Chapter 3 - Blood on the SnowThe Moretti family had been gunning for Victor’s territory on the South Side for eighteen months, utilizing proxy wars, shell companies, and political corruption. Tonight, they had decided to bring the war directly to his front door.
Down in the massive stone courtyard, the headlights of the black Lincoln cut through the falling snow like twin blades of steel.
Four men stepped out of the town car, heavy coats pulled tight against the wind, their right hands resting ominously inside their wool jackets.
They didn't even make it past the fountain.
From the shadows of the stone colonnades, Victor’s security detail moved with terrifying, clockwork precision. Before the Moretti enforcers could clear leather, two were swept off their feet by a clean, silent tackle, while the other two found themselves staring down the barrel of suppressed automatic weapons held by men in black tactical gear.
Victor stepped out onto the grand front portico, his heavy charcoal overcoat billowing slightly in the winter gale. He didn't carry a weapon in his hand; he didn't need one. His presence alone was execution enough.
“Salvatore,” Victor called out, his voice cutting cleanly through the wind.
From the driver's seat of the Lincoln, a middle-aged man with a jagged scar across his nose—Salvatore Moretti’s primary lieutenant—stepped out, holding his hands up in mock surrender, a greasy smile plastered across his face.
“Easy, Victor! Easy,” Salvatore laughed nervously, though his eyes darted frantically at the laser sights painted across his chest. “We just came to deliver a message from the old man.”
“Your old man sends messages through lawyers, Salvatore,” Victor replied, walking slowly down the marble steps, his footsteps echoing like a death knell in the courtyard. “When a crew drives uninvited onto my property at midnight, they aren't delivering a message. They’re signing a death certificate.”
“Wait, wait!” Salvatore sneered, dropping the friendly act as panic finally cracked his composure. “You think you’re untouchable up here in your stone castle, Russo? We know about your new weakness. We know about the girl.”
Victor stopped dead in his tracks. The air around him turned so cold it felt toxic.
“What did you say?” Victor whispered.
“The little maid from Oak Park,” Salvatore spat, wiping snow from his coat. “Chloe Bennett. Nice girl. Cute little brother, too. It would be a real shame if a stray spark caught their apartment building on fire while you’re busy playing lord of the manor—”
He never finished the sentence.
In a blur of motion that defied human reaction, Victor crossed the intervening distance, his fist crashing directly into Salvatore’s jaw with a sickening crack of bone. Salvatore crumpled instantly into the slush, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Victor stood over him, chest heaving, his knuckles bruised and bleeding. He looked up at his head of security, his face a mask of demonic fury.
“Tie them up in the basement armory,” Victor ordered, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. “And send a detachment of twelve men to secure the apartment complex in Oak Park immediately. If so much as a single hair on Chloe’s brother’s head is touched, I want every Moretti warehouse from here to Lake Michigan burning to ash by sunrise.”
“Right away, Boss,” the guard snapped, signaling the team.
As Victor turned back toward the mansion, his eyes drifted upward toward the glowing light of the second-floor guest suite.
She was safe. He had made sure of it. But the mere realization that his enemies had discovered her existence sent a wave of cold, crystalline panic through his veins.
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For six years, Victor Russo had lived as a ghost—untouchable, unfeeling, and completely isolated. He had taught himself that caring was a fatal liability.
Standing in the freezing snow with blood on his knuckles, Victor realized it was already too late.
