My mother’s hand squeezed my wrist so hard her manicured nails nearly bit into my skin, but I didn't wince. I simply looked at her—really looked at her—and saw the panic breaking through her carefully painted mask.

My eighth month of pregnancy brought an uncanny, heavy calm over the city.

The Hart family was completely obliterated. Arthur was in federal prison facing thirty years for grand fraud; Serena was locked away in a high-security psychiatric facility; and Julian was rotting in Nikolai’s dark cell.

Only one piece remained on the board: Don Vane.

The head of the Syndicate of Seven knew he was losing. With Chicago completely locked down under Nikolai’s control, Vane decided to strike at the root.

It happened on a quiet Tuesday evening. Nikolai was away in New York, finalizing a major maritime deal that would forever cut the Syndicate out of North American trade routes.

I was alone at our suburban estate—a heavily fortified forty-acre mansion in the wooded hills outside the city—protected by thirty elite Moretti bodyguards.

At 11:00 PM, a sudden electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonated over the estate.

Every light went out instantly. The electronic security gates fried. The backup generators sputtered and died. The comms went totally dark.

Outside, silenced gunfire broke out in the dark woods. One by one, my perimeter guards were taken down.

I stood in the nursery, my hand resting on my heavy bump, feeling the baby kick against my palm. I didn't panic. I didn't scream.

I walked over to the wooden crib, reached beneath the fitted silk mattress, and pulled out a sleek, compact semi-automatic pistol equipped with a laser sight. I chambered a round with a smooth, practiced clack.

The heavy oak doors of the master suite downstairs crashed open. Heavy, tactical boots echoed up the grand staircase.

"Find the woman!" a deep, cultured voice with a thick European accent ordered. "Don Vane wants her alive until he arrives!"

I stepped into the shadows of the secondary hallway, using my absolute knowledge of the house layout to move silently.

The first mercenary stepped past the nursery doorway, his night-vision goggles glowing green.

I stepped out behind him.

TAK.

A single silenced shot to the back of his helmet. He collapsed instantly. I grabbed his dropped radio and tactical knife before slipping into the adjacent master bedroom.

Two more mercenaries rushed into the hall, seeing their fallen comrade.

"She's armed!" one yelled.

I pressed a manual bypass switch hidden inside the wall paneling—a mechanical hydro-valve system I had installed months ago that released high-pressure nitrogen gas into the secondary hallway.

White, freezing gas flooded the corridor instantly, blinding their vision and suffocating their air supply. The two men stumbled, coughing violently.

I stepped through the mist like a wraith, firing two precise shots. Both men fell dead on the plush carpet.

I walked down the main staircase into the dark, grand foyer.

Standing near the front door, wearing a sharp grey trench coat, was a tall, silver-haired man holding an ivory-handled cane.

Don Vane.

He turned slowly as I descended the stairs, his eyes widening in genuine astonishment as he saw me standing there—heavily pregnant, holding a smoking weapon, surrounding by his fallen strike team.

"Evelyn Hart," Don Vane murmured, a cold, admiring smile touching his thin lips. "Or should I say, Mrs. Moretti."

"You made a mistake coming to my home, Vane," I said, pointing the laser sight directly at the center of his forehead.

"Did I?" Vane chuckled, leaning casually on his cane. "You think you've won because you eliminated Julian and your pathetic father? You are fighting a war you don't understand, girl. The Syndicate doesn't care about Chicago. We care about the bloodline trust your grandfather created."

I paused, my eye narrowing. "What do you know about the trust?"

"Your grandfather didn't create that trust to protect you from your father," Vane revealed, his voice dropping into a chilling hiss. "He created it because I was coming for it. William Hart stole forty percent of the Syndicate's original European assets fifty years ago to build his company! You aren't an innocent heiress, Evelyn. You are living on stolen blood money!"

"Then it's a good thing," a deep, terrifying voice growled from the open front door behind Vane, "that my wife is exceptionally good at keeping what belongs to us."

Vane spun around in shock.

Nikolai stood in the doorway, drenched in rain, holding a heavy shotgun. Behind him, fifty Moretti vehicles surrounded the estate, their headlights cutting through the dark woods like blinding suns.

Vane raised his cane—which concealed a hidden blade—to strike, but Nikolai didn't hesitate.

BOOM.

The shotgun blast blew Vane backward across the marble floor. He collapsed against the bottom step of the staircase, his silver hair soaked in blood, dead before he hit the ground.

Nikolai dropped the shotgun, sprinted across the foyer, and took me into his arms, his hands frantically checking my face, my body, my stomach.

"Are you hurt? Did he touch you?!" Nikolai demanded, his voice trembling with a rare, desperate panic.