I stepped past the door frame, my leather shoes clicking softly against the linoleum floor.

The explosion of splintered wood froze the room instantly.

Dominic Vance whirled around from the desk, his eyes bulging in sheer disbelief, his hand clawing frantically for the silver-plated revolver resting beside his coffee cup.

He never made it.

Before his fingers could wrap around the grip, Vinnie’s suppressed weapon coughed twice. Thip-thip.

Two rounds caught Vance squarely in the shoulder and thigh, spinning him violently backward and crashing him into a metal filing cabinet with a muffled grunt of agony. He slid down to the floor, leaving a thick smear of dark blood across the gray enamel.

The four hitters scattered across the room scrambled for cover, reaching for their weapons.

It was a massacre in slow motion.

Luca and Dante moved with terrifying synchronization, suppressing fire pinning the guards behind desks and drywall partitions while I advanced down the center of the room like an executioner. One hitter tried to pop up with a shotgun; my Sig Sauer barked once, the 9mm round taking him clean through the throat. He dropped his weapon, gagged on his own blood, and collapsed face-first into the linoleum.

The remaining three men dropped their weapons, threw their hands in the air, and hit their knees, trembling so hard their teeth practically rattled.

“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” one screamed.

“Shut your mouth,” Vinnie growled, kicking their discarded firearms across the room and pressing the barrel of his pistol against the back of the nearest man's skull.

I didn't waste time on them. I walked past the carnage, kicked open the heavy reinforced door marked COLD STORAGE, and stepped inside.

The air hit me like a wall of ice—biting, frosty, and smelling of old brine and frozen concrete.

In the center of the frosted room, tied to heavy metal chairs, sat Linda and Keo.

Linda’s head was slumped forward, a dark bruise blooming across her cheek where someone had struck her, her wrists bound tightly behind her back with industrial zip-ties. Beside her, Keo was shivering violently under a thin emergency foil blanket, his eyes wide with terror, his lips blue from the sudden drop in temperature.

“Linda,” I said, rushing forward.

She lifted her head slowly, blinking against the blinding light of the doorway. When she saw me, the tears broke free, hot and fast down her pale cheeks.

“Mr. Gallo...” she choked out. “Keo... he’s freezing... his oxygen—”

I didn't answer. I pulled a tactical knife from my belt and sliced through the zip-ties binding her wrists in a single, fluid motion. She immediately slumped forward, catching herself on her hands, before turning desperately toward her son and wrapping him in her arms, pressing his shivering body against her chest to share her warmth.

I reached down, scooped the lightweight boy into my arms as if he weighed nothing at all, and stripped off my expensive wool coat, wrapping it securely around his shaking shoulders.

“I’ve got you, son,” I murmured, my voice uncharacteristically soft. “You’re safe now.”

I carried him out of the freezing vault into the warmth of the office, with Linda stumbling close behind me, leaning heavily on Vinnie’s steady arm.

We walked back out past the bleeding, broken bodies of Dominic Vance’s men, stepping over the shattered wood of the office doors.

Vance was still conscious, propped up against the filing cabinet, clutching his bleeding thigh, his face twisted in a mask of agonizing fury and terror. He looked up at me as I passed, his eyes wide with realization.

“You’re... you’re insane, Gallo,” Vance spat, blood bubbling on his lips. “You started a war over a damn maid...”

I stopped, looking down at him from the height of my boots, my face a mask of absolute, glacial calm.

“You still don't get it, do you, Dominic?” I said quietly, adjusting the boy in my arms. “In this city, men like you think power is measured by territory, guns, and cash.”

I leaned down slightly, my eyes boring straight into his soul.

“Power is measured by who you protect. And you just touched the one thing in Chicago I decided was worth saving.”

Vance opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He simply slumped sideways against the metal cabinet, passing out from shock and blood loss.

“Vinnie,” I said without looking back.

“Boss?”

“Call the private ambulance. Make sure Dr. Harrison is ready at Northwestern. And call the federal marshals—tell them there’s an abandoned warehouse full of narcotics and unregistered weapons on Ashland Avenue that needs immediate confiscation.”