28"""His mistress was lying in a private hospital room when Dominic suddenly saw his wife gliding past in a wheelchair—and then Clara whispered four words that changed everything.

The freight elevator at Northwestern was built to transport industrial laundry and heavy medical equipment. It was wide, dimly lit by flickering yellow tubes, and smelled of bleach and wet linen.

It opened on the fourth floor with a heavy industrial clank.

Mateo DeLuca stepped out first.

He wore an Italian wool overcoat draped over broad shoulders, his hair slicked back against the October drizzle. Behind him stood six men in nondescript dark windbreakers, their hands buried deep inside their pockets. Underneath those windbreakers were suppressed Heckler & Koch MP5s—tools of professional exterminators, not street thugs.

Mateo walked with the relaxed, fluid grace of a man who believed he had already won. He smiled faintly as he adjusted his cuffs, looking down the polished hallway toward the private wing.

"Remember," Mateo murmured to the man at his right elbow, an Albanian mercenary named Kosta. "We don't touch Dominic unless he resists. We need him broken first. When he sees Clara's body bag, he'll sign the power of attorney over to the family trust. Once the ink is dry, we give him the Tommy Russo treatment. A tragic suicide out of grief."

"And the doctors?" Kosta asked, his voice thick and flat.

"Leave no witnesses in the OR. If Marcus Vance touched her, he goes down too. We'll blame it on the Morettis."

Mateo rounded the corner into the surgical waiting area.

He stopped dead.

The hallway was pitch black.

The ambient overhead lights had been killed. The only illumination came from the faint red emergency exit signs at either end of the hall, casting long, bloody shadows across the polished linoleum.

And sitting directly beneath the red surgical light, in a simple steel folding chair, was Dominic Valente.

Dominic sat with his legs crossed at the ankle. A glass of amber bourbon rested in his right hand. Across his lap lay a Franchi SPAS-12 tactical shotgun, the heavy barrel catching the red glow like a hot coal.

Standing behind him, shoulder-to-shoulder in a wall of immovable muscle, were twenty Valente soldiers—the old guard. Frankie the Bull stood at Dominic's right shoulder, a heavy Colt .45 drawn and cocked.

Mateo’s smile vanished. The smooth, practiced confidence melted from his face, replaced by an ugly, twitching tension around his mouth.

"Dom," Mateo said, raising his hands slightly, taking half a step backward. "Jesus, cousin. What's with the firepower? I came as soon as dispatch pinged me. I brought the boys from the West Side to secure the floor. We heard about Clara."

Dominic didn't move. He took a slow, deliberate sip of his bourbon.

"Did you, Mateo?" Dominic’s voice rolled through the hallway, low and resonant, carrying the terrible weight of an executioner’s gavel. "What did you hear about Clara?"

Mateo swallowed. His men behind him shifted their weight, their hands tensing inside their coats.

"I heard she was hit on the highway," Mateo said quickly. "Some runaway truck. Frankie said she was critical. Dom, let me take over the security here. You need to rest. You've had a hell of a day—"

"The truck didn't kill her, Mateo," Dominic interrupted.

Mateo went utterly still.

"And neither did your scrub nurse with the potassium chloride," Dominic continued, his eyes glowing like a wolf’s in the crimson gloom. "Clara had Tommy's knife. Did you know that? She carved him up pretty good. I had my boys sweep the local urgent care clinics thirty minutes ago. Guess who we found getting twelve stitches across his cheek in Humboldt Park?"

Mateo’s jaw set. The mask of brotherhood slipped away, revealing the cold, calculating viper beneath.

"Dom," Mateo said, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register. "You're not thinking straight. You're letting grief cloud your head. We've built an empire together. Twenty years—"

"You sold my shipping docks to Moretti," Dominic said, setting the bourbon glass on the floor beside his boot. He picked up the SPAS-12 with one hand, resting the stock against his hip. "You paid Serena three-quarters of a million dollars to keep my cock warm while you murdered my bodyguard. And you sent an animal into my wife's room while she was strapped to an IV pole."

Mateo let out a sharp, bitter breath.

The pretense was over.

"And where were you, Dom?" Mateo hissed, stepping forward, his eyes burning with years of festering jealousy. "Where were you while I was running the docks? Where were you while I was dealing with the union bosses and the feds? You were in a penthouse on Lake Shore Drive, sniffing perfume! You got soft! You married that quiet little nun Clara, and you forgot who we were! The family was rotting from the top down!"

"Clara has more iron in her spine than your entire crew combined," Dominic whispered.

"Clara is dead!" Mateo screamed, reaching inside his coat. "Draw!"