My billionaire mafia husband asked if I could still love him if he never walked again, but before I could answer, a terrifying phone call changed everything...

Mateo stood in the doorway, out of breath, his face pale despite the sunlight. He held an encrypted black satellite phone in his hand, and his weapon was already unholstered.

Adrian’s demeanor changed in a microsecond. The tenderness vanished, replaced instantly by the lethal focus of the Don. He shielded me slightly with his arm.

"What is it, Mateo?" Adrian demanded. "We secured all of Victor's assets. Harrington fled the country yesterday."

"It isn't Harrington, Boss," Mateo said, his voice shaking with a dread I had never heard from him before. "We just finished decrypting the private server Victor had hidden inside the dry dock walls. The one that was linked to the offshore accounts."

"And?"

"Victor wasn't working for Harrington," Mateo swallowed hard, stepping into the room and closing the double doors behind him. "Harrington was just the banker. The man who orchestrated Evelyn’s kidnapping... the man who provided Victor with the blueprints to our estate’s security systems..."

Mateo stopped, glancing at me with deep hesitation.

"Speak, Mateo!" Adrian roared.

"The digital signature belongs to the Valenti Family," Mateo whispered. "The ghost syndicate from Chicago. The ones who claimed responsibility for the bomb that killed your father five years ago."

The air left the room. Adrian’s hand tightened around the silk sheet until his knuckles turned white as marble.

"The Valenti family was eradicated," Adrian hissed. "I personally watched their compounds burn. I confirmed the bodies."

"Not all of them," Mateo replied, holding out the tablet. "Look at the live feed from the municipal port authority. Thirty minutes ago, a container ship flagged out of Palermo docked at Pier 14. Customs clearance was signed using an override code that has been dead for twenty years."

Adrian snatched the tablet, his eyes scanning the encrypted lines of text and low-resolution satellite photos. As he scrolled, his breathing slowed to a terrifying, deadly rhythm.

"They didn't just come to take the city," Adrian whispered, the sound colder than a winter grave. "They came because they believe the bloodline is broken."

He looked up at Mateo. "Assemble the council. Call every captain from Boston to Philadelphia. If the old ghosts want a war with the Vale syndicate, I will give them an apocalypse."

Adrian turned his chair toward the wardrobe, pulling himself into his wheelchair with fluid, practiced power. He didn't look broken. He looked like an emperor preparing to crush an invasion.

He held out his hand to me. "Claire. We are going to the war room."