The most feared mafia boss in Chicago came home three hours early and found his housekeeper secretly feeding four identical little boys at the dining table no one had touched since his wife died. He was about to demand an explanation when one boy pointed at him and asked, “Elena, is that the man from the picture?” The spoon fell from her hand.

The night sky over Lake Michigan was swallowed by heavy rain and thick fog as the clock struck midnight twenty-four hours later.

Don Lorenzo Bellini’s convoy—a dozen black armored SUVs—pulled through the rusted gates of the South Chicago Container Docks. This was the primary entry point for Bellini’s illegal smuggling operations into the Midwest.

Bellini had chosen this location to assemble his five hundred mercenaries before launching his full-scale invasion of the city.

Inside the central shipping warehouse, Don Lorenzo Bellini—a heavy-set man in his sixties with slicked-back gray hair and a tailored Italian coat—stood surrounded by fifty of his top captains and bodyguards.

“Where are the mercenaries from Detroit?!” Bellini roared, slamming his fist onto a wooden shipping crate. “Why haven't they reported in?!”

“Don Lorenzo!” one of his lieutenants yelled, running into the warehouse with a radio held to his ear. “We’ve lost contact with the perimeter security team at the gate! The security cameras just went black!”

Bellini pulled a pearl-handled revolver from his coat. “Get the men inside! Lock the doors!”

Suddenly, the massive industrial foghorn of a cargo ship blasted across the water outside.

HOOOOONK.

The sound vibrated through the steel beams of the warehouse.

Then came the lights.

Dozens of high-intensity floodlights positioned on the surrounding shipping containers ignited simultaneously, blinding Bellini’s men with searing white illumination.

Through the heavy rain outside, the sound of hundreds of idling engines echoed across the dockyards.

Not Bellini’s engines.

Mine.

Over two hundred black vehicles—armored trucks, muscle cars, tactical SUVs—had completely encircled the container yard. Moretti soldiers, alongside allied syndicates from Detroit, Cleveland, and Saint Louis, stepped out into the rain, forming an impenetrable wall of steel and firepower.

The heavy steel doors of the main warehouse were torn off by two heavy tow trucks.

I stepped through the open doorway, flanked by Dante, Viktor, and fifty elite Moretti enforcers.

I wore my long coat, the rain soaking my hair, my face illuminated by the blinding floodlights behind me.

Bellini’s captains raised their weapons in sheer panic, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Over three hundred laser sights painted red dots across Bellini’s chest and the chests of every man surrounding him.

“Put the guns down,” I said, my voice cutting through the sound of the falling rain. “Or this warehouse becomes a mass grave in three seconds.”

Bellini looked around the room, seeing his men trembling, staring at the hundreds of red laser dots covering their bodies. He knew it was over.

Slowly, reluctantly, Bellini’s captains dropped their weapons onto the concrete floor.

Bellini stood alone in the center of the room, clutching his pearl-handled revolver, his face pale with fury and disbelief.

“Alejandro...” Bellini rasped, his voice shaking. “You brought four cities to war over four little boys?!”

“Not four boys, Lorenzo,” I said, stepping closer to him until I was standing right in front of his weapon. “My sons.”

“They are a threat to the balance of power!” Bellini screamed, raising his gun toward my face. “If your bloodline continues, the Moretti family will control the entire Midwest for another fifty years! I had to end it!”

I didn't flinch. I didn't step back.

THUD.

Before Bellini could pull the trigger, I stepped forward, grabbed his wrist, twisted it until the bone snapped, and disarmed him in a single fluid motion. He dropped to his knees, screaming in pain, clutching his broken arm.

I caught his pearl-handled revolver in mid-air, flipped it in my grip, and pressed the barrel directly under Bellini’s chin.

“Five years ago, you conspired with Cassian to murder my wife and my unborn children,” I said, my voice as calm as death. “You made my sons live in hiding for four years. You made them eat off tiny plates in secret because they were afraid of your assassins.”

Tears of absolute terror welled in Bellini’s aging eyes. “Alejandro... please... we can make a deal! Half of New York! Everything I own!”