"I OWE HER MY LIFE, NOT MY LOVE!" — The Mafia Boss Abandoned His Paralyzed Wife For His Mistress, Unaware She Was Carrying His Heir… But When He Found Her Wedding Ring And A Secret Ultrasound, His Entire Empire Began To Burn!

The penthouse of the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago was a private stronghold for the Rossi syndicate’s senior capos. Tonight, it smelled of expensive cigars, fine cognac, and sudden, violent death.

The heavy oak doors of the penthouse burst inward off their hinges with a thunderous crack, wood splinters flying like shrapnel through the air. Two armed Rossi guards posted at the entryway barely had time to raise their submachine guns before suppressed gunfire spat from the gloom of the corridor.

*Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.*

Both men dropped instantly, their blood pooling across the Persian rug.

Adrian Moretti stepped over the corpses, a smoking custom Glock 21 in his right hand. He was not wearing his overcoat; his white dress shirt was rolled to the elbows, revealing the intricate mafia tattoos that snaked up his forearms—symbols of death, loyalty, and blood debts collected over a decade of warfare. His eyes were devoid of sanity. He looked like an archangel of vengeance, soaked in rain and drenched in slaughter.

Behind him walked Luca and eight elite Moretti hitmen, their faces hidden behind black ballistic masks.

In the center of the lavish living room sat Silvio Rossi, the younger brother of Marco Rossi and the man responsible for the family’s city-wide surveillance network. Silvio scrambled backward toward his desk, reaching for a gilded Beretta, but Adrian moved like a panther.

Adrian crossed the room in three strides, grabbed Silvio by his silk collar, and slammed his face into the marble coffee table. The sickening sound of cartilage snapping echoed through the room as Silvio’s nose shattered.

Adrian dragged him up by his hair, pinning him against the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the storm-swept skyline of Chicago.

"Where is she?" Adrian asked. His voice was barely above a whisper, which made it infinitely more terrifying than a scream.

Silvio spat blood onto Adrian’s white shirt, coughing hysterically. "Moretti... you're a dead man! You crossed into South Side territory! Marco will feed your balls to the—"

Adrian didn't blink. He raised his pistol and fired a hollow-point bullet directly through Silvio’s right kneecap.

A blood-curdling shriek ripped from Silvio’s throat as he collapsed, writhing on the shattered glass of the coffee table, clutching his pulverized leg.

"You have one more knee," Adrian said smoothly, racking the slide to chamber another round, pressing the scalding-hot muzzle against Silvio’s left eye. "Then your elbows. Then your jaw. Then I throw you out of this seventy-story window. My wife is out in this storm. She is carrying my child. And your brother thinks he can hunt her? Tell me what frequency your trackers are on!"

"The phone!" Silvio wailed, tears of agony cutting tracks through the blood on his face. "Celeste! Celeste gave Marco the IMEI number of the burner phone Isabella kept hidden in her jewelry box! Marco’s extraction team has been pinging the cell towers along I-94 since she left the estate!"

Adrian’s chest heaved. The burner phone. Isabella had a secret lifeline, and Celeste had snooped through her belongings to betray her to the wolves.

"How far are they?" Adrian demanded, pressing the barrel deeper into Silvio’s eye socket until the skin bruised.

"They intercepted them near the Indiana-Michigan border!" Silvio sobbed. "A pursuit team... three trucks! Marco ordered them to kill the driver and bring Isabella to the abandoned foundry in Gary! Marco wants to trade her life for your entire port operation!"

Adrian stepped back, lowering the gun.

Silvio let out a ragged, shuddering breath, believing for a single heartbeat that he had bought his survival. "I told you... I told you everything, Adrian! Please—"

Adrian turned his back to the man. "Luca."

"Yes, Boss?"

"Throw him out the window."

"Adrian! NO! YOU SWORE—" Silvio’s screams were cut short as two Moretti soldiers lifted him bodily from the floor, swung him back, and hurled his weight against the panoramic glass. The reinforced glass spider-webbed, then shattered with an explosive roar, sucking Silvio Rossi into the freezing night sky, his terrified wails fading into the howling Chicago wind.

Adrian didn't watch him fall. He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand, striding toward the elevator.

"Luca, prep the helicopter," Adrian commanded, his voice cold enough to freeze fire. "The weather is bad, but I don't give a damn if the pilot has to fly blind through a hurricane. If we don't reach the Indiana border before Rossi’s men run her off the road... I will burn the entire Midwest to the ground."

"Boss, the storm is worsening," Luca said, running alongside him. "Winds are over sixty miles per hour over the lake!"

Adrian turned, his eyes burning with an unholy fire.