"My dying wife was rushed past me covered in blood while I sat inside Northwestern Memorial Hospital holding my mistress’s hand. But the sickening humiliation of being caught was nothing compared to what came next: Clara had been deliberately run off the road, and the reason she was on the South Side threatened to destroy everything I thought I knew."

Serena Hayes sat curled on the white velvet sofa, wearing a silk negligee, sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon, looking like an innocent angel recovering from a medical scare. When the elevator chime echoed through the penthouse, she set her glass down and turned toward the entrance with a radiant, expectant smile.

“Dom, darling! You’re back from the hospital so soon? How is—?”

She stopped dead in her tracks.

I didn't look like a grieving husband visiting his mistress. I looked like an executioner. My shirt was still stained with Clara’s blood, my jacket was discarded, and in my right hand, I held my Sig Sauer with the slide locked back in place, sliding a fresh magazine into the grip with a crisp, lethal clack.

Serena’s smile evaporated, replaced by a mask of sheer, unadulterated terror.

“D-Dom? What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?” she stammered, shrinking back against the velvet cushions, her hands trembling.

I walked slowly across the imported Italian marble floor, the heavy soles of my boots echoing like a death knell. I stopped two feet away from the sofa, looking down at her with eyes so cold they could have frozen fire.

“You played a very dangerous game, Serena,” I said, my voice dangerously smooth.

“I don't know what you mean!” she shrieked, tears springing to her eyes as she deployed her ultimate weapon. “I was in the hospital! I had a panic attack! How could I do anything?!”

“You had a panic attack right around midnight,” I replied, stepping closer, resting the barrel of the gun casually on the coffee table. “Which conveniently required my undivided attention in a private VIP room while my wife’s car was being ambushed on the South Side.”

Serena went chalk-white. The color drained from her face until she looked like a corpse.

“You told Lorenzo Moretti where Clara was going, didn't you?” I whispered, leaning over her. “You leaked her route to the South Side so Moretti’s men would wipe her out, leaving me entirely yours, while securing a multi-million-dollar payout from Moretti for the syndicate blueprints Clara was carrying.”

“No! That’s a lie! You’re insane!” she screamed, scrambling backward over the top of the sofa.

Before she could reach the balcony doors, Mateo stepped out from the shadows of the hallway, blocking her path with a heavy, unyielding frame. He grabbed her by the arm, lifting her off her feet as if she weighed nothing, and threw her back down onto the center of the sofa.

Serena curled into a ball, sobbing hysterically, the illusion of the fragile, innocent girl completely shattered.

“It’s all true,” she wailed into the cushions. “She was going to take everything from us, Dom! She was going to leave you with nothing! I did it for us!”

I stared down at her, feeling neither anger nor hatred—only a profound, hollow disgust.

“Mateo,” I said without looking back. “Take her to the North Side docks. Put her on a cargo ship bound for South America. Make sure she spends the rest of her miserable life working in a fish cannery where nobody speaks English. If she ever steps foot in Chicago again, put a bullet in her skull.”

“Understood, Boss,” Mateo grabbed Serena by the collar, hoisting her off the sofa as she screamed bloody murder, dragging her toward the private elevator.

As the doors closed, cutting off her shrieks, I stood alone in the candlelit penthouse.