Chapter 1
"He was my fiancé," Delia said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet the words hit the small, sterile hospital room like a mortar shell. The steady beep of the heart monitor seemed to skip a beat, echoing the violent thud inside my own chest. Outside, snow slammed against the reinforced glass, casting fractured shadows over her pale, bandaged face.
"Ewan..." I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to stay even, though my hands curled into white-knuckled fists inside my coat pockets. "Ewan died six years ago in a warehouse fire on Pier 44. The authorities found his watch. His ring. There was nothing left."
"There was plenty left," Delia countered, her brown eyes flashing with a sudden, searing intensity that defied her broken frame. "The fire wasn't an accident, Dominic. It was an execution. And Ewan didn't die at Pier 44."
I stepped closer to the high hospital bed, my shadow swallowing her completely. "Explain."
Delia swallowed with difficulty, wincing as the movement pulled at the tight stitches along her temple. "Ewan was investigating a supply chain leak within your father’s logistics network. He found out someone was using the Vandermark shipping lines to traffic unregistered firearms and chemical precursors into the South Side. When he realized who was behind it, he went to confront them. He thought he was meeting a partner. He was meeting a killer."
"Celeste's family," I muttered, the pieces of a dark, forgotten puzzle beginning to violently snap together. "The Vandermarks."
"Not just her family. Celeste herself," Delia spat, her voice laced with an old, poisonous grief. "Ewan didn't die that night. He was kept alive in a private clinic in Lake Forest for three months while they tried to extract his encrypted ledgers. I was a junior nurse at that facility. That’s how I met him. I tried to help him escape." She looked down at her splinted fingers, her breath hitching. "We made it as far as the treeline before their security caught us. They shot him in front of me, dropped his body into an incinerator, and told me that if I ever spoke a word, my younger brother would meet the same fate."
A suffocating silence descended upon the room. The air grew cold, thick with the weight of a six-year-old murder that had been staged as a tragic accident right under my nose. I had built my reputation as the sharpest mind in the Chicago underground, yet I had spent two years sharing my home, my table, and my family's legacy with the sociopath who had murdered my own brother.
"Why didn't you run?" I asked, my voice dropping into a register so dark it made the glass in the window vibrate. "Why come to my house? Why take care of my mother?"
"Because your mother knows," Delia whispered, tears finally breaking past her long lashes. "Sixteen months ago, before her stroke, your mother called me. She had found Ewan’s hidden journal in the floorboards of the old boathouse. She was going to bring it to you, but Celeste found out. Two days later, your mother suffered an 'accidental' overdose of her blood pressure medication, causing the massive ischemic stroke that left her paralyzed."
I felt the blood drain from my face, replaced by a searing, demonic rage that threatened to tear through my ribs. My mother hadn't just fallen ill. She had been poisoned.
"I took the nursing contract to protect her," Delia continued, grabbing my sleeve with her uninjured hand, her grip surprisingly strong. "Celeste hired me thinking I was just a nameless, desperate girl she could intimidate. She didn't know I knew who she was. I stayed beside your mother’s bed every single night to make sure Celeste couldn't finish the job. But last night... last night Celeste found the journal. I tried to stop her from taking it out of the house. That’s when she struck me with the crystal decanter."
I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I gently brushed a stray lock of dark hair away from the white bandage on her forehead. The cold, calculated mafia boss who had spent twelve years controlling Chicago felt something shatter deep within his chest. This woman had spent two agonizing years suffering in silence, acting as a human shield for my mother, enduring the humiliation of being treated like an invisible servant—all to honor the memory of the brother I had failed to save.
"Where is the journal now?" I asked softly.
"Celeste has it," Delia said, her eyes wide with terror. "She’s going to destroy it, Dominic. And once it’s gone, she has no reason to keep your mother—or you—alive. She doesn't want a marriage. She wants the Vandermark-Moretti merger signed so her family can take full control of the South Side docks."
I stood up straight, rolling my shoulders back as the cold certainty of war took over my mind. The time for business, for diplomatic negotiations, and for quiet arrangements was over.
I pulled my satellite phone from my pocket and hit speed-dial one.
Gideon, my head of security and the most lethal operative on my payroll, answered on the first ring. "Boss?"
"Seal the estate," I commanded, my tone terrifyingly calm. "Nobody leaves. Nobody enters. Tell the guards at the gate that if Celeste Vandermark attempts to clear the perimeter, they are to shoot out the tires of her vehicle and hold her in the cellar."
"Understood," Gideon replied without hesitation. "What about Miss Vandermark's personal security detail?"
"Disarm them. If they resist, put them in the ground." I paused, looking down at Delia, whose eyes were fixed on me with a mixture of hope and fear. "And Gideon?"
"Sir?"
"Bring three of our best doctors from the private wing to Room 412 at Mercy Hospital. Miss Marlowe is under my personal protection now. If a single hair on her head is disturbed, I will burn this city to the waterline."
May you like
I hung up, looking back at Delia. I reached into my coat, pulled out my silver pocket watch—the one my father had given me before he died—and placed it gently into her bruised palm.
"You've guarded my mother for two years, Delia," I said, my voice rich with an absolute, unbreakable promise. "Now it’s my turn to guard you. Rest. By the time you wake up tomorrow morning, Celeste Vandermark will learn what happens when you strike a member of my house."
