Ten days. That was all the doctor believed my six-year-old twins had left, and for the first time in my life, all the money, guns, fear, and power I had built as one of Chicago’s most feared mafia bosses meant absolutely nothing. By three that afternoon, while death waited inside my mansion, a penniless woman stood outside my gates refusing to leave, and I had no idea she was about to change everything.

The heavy iron gates of the Mercer estate groaned as they parted against the howling Chicago wind.

Rain lashed down from a charcoal sky, slicking the cobblestone driveway in dark mirror reflections. I stood under the wide marble overhang of the grand entryway, flanked by Prescott and four armed guards in tactical suits.

A woman walked down the long driveway alone.

She wore a drenched olive-green coat three sizes too large for her thin frame, scuffed leather boots, and a faded wool scarf wrapped around her neck. She had no umbrella, no bag, no security escort. But as she approached the steps, she didn't look up at the armed men holding suppressed weapons against their vests. She didn't look at the security cameras panning overhead.

She looked directly at me.

Her eyes were a striking, vivid amber, sharp against the pale, rain-streaked skin of her face. She was soaked to the bone, shivering violently, but her shoulders were squared, and her chin remained lifted.

"You're Lawson Mercer," she said. Her voice was raspy, cut through by the cold, yet steady.

"You have thirty seconds to explain how you know my children's medical condition before I put you in a room where nobody will ever hear you again," I said, my voice dropping into the quiet, terrifying register that made grown syndicate bosses fold.

She didn't flinch. She reached slowly into her wet coat pocket. Prescott's hand went to his holster instantly, but she pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook with water-stained pages.

"Your twins don't have standard acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Lawson," she said, stepping onto the top marble stair. "They aren't dying because the chemotherapy failed. They're dying because their bone marrow has been systematically destroyed by a synthetic aplastic agent—a slow-acting toxin designed to mimic end-stage organ failure."

The air in my chest froze. The rain seemed to stop.

"Who are you?" I demanded, taking a step down toward her, my shadow swallowing her small frame.

"My name is Nora Sterling," she rasped, her amber eyes burning with an intense, desperate fire. "Two years ago, I was the chief hematology researcher at BioVance Labs. I'm the woman who developed the marrow-regeneration protocol that your physician, Dr. Yates, has been quietly suppressing."

I stared at her. "Yates?"

"Dr. Yates didn't misdiagnose Jonah and Blythe," Nora said, her teeth clicking together from the freezing wind. "He was bribed to accelerate their deterioration. And if you let him administer the final palliative drip tonight, your children will be dead by sunrise."

Prescott stepped forward, his eyes wide. "Boss, Yates has been your family doctor for fifteen years. He treated your father—"

"Shut up, Prescott," I snapped, never taking my eyes off Nora.

I looked at the water dripping from her hair, the faint, faded bruise along her left jawline, and the sheer, unyielding conviction in her face. A penniless woman standing in the rain, holding a notebook that claimed my trusted doctor was a murderer.

"Why come here?" I asked quietly. "If what you say is true, you're putting yourself in the sights of whoever bought Yates."

Nora let out a bitter, shivering breath. "Because two years ago, when Victor Blackwood took over BioVance, he burned my lab, killed my research partner, and framed me for medical malpractice. I spent eighteen months running for my life. I couldn't save my partner. I couldn't save my career. But three days ago, I intercepted Yates's private lab requisitions."

She took one step closer, stopping inches from my chest.

"I can save your children, Lawson," she whispered, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks. "Not in ten days. Not in a week. Tonight. But you have to trust a woman you don't know over the man who has sat at your table for fifteen years."

I stood there on the cold marble, the fate of my blood hanging in the balance.

"Prescott," I growled softly.

"Sir?"

"Lock Dr. Yates in the wine cellar. Take his phone, his bag, and his keys. If he moves, break his leg."

Prescott didn't hesitate. "Understood."