"A dying 17-year-old girl needed rare AB-negative blood and I was her only match—until I saw her face and realized my best friend's ambush was actually a trap to kill my secret daughter."

Sitting around the table were the heads of the four major Chicago syndicates—men who controlled the city's underground, sportsbooks, ports, and real estate networks.

At the head of the table sat Victor Moretti—a sixty-year-old, ruthless veteran wrapped in a dark mink coat, flanked by eight armed bodyguards.

The heavy steel doors of the terminal slammed open.

I walked into the hall, wearing an immaculate black suit, a heavy wool overcoat draped over my shoulders, my broad frame cutting a dark, terrifying shadow across the concrete floor. Beside me walked Enzo, relying on his cane, and Marco, carrying a single leather briefcase.

Victor Moretti smirked, leaning back in his chair. "Luca. Look who finally decided to leave the nursery. I heard you spent the afternoon buying colored pencils at the hospital gift shop."

A few junior captains in the shadows let out nervous giggles.

I didn't answer. I walked straight up to the head of the table, stopped three feet from Victor, and unbuttoned my coat.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out three distinct steel items, and dropped them flat onto the stone table with a sharp, echoing CLACK.

They were the three spent bullet casings from the rounds I had fired into Dominic and his men on the third floor of Lakeview Medical.

"Victor," I spoke, my voice calm, smooth, and echoing off the high arched ceilings like thunder. "Seventeen years ago, you discovered that Sofia Bennett was carrying my child. You stayed in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to use my daughter as a weapon against my family."

Victor's smirk faltered slightly. He looked around at the other three syndicate bosses—men who, despite their criminal background, maintained an ironclad code regarding family and children.

"She was an unlisted civilian, Luca!" Victor argued defensively, his voice rising in pitch. "You broke the peace accord by executing my nephew in a neutral hospital!"

"She is not an unlisted civilian, Victor," I interrupted cleanly, reaching into Marco's leather briefcase and pulling out a certified, court-sealed birth certificate and DNA registry stamped by the State of Illinois.

I dropped the paper flat onto the center of the stone table.

"Her name is Elena Mancini," I announced, my voice ringing with absolute, unshakeable authority. "She is my legal daughter and sole heir to the Mancini estate. And under Section 4 of the founding charter of the Chicago Commission established in 1928... any strike, ambush, or staged collision against a boss's direct blood heir is an act of total war punishable by immediate, unconditional execution."

The three senior bosses around the table stood up instantly, their faces turning to iron as they read the official state seal on the document.

The oldest boss, Don Carmine of the North Side, turned his piercing eyes onto Victor Moretti. "Is this true, Victor? You staged a car crash on I-290 to murder Luca's daughter?"

Victor went dead pale. He stumbled back in his chair, looking around at the silent, lethal eyes of every man in the room. "I... I didn't know she was his legal heir! I thought she was just an unlisted child!"

"You knew she carried his blood," Don Carmine spat in disgust, turning his back on Victor. "The Commission recognizes no protection for you, Moretti. The debt is between you and the Mancini family."

Victor reached frantically for his shoulder holster, but before his fingers could touch his jacket, I pulled my SIG Sauer and fired a single, silenced round through his heart.

THWIP.

Victor Moretti crashed backward onto the concrete floor, his eyes wide in sudden, absolute death. His eight bodyguards dropped their weapons instantly, dropping to their knees with their hands raised in total surrender.

I holstered my weapon, re-buttoned my coat, and looked around the silent stone hall.