"A dying 17-year-old girl needed rare AB-negative blood, and Chicago's most feared mafia boss was the only match—until he saw her scar and realized she was the daughter he was told he could never have."

My heart hammered against my ribs—not with the cold, calculating instinct that had kept me alive through fifteen years of Chicago turf wars, but with a sudden, suffocating terror that made my throat tight.

Seventeen years old. The crescent scar beneath her left eye. The distinct, almond shape of her dark eyes that mirrored my own reflection every time I looked in the mirror.

Sofia Bennett hadn't run away because she couldn't handle my world. She had run away because she was carrying my child—a child I had been told by high-priced specialists I could never father.

"Luca," Marco's voice cut through the hum of the heart monitor. He stepped into the donor bay, blocking the glass window with his broad shoulders. His dark wool coat was dusted with melting snow, his hand resting inside his left breast pocket where his weapon sat. "The perimeter guards at the south ambulance bay just spotted two vehicles idling near the emergency ramp. Tinted glass, no front plates. It's the Moretti crew."

I didn't flinch as the phlebotomist carefully taped the clear line to my arm. "How many?"

"At least eight men," Marco whispered, his voice dropping into a dangerous, razor-sharp register. "The river ambush on Enzo wasn't meant to kill him, Boss. It was a draw. They hit Enzo to force you out of the estate and into an unfortified position."

"And the girl?" I asked, my voice dropping into an ice-cold tone that made the nurse beside me freeze.

Marco hesitated, his jaw clenching. "One of their spotters saw you give the blood authorization at the desk. Word reached Victor Moretti ten minutes ago. He knows the hospital is completely low on AB-negative reserves, and he knows you're hooked up to a transfusion rig."

A dark, lethal realization clicked into place like the hammer of a gun.

Victor Moretti didn't just want to execute me. He realized that a seventeen-year-old girl in Surgery 3 was holding my rare blood type in her veins. If Victor cut the hospital's power grid or breached the surgical wing before the second blood bag reached her, Elena would bleed out on the table—and the Mancini bloodline would be extinguished before I could ever hold my daughter's hand.

"How much blood is left in this bag?" I asked Nurse Hannah Cole, my voice flat, absolute, and devoid of fear.

"We... we need another two hundred milliliters to stabilize her hemoglobin levels, Mr. Mancini," Hannah stammered, her hands trembling as she adjusted the flow valve. "If we stop now, her body will go into irreversible hypovolemic shock."

"Then you keep filling it," I commanded smoothly.

I looked at Marco. "Call the West Side crews. Tell Matteo to bring twelve men through the north service tunnel. No sirens, no flashing lights. Tell them to seal the basement power generators. If a single Moretti soldier steps foot onto the third floor..."

I reached out with my free hand, grabbing Marco's lapel, pulling his face down to mine.

"...you shoot them through the heart."

Marco's eyes flashed with absolute, unyielding loyalty. "Consider it done, Luca."