"I brought divorce papers to my missing wife’s hospital room—unaware the nurse’s warning about my best friend was about to change everything."

Mateo slowly turned his entire body around in the passenger seat, his manicured hands shaking so violently that his gold fountain pen slipped from his fingers, rolling flat across the carpeted floorboards.

"Dom... listen to me," Mateo whimpered, his eyes bulging out of his head in total, horror-stricken panic. "Whatever Sophia told you up there... she's confused! She's been under heavy medication for months! She's trying to ruin our family!"

I reached into my pocket, pulling out the small black USB drive that Leo had retrieved from Mateo’s private office twenty minutes ago.

I tossed it onto the leather seat beside him.

"This drive contains the unredacted wire transfer logs from your offshore accounts in Nassau," I reported deadpan. "It contains the satellite tracking data for my convoy route on Route 55 from July 12. And it contains your recorded phone calls with Don Carmine Moretti."

Mateo’s jaw twitched uncontrollably. Sweat poured down his forehead, ruining his stiff collar.

"Fifteen years, Mateo," I whispered, leaning forward until my shadow completely engulfed his shaking frame. "I gave you a home. I gave you five percent of every shipping terminal in Chicago. I made you a wealthy man."

"You gave me scraps, Dom!" Mateo suddenly shrieked, his composure completely breaking into wild, ugly rage. "I built the South Side network! I did the dirty work while you played the respectable husband with your charity-minded wife! The Moretti family offered me thirty percent of the entire East Coast distribution!"

"And what did they offer you to put a bomb under my car, Mateo?" I asked softly.

Mateo’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked at me, then looked out the window at Leo and eight armed operators surrounding the vehicle.

He knew how the Rossi family operated. He knew there were no trials, no lawyers, and no second chances for a lieutenant who threatened the Don's wife and unborn child.

"Dom..." Mateo wept pathetically, dropping his hands onto the leather console, pressing his palms together in a desperate, groveling plea. "Dom... please! We were like brothers! Remember my father! Remember what we built in the West Loop!"

I reached into my belt, drawing my P226.

I didn't raise my voice. I didn't make a speech.

"You threatened my wife, Mateo," I whispered into his ear. "And you tried to kill my son."

THWIP.

A single suppressed round echoed softly inside the dark interior of the Maybach.

The passenger seat went silent.

I stepped out of the vehicle into the cool, fresh Chicago rain, buttoning my dark vest, looking at Leo.

"Clean the car," I ordered flatly. "And tell the Moretti family in New York... that if another one of their men steps foot west of Indiana, I will burn their terminals to the ground."