I traced the crest etched into the tarnished metal: a coiled viper wrapped around a shattered crown. The emblem of the Valenti crime family. The same bloodline that had ambushed my father’s motorcade twenty years ago, leaving him dead in a rain-slicked alleyway and handing me the bloody reigns of the Morelli empire at nineteen.

“Dominic,” I said softly, stepping toward the thick bulletproof glass of the vault window.

Outside, standing in the corridor beside four heavily armed mercenaries, was my uncle. He looked pristine, his silver hair neatly combed back, a cruel, triumphant smile stretching across his weathered face. Standing right beside him, holding a silenced pistol, was Marco.

My second-in-command. My right hand. The man I had raised from the gutters.

The betrayal hit me like a physical blow, sharper and deeper than any bullet.

“Marco?” I whispered, staring through the glass.

Marco didn't look me in the eye. He looked down at the polished floor, his voice flat. “It was never personal, Julian. Dominic offered me twenty percent of the empire. You offered me a salary and orders.”

Dominic chuckled, taking a drag from a thin cigar. “Don't be too hard on him, nephew. Everyone has a price. You should know that better than anyone. You thought you were the king of Manhattan, but you were just a guard dog keeping the throne warm until I was ready to take it.”

“You killed my father,” I said, my voice dangerously calm, the rage inside me cooling into lethal ice.

“Of course I did!” Dominic snapped, his eyes flashing with sudden venom. “Your father was soft! He wanted to go legit. He wanted to clean the money, invest in real estate, pay taxes! He was going to destroy forty years of work! I had to put him down like a rabid dog.”

He tapped his cigar against the glass frame.

“And then Giovanni Valenti got greedy,” Dominic continued. “He thought he could hold those recordings over my head forever. So I wiped his family out. Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise six months ago when little Elena Valenti showed up in your nephew’s hospital wing. I knew it was only a matter of time before she used you to destroy me.”

“She’s an innocent woman, Dominic,” I said, moving closer to the control panel inside the vault. “She had nothing to do with this.”

“She’s a Valenti,” Dominic scoffed. “And in our world, weeds must be pulled out by the roots. Right now, my men at St. Mary’s are turning off her life support. By the time you suffocate in that vault, she’ll already be in the morgue.”

My heart stopped.

They were turning off her life support.

“You have five minutes of oxygen left in that vault, Julian,” Dominic said, stepping back from the glass. “Enjoy the memory of your father. You’ll be seeing him very soon.”

Dominic turned and began walking away down the hallway. Marco hesitated for a fraction of a second, turned his head toward the window, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Boss.”

Then he walked away, following Dominic into the darkness.

The heavy air in the vault instantly grew heavy. The ventilation system clicked off, replaced by a low, sinister hiss as carbon dioxide began pumping through the ceiling vents.

I had four minutes before I lost consciousness. Three minutes before Elena’s heart stopped forever.

I turned to the marble table, grabbed the black USB drive, and jammed it into my pocket beside the silver key. Then I pulled my Kimber .45 from its holster and stared at the heavy steel vault door.

Shooting bulletproof steel was useless. The walls were reinforced concrete.

I looked up at the ceiling. The CO2 was pumping in through an old brass ventilation shaft—a relic from the original 1920s architecture. It was small, barely two feet wide, but it was connected to the hotel’s main maintenance system.

I hauled the heavy marble table across the room, dragging it until it sat directly under the vent. I climbed onto the table, slammed the butt of my pistol into the brass grate, pounding it again and again until the rusted bolts gave way.