Chapter 10 - The Unbroken CircleThe rain began to fall again against the glass windows, a steady, rhythmic drumming that once would have sounded like footsteps in the dark.
I poured a cup of black coffee, walking over to the window that looked out over the sprawling lawn. My phone buzzed on the counter—an encrypted text from Thomas confirming they had settled into their new lives under federal protection, far away from the syndicates and the blood money.
They were safe. And so was I.
I looked down at the silver ring on my finger—my mother's ring, which I had kept locked in a safe for twenty-eight years and had finally started wearing again the morning Maria and Sofia left. It felt warm against my skin.
The world outside my gates would always be dangerous. Enemies would rise, empires would fall, and the underworld would continue its endless cycle of greed and betrayal. But the man sitting inside this house wasn't a ghost anymore.
I wasn't just Daniel Hale, the untouchable boss of New York.
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I was the man who learned how to live.
And as the storm broke outside, revealing a brilliant shaft of sunlight cutting through the clouds, I sat back down in my armchair, closed my eyes—not to pretend, but to rest—and smiled into the quiet dark.
