"Yes, Mr. Moretti," Elena whispered, her voice barely louder than the hum of the portable heater. Her knuckles turned white around the stack of folded towels. "Lily is in the staff quarters downstairs. She’s... she’s reading."

The subterranean vault beneath the Chicago Underground Club—a secret, neutral meeting place for the city’s five major crime families—was freezing cold and lit only by low-hanging tungsten lamps.

Around a massive round iron table sat the bosses of the Chicago underworld: Don Carmine of the North Side, Sal Falcone from the West Side, and two syndicate heads from the docks.

At the center of the table sat a heavy laptop screen, playing a live video feed of Vanessa Vale. She was sitting in an interrogation room, her face pale, her hands cuffed to an iron ring on the table, confessing every single detail of her plot.

"...The Syndicate offered me fifty million dollars," Vanessa’s recorded voice echoed through the vault. "They gave me the toxin. I was supposed to slow-poison Julian until he signed over his port authorities and real estate holdings... then finish him off before the wedding."

The video cut off.

I sat at the head of the table, flanked by Dominic and ten heavily armed Moretti soldiers. I leaned forward, resting my chin on my folded hands, staring at the four crime bosses across the table.

"So," I said, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. "Which one of you gave her the poison?"

Silence stretched across the room.

Don Carmine, a heavy-set man in his sixties with thin grey hair, cleared his throat nervously. "Julian... you have to understand. We all heard you were dying. We thought your house was falling apart. It was just business—"

CLANG!

I slammed my heavy silver lighter onto the iron table.

"Business?" I growled, my eyes narrowing into slits of pure steel. "You bribed my fiancée. You poisoned my food for three months. You turned my own security chief against me. And you call it business?"

"It wasn't all of us, Julian!" Sal Falcone stammered, pointing a shaking finger across the table at Carmine. "It was Carmine! He brought the contact from New York! He paid the girl!"

Carmine’s eyes widened in panic. "You bastard, Sal! You took thirty percent of the port shares!"

"Enough," I said quietly.

The single word cut through their arguments like a razor.

I stood up slowly, buttoning my suit jacket. "The old rules of the Chicago Outfit are dead. My father believed in sit-downs, negotiations, and sharing territory. I don't."

I looked at Dominic.

"Dominic."

"Yes, Boss?"

"Carmine’s territories on the North Side. Falcone’s docks on the West Side. Take them. All of them."

"You can't do that!" Carmine screamed, jumping up from his chair. "The Commission in New York will never allow it! You’re just one man!"

I smiled—a dark, terrifying expression that sent a chill through every man in that room.

"I’m not just one man anymore, Carmine," I whispered. "I’m a father with something to protect. And that makes me the most dangerous bastard in this city."

I turned my back on them and walked out of the vault. As the heavy steel door slammed shut behind me, the muffled sound of gunfire burst out from inside the room.