I didn't try to deny it anymore. The game was up. Dominic Vale had unmasked me, and standing here unarmed in his mansion meant I was entirely at his mercy.

I squared my shoulders, lifting my chin to meet his dark, blazing eyes.

"If I wanted to kill you or your daughter, Mr. Vale, I wouldn't have saved her from Marcus," I said, my voice echoing clearly in the silent room. "I could have let Marcus pull his gun. I could have watched Aurelia tear itself apart. Instead, I risked my life to expose the traitor inside your own inner circle."

Dominic didn't move. His hand hovered near his hip, resting inches from his concealed weapon. "Your father ruined my family’s shipping lines in the nineties. He cost my uncles their lives in a turf war that lasted three bloody years. The Mercers are poison."

"My father is dead," I snapped, the grief and exhaustion of the past five years finally boiling over into raw anger. "He died in a rotting cabin in Indiana, penniless and broken, regretting every single day he spent wrapped up in your stupid mafia war! He told me to run, to hide, to forget the name Mercer ever existed because monsters like you would never let us live in peace!"

The silence that followed was deafening.

No one had ever screamed at Dominic Vale in his own house and lived to tell the tale. I waited for the gunshot. I waited for his guards to burst through the door and drag me down to the basement where Marcus had met his end.

Instead, Dominic exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

The terrifying mask of the syndicate boss cracked, revealing a tired, grieving man beneath the armor.

"Your father died in a cabin in Indiana?" Dominic asked quietly.

"Three years ago," I whispered, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. "I buried him myself with my bare hands. I am not your enemy, Mr. Vale. I am just trying to survive in a city that wants to kill me just because of my last name."

Dominic stared at me for a long time. The anger in his eyes had melted into something far more complex—something resembling reluctant, aching understanding.

"When the car bomb went off two years ago," Dominic spoke, his voice barely a murmur, "and I pulled my wife’s lifeless body from the wreckage... I swore I would hunt down every last person responsible. I thought it was the remnants of the Mercer crew."

"It wasn't," I said softly. "It was Marcus. He wanted your throne."

Dominic turned away, walking toward the balcony doors, looking out over the grey waters of Lake Michigan.

"You saved Audrey," he said without turning around. "Regardless of your last name, you protected my daughter. In my world, blood debts can run deep, but life debts are absolute."

He turned back to face me. "You will stay here. You will continue to tutor Audrey. But you will do it as an honored guest, not a prisoner. If any of my capos ask about your identity, your name is Claire Miller, and you are under my personal protection. Anyone who questions that answers to me."

I let out a breath I felt like I'd been holding for three days. "Thank you... Dominic."

He stiffened slightly at the use of his first name, but didn't correct me.

"There is something else you should know," Dominic added, his face darkening again. "Marcus didn't act alone. Before he died, he gave up the name of the financial backer who funded the bombing."

My blood ran cold. "Who?"

"Viktor Rostov," Dominic said grimly. "The head of the Russian Bratva in Chicago. And tonight, he’s hosting a summit at his casino downtown. He thinks I’m still chasing ghosts."