“Twenty thousand dollars isn't a fee, Donatella. It’s an investment in a woman who can make a Don bleed and stitch him back together without a single blink.”

“Twenty thousand dollars isn't a fee, Donatella. It’s an investment in a woman who can make a Don bleed and stitch him back together without a single blink.”“Why?”

Donatella’s voice was a flat line, slicing through the heavy, humid air of the basement shop. The knife in her hand remained steady, its titanium blade catching the dim amber glow of her desk lamp.

Cosimo stepped closer, ignoring the sharp flare of agony in his ribs. He didn't look like a man who had just been stabbed, shot, and sewn up by a civilian. He looked like a predator who had just discovered a completely new species of prey. He reached into his ruined jacket, pulled out a thick, leather-bound notebook drenched in his own blood, and tossed it onto the cutting table. It landed with a sickening, heavy thud right on top of a pristine bolt of ivory silk.

“Twenty thousand,” Cosimo repeated, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a dark, gravelly purr that vibrated through the floorboards. “Ten for the stitches. Ten for the information inside that book. Because your father didn’t die of a heart attack ten years ago, Donatella. He was executed. And the man who ordered the hit is currently sitting on the throne of the Moretti syndicate—the very man who just sent a hit squad to put a bullet in my chest.”

The room went dead silent. The only sound was the frantic ticking of the antique clock on the wall and the relentless, rhythmic drumming of the Hell’s Kitchen rain outside.

Donatella stared at the blood-soaked ledger. Her breath hitched. For ten years, she had lived in the quiet shadows, believing her father’s sudden death was just the tragic consequence of a worn-out heart. She had built this shop as a sanctuary, a place where fabric and thread could blot out the dark memories of her childhood. But looking at the dark red stains seeping into the ivory silk, she realized her sanctuary was nothing but an illusion.

“You’re lying,” she whispered, though her grip on the knife tightened until her knuckles turned a stark, ghostly white.

“I don’t lie about business,” Cosimo said, taking a step toward her, his towering six-foot-three frame casting a massive, imposing shadow over her. “And I damn sure don’t lie when I’m bleeding out. Your father kept a double set of books. He knew where every body was buried, every politician bought, every bribe paid. The Morettis killed him to silence him, but they never found the cipher. They think I have it. But looking at you right now... looking at how perfectly you just dissected my wound... I think he passed the key down to his clever little seamstress.”

Before Donatella could answer, the glass window at the top of the basement stairs shattered with a deafening CRASH.

Footsteps—heavy, calculated, and fast—echoed from the street above. High-beam headlights cut through the cracked window shades, sweeping across the basement walls like searchlights in a prison yard. Shadows danced menacingly across the rows of hanging fabrics.

“He’s in here!” a coarse voice shouted from the alleyway. “Follow the blood trail! Break the door down!”

Donatella didn’t panic. While Cosimo instinctively reached for a gun he had already lost in the alley, she moved with lightning speed. She grabbed the blood-soaked ledger, shoved it into the hidden compartment beneath her heavy iron sewing machine, and blew out the oil lamp, plunging the basement into pitch-black darkness.

“Get under the cutting table,” she hissed into the dark.

“I don’t hide,” Cosimo growled, his pride flaring even as a fresh wave of blood began to seep through his newly minted stitches.

“Then you die,” Donatella whispered, her voice entirely devoid of fear. “And if you die in my shop, you ruin my floor. Move, your Excellency.”

The heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs groaned under the force of a massive kick. The wood splintered. Donatella grabbed Cosimo by his good shoulder, her surprisingly strong grip leaving him no choice but to drop low beneath the massive oak table, hidden by heavy drapes of velvet fabric.

The door burst open completely. Two men in heavy trench coats descended the stairs, their silenced pistols drawn, sweeping the darkness.

“Rizzo’s girl lives here,” one of the hitmen muttered, his voice dripping with malice. “If she’s harboring Bellini, she dies too. Check the closets.”

From beneath the table, Cosimo could smell the scent of Donatella—rain, lavender soap, and the sharp, metallic tang of his own blood. She was pressed tightly against him in the cramped space, her soft curves flush against his rigid, muscular frame. He expected her to be trembling. He expected to hear her heart hammering against her ribs.

But when he looked at her profile in the dim light filtering through the broken window, he saw only cold, lethal focus. She wasn’t trembling. She was waiting. In her right hand, the titanium knife was reversed, held in a professional reverse-grip that no ordinary seamstress should ever know.