The afternoon my maid asked me for two months of salary in advance and begged to leave early, I assumed someone had compromised her. So I followed her through freezing Chicago rain expecting to find a rival, an informant, or a man blackmailing one of my employees—but instead I found Linda on her knees beside a dying seven-year-old boy, crying into his hospital blanket because she was eighty thousand dollars away from saving his life.

I took my armored Mercedes, escorted by two black SUVs filled with eight of my most trusted enforcers. We ran every red light between my estate and St. Jude’s Hospital, tires screaming against wet asphalt.

When we pulled up to the pediatric wing entrance, two of Dante's thugs were standing casually by the double glass doors, trying to look like private security.

I stepped out of the vehicle before it had even fully stopped.

The first thug reached for his jacket, but Marco moved faster, striking him in the throat with a tactical baton before shoving him into the alleyway. The second thug was dragged into the back of our trailing SUV before he could utter a word.

"Clear the floor," I ordered Marco as we entered the lobby. "Silently."

We took the private service elevator straight to the fourth floor. The corridor was unnaturally quiet. At the far end, outside Room 412, stood Dante Moretti’s chief lieutenant, a crude violent enforcer known as "Slick" Bruno. He was leaning against the door frame, picking his teeth with a switchblade while two armed men stood guard beside him.

Bruno turned as he heard my leather soles clicking against the polished linoleum floor. His cocky grin faltered slightly when he saw me walking toward him alone, hands casually resting in my coat pockets, followed five paces behind by four heavily armed men.

"Dominic Gallo," Bruno drawled, trying to cover his sudden nerve with bravado. "The big boss himself visiting a charity case? Dante sent us to see what kind of treasure you were hiding down here."

I didn't stop walking. "You picked the wrong floor to play gangster, Bruno."

"Hey, we're just talking!" Bruno raised his hands mockingly. "Dante just wants to know why the great Gallo family is funding a maid’s kid. Is he yours, Dominic? Is that why you care so much?"

I stopped three feet from him. My gaze flicked to the glass window of Room 412. I could see Linda holding Keo tightly in her arms, her face terrified as she watched us through the glass.

"He isn't mine," I said quietly. "But he is under my protection."

Before Bruno could react, I grabbed his throat, slamming his head backward into the concrete wall behind him with bone-crushing force. His knife dropped to the floor with a loud metallic clatter.

His two guards drew their weapons, but Marco and my men were already upon them. Within ten seconds, both guards were restrained on the floor, their weapons stripped, their mouths gagged.

Bruno sloughed down the wall, blood streaming down his nose, gasping for air. I knelt down beside him, grabbing him by his leather collar and pulling his face inches from mine.

"Tell Dante that if I see another one of his insects within three miles of this hospital," I whispered, every word carved from ice, "I will personally tear his empire apart brick by brick, and I will start by hanging him from the Chicago River bridge."

I threw him back onto the floor. "Get them out of my sight."