🚨 CHAPTER 4 — The Woman the Mafia Boss Refused to Lose
The black SUV accelerated.
Its tires screamed across the rain-soaked pavement.
People scattered.
Someone shouted.
"LOOK OUT!"
Clara turned just in time to see headlights racing toward her.
She froze.
Not because she wanted to.
Because her exhausted body simply refused to move.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Then—
A black limousine exploded through the hospital entrance lane.
The armored vehicle slammed sideways into the SUV with a deafening crash.
Steel twisted.
Glass erupted into the air like deadly confetti.
The impact spun both vehicles across the parking lot before they came to a violent stop against a concrete barrier.
Silence.
For one impossible second...
No one moved.
Then the limousine door flew open.
Leo Salvatore stepped out.
His shoulder was still bandaged beneath his dark coat.
His doctors had forbidden him from leaving the hospital.
He ignored every one of them.
His eyes searched only for one person.
Clara.
She stood trembling beside a shattered flower planter, untouched.
Leo crossed the distance between them without speaking.
"You..."
Clara blinked.
"Do I know you?"
Before Leo could answer, Marco rushed over.
"Boss!"
"The driver's dead."
"Professional assassin."
"No identification."
Leo never looked away from Clara.
"He wasn't after me."
Marco frowned.
"What?"
Leo spoke quietly.
"He was after her."
The realization hit everyone at once.
Someone already knew.
Someone knew the anonymous donor had saved Leo Salvatore.
Someone intended to erase the only witness before Leo could find her.
Police flooded the parking lot.
News helicopters circled overhead.
Within minutes every television station reported...
"Mysterious attack outside St. Jude's Hospital."
None of them mentioned the truth.
The target had never been the mafia boss.
It had been the waitress.
Clara stared at Leo.
"You... saved me."
Leo almost laughed.
"No."
"You saved me first."
She frowned.
"I don't understand."
"I'm the man whose blood you gave."
Everything inside Clara stopped.
"The patient..."
"You?"
Leo nodded once.
"You kept my heart beating."
She stared at him in disbelief.
Then looked around at the dozens of armed men surrounding him.
The armored SUVs.
The bodyguards.
The respect in everyone's eyes.
"You..."
Her voice became barely audible.
"Who are you?"
Marco answered before Leo could.
"His name is Leo Salvatore."
The color drained from Clara's face.
Every newspaper in Chicago had printed that name.
Crime.
Power.
Fear.
The man mothers warned their children about.
She instinctively stepped backward.
"I should go."
Leo didn't stop her.
Instead he quietly said,
"You can."
"But they'll try again."
She hesitated.
"They?"
"The people who failed today."
"They never miss twice."
That night...
For the first time in twenty years...
Leo Salvatore placed another person's safety above his own.
"Twenty-four-hour protection."
Marco looked stunned.
"For how long?"
Leo answered without hesitation.
May you like
"Until the people hunting her...
...stop breathing."
