THE MAFIA BOSS SAW THE MAID’S HIDDEN SCARS—THEN THE MAN WHO HURT HER WALKED IN

The underground chamber of the Old Chicago Stock Exchange smelled of damp stone, burning cigar leaves, and old money bathed in bloodshed. It was the ancestral sanctuary of the Five Families, a place where wars were declared and bloodlines were extinguished with the strike of a gavel.

Elena sat in the heavily fortified leather interior of Vincent’s armored Maybach, parked in the subterranean garage. Her hands gripped Lily’s small palms tightly. Two armed guards with submachine guns stood outside the tinted bulletproof glass, while Marco remained by the driver’s door, his hand resting on the holster beneath his jacket.

"You don't have to go in there alone," Elena had whispered to Vincent before he stepped out into the shadows.

He had looked back at her, his hazel-flecked eyes burning with possessive fire, leaning down to press a firm, searing kiss against her trembling lips. *"You are my sanctuary, Elena. But this room requires the devil. Wait for me."*

Inside the vaulted stone council room, four men sat around an ancient circular table of black marble. At the head sat Don Luciano, a withered viper of seventy-five whose rheumy eyes had watched decades of rival dons perish.

Vincent kicked the heavy oak doors open with a bang that echoed like thunder against the stone arches. He did not take off his overcoat. He did not offer a customary sign of respect. He walked directly to the empty seat at the head of the table, pulled out the heavy mahogany chair, and kicked it violently into the wall, shattering its gilded frame into splinters.

The room went dead silent. Luciano’s bodyguards reached inside their coats, but Luciano held up a wrinkled, diamond-ringed hand, sneering at Vincent.

"You show no reverence, Vincent," Luciano rasped, smoke curling from his mouth. "You slaughter a debt collector belonging to the Moretti family at Pier 4, leave his remains in Lake Michigan, and bring the federal heat down on our docks. And for what? A broken maid? A woman who cleans your toilets?"

The silence that followed was suffocating. Vincent placed his gloved palms on the marble table, leaning forward until his face was inches from the old man's.

"Say another word about her," Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously soft, "and I will tear your tongue from your throat and feed it to the fish at Pier 4 before your guards can clear their holsters."

A murmur of shock rippled through the other three dons. Lorenzo Moretti, a slick man in his forties with cold, dead eyes, leaned forward. "Marcus Vance owed us millions, Donati. He was tracking an asset that belonged to us. You executed him, stole his collateral, and now you parade this broken woman around like she's a queen."

"She *is* my queen," Vincent snarled, slamming his fist onto the marble so hard the heavy stone seemed to vibrate. "And Marcus Vance was a rabid dog that I put down for daring to breathe the same air as her. Hear me clearly, Council. Elena Vance is under the absolute protection of the Donati bloodline. Touch a hair on her head, look in her direction, or whisper her name in your filthy backrooms, and I will burn this city to ash with all of you trapped inside."

Luciano let out a dry, rattling laugh. "You think you're invincible, boy? You think Marcus Vance acted alone? You fool. You think he found her in your house by chance?"

Vincent’s posture remained rigid, but a dark flicker crossed his eyes. "What did you say?"

"Marcus was a pawn," Luciano smiled, yellowed teeth gleaming in the dim chandelier light. "He was paid to track her down and flush her out. Someone wanted her out in the open, Vincent. Someone who knows exactly who her father was. And while you were busy playing the heroic knight last night... you brought the real viper straight into your bed."

Before Vincent could draw his weapon, the loud chime of an alarm echoed through the underground parking levels below.

Vincent’s radio crackled to life on his collar, Marco’s frantic voice shouting over the sound of automatic gunfire: