Dr. Mercer looked down at the ultrasound monitor, her fingers moving with practiced ease over the trackball. The quiet hum of the machine filled the room, punctuated only by the rhythmic, heavy breathing of Dorian Cross standing near the door. He hadn't sat down once. His tall frame cast a long, imposing shadow across the sterile room, hand resting near the button of his suit jacket—a posture born of years of constant vigilance.

An hour later, the heavy rain had tapered off into a thick, misty fog rolling off Lake Michigan. Pier 42 stood silent—a massive, abandoned shipping facility that had served as the central hub for Victor Valenti’s illegal weapons imports for over two decades.

Inside the sprawling warehouse, Victor Valenti sat at a glass table on a raised catwalk, sipping scotch from a crystal tumbler. Surrounding him were twelve of his top lieutenants and twenty heavily armed guards.

"Caleb should have called by now," Victor muttered, checking his diamond-encrusted watch. "It doesn't take an hour to clean up a dead mob boss and his pregnant broad."

"Maybe there was a complication, boss," his lieutenant suggested.

Before Victor could answer, the massive corrugated iron doors of the warehouse were shattered inward with an explosive roar.

A heavy tactical breaching vehicle smashed through the metal gates, sending concrete dust and steel fragments flying across the warehouse floor.

Before the smoke could clear, flashbang grenades rained from the skylights above, detonating in a series of deafening cracks and blinding white light.

Panic erupted. Valenti's men scrambled for cover, firing blindly into the blinding smoke.

Through the haze walked Dorian Cross.

He wore no body armor, no helmet—just his dark trousers, his bloodied dress shirt, and a pair of heavy handguns. Behind him pushed a tide of fifty Cross enforcers, sweeping through the warehouse with military precision, eliminating Valenti's guards before they could even aim.

Dorian walked up the iron stairs toward the catwalk, his expression devoid of mercy, emotion, or fear.

Victor backed away from the table, pulling a small silver revolver from his waistband, his hands shaking violently as his security detail fell one by one on the floor below.

"Dorian!" Victor screamed over the sound of gunfire. "We can talk! We can divide the city! Fifty-fifty! You take the shipping, I take the real estate!"

Dorian didn't stop walking.

"Six months ago," Dorian said, his voice carrying clearly over the carnage below, "you put a hit out on my wife. You told Caleb that when I died, you would make sure she suffered."

"It was business!" Victor shrieked, backing into the railing at the end of the catwalk. "It's just business in this city!"

"Alina is not business," Dorian said, stopping three feet from him.

Victor raised his silver gun.

Dorian didn't even flinch. He reached out with terrifying speed, grabbed Victor's wrist, and twisted it until the bone snapped with a sickening crack. The silver gun clattered down onto the metal catwalk floor.

Victor screamed in agony, falling to his knees, clutching his broken wrist.

Dorian looked down at the man who had terrorized Chicago for thirty years.