will be a massacre. Half the capos on the North Side owe him money. The Corvo family has been waiting for an opening to retake the freight lines for a decade. If you accuse him without absolute proof—"

"I don't need proof to kill him, Alistair," I said, turning slowly. "I need proof to take his empire from his hands before he dies. I want his men to watch him stripped of his rank, his money, and his skin before they realize there is nowhere left to run."

The centrifuge hummed to life, a low, mechanical whine that filled the book-lined room.

Behind us, the library door opened.

It wasn't a guard. It was Mateo.

He had slipped away from the sofa while the others were dozing. Barefoot, his blue flannel pajamas trailing slightly on the Persian rug, he walked across the floor toward the window where I stood.

I watched him. He stopped two feet away, looking up at the glass where the reflection of the room mingled with the dark fury of the lake outside.

"The bad men have trucks," he said softly.

"They won't come here, Mateo."

"They have big trucks with black windows," he repeated, pointing at the glass. "They came to the farm. They took the cows. They shot Mr. Miller's dog."

A cold knot tightened in my gut. "Who is Mr. Miller?"

"The man who brought the milk," Mateo whispered. "He told Elena to run. Then a man with a red scar on his wrist shot him in the garden."

I leaned down, resting my hands on my knees. "A red scar? What did it look like?"

Mateo reached out with his left hand, using his index finger to trace a jagged shape across the inside of his right wrist. "Like a bird. A bird with no head."

My jaw clenched so hard the enamel of my molars ground together.

A bird with no head.

The personal tattoo of Roberto 'The Crow' Rossi.

Marco’s younger brother.

The pieces fell into place with sickening precision. Marco hadn't just stumbled upon the farm last week. He had known about the boys for months. He had waited until they were four years old—old enough to survive without specialized care, old enough to be presented as trophies or leverage—before sending his brother to harvest them. But Elena had slipped through his net, bringing the children directly to the one place Marco couldn't touch without triggering a full-scale mafia civil war: my doorstep.

"Mateo," I said gently, reaching out. My hand hovered for a second before I rested it against the boy's cheek. His skin was warm, soft, untouched by the rot of the world I commanded. "Did the man with the scar touch you?"

"No," Mateo said. "Elena threw hot water on him. Then we ran through the corn."

I smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. It was the smile of a wolf catching the scent of a wounded deer in deep snow.

"Good," I said. "Elena is a very smart woman."

"Are you our papa?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and fragile, like a drop of water suspended from an icicle.

Across the room, Dr. Chen stopped his work. Elena, who had just stepped back into the library carrying a tray of tea, froze near the doorway.

I looked into Mateo's eyes. I had spent five years believing that everything good in my life had died inside a burning Mercedes on Lake Shore Drive. I had spent five years punishing Chicago for the emptiness inside my ribs, building an empire of fear to drown out the silence of an empty house.

"Yes," I said, my voice steady, deep, and true. "I am your father."

"Will you leave like Mama did?"

"Never," I promised. "The only way I leave you, Mateo, is if they put six feet of dirt over my chest. And even then, I will make sure the men who did it are already in hell waiting for me."

Mateo considered this for a moment. Then he reached out and took my index finger in his small fist.

"Okay," he said simply. "Dante wants to know if there are cookies here."

A dry, cracked laugh escaped my chest—the first time I had laughed since Sofia’s casket was lowered into the earth.