Within three hours, the DeLuca Tower had been transformed into an impenetrable command center.

In the subterranean vault, holographic tactical maps of Chicago’s industrial waterfront illuminated the dark room with glowing blue grids. Roman stood at the head of the table, his face carved from cold, unyielding granite, studying thermal satellite feeds of an abandoned grain elevator on the south docks.

“Our intelligence confirms it,” Marcus reported, clicking a laser pointer onto a red sector on the map. “Victor Vescari is holed up in the old Calumet grain silos with a dozen mercenaries from the New York syndicate. He’s using your father as bait to draw you out, Elena.”

Elena stood beside Roman, her hands resting flat on the steel table. She wasn't shaking. The fear she had felt on the steps of City Hall had burned away, replaced by a cold, surgical fury.

“He thinks I’m still the waitress he can push around,” Elena said, her voice chillingly calm. “He thinks I’m the person he can blackmail with my father’s life.”

Roman turned his head, looking down at her with a mix of fierce pride and deep, abiding protectiveness.

“What do you want to do, Elena?” Roman asked quietly.

“I want to lead the breach,” she replied without hesitation.

The room went dead silent. Marcus opened his mouth to object, but one look from Roman’s dark eyes shut him down instantly.

Roman stepped close to her, his large hand resting gently on the back of her neck.

“Vescari is a desperate rat in a corner,” Roman said softly. “It will be bloody.”

“Let it be bloody,” Elena whispered. “End it tonight.”

An hour later, a convoy of six matte-black armored SUVs slipped through the rain-slicked docklands of South Chicago, extinguishing their headlights two miles from the Calumet grain silos.

The raid was swift, silent, and terrifyingly efficient.

DeLuca’s tactical operatives breached the lower loading bay of the grain elevator before Vescari’s guards even knew they had arrived. Flash-bang grenades cracked like thunder through the hollow concrete corridors, followed by the sharp pop of suppressed weapons.

Elena walked in the center of the tactical wedge, flanked by Roman and Marcus, wearing a tactical vest over her charcoal suit.

They cleared the second floor, the third floor, and finally reached the massive control room at the top of the silo.

The heavy steel door had already been blasted off its hinges.

Inside, tied securely to a metal chair with heavy zip-ties, sat Arthur Moretti, gagged and shaking. Standing behind him, holding a trembling pistol to the old man’s temple, was Victor Vescari.

Victor looked deranged—his clothes rumpled, his eyes bloodshot and wild, blood dripping from a cut above his left eyebrow.

“Stop right there!” Victor shrieked, pressing the barrel harder against Arthur’s temple as Roman and Elena stepped into the doorway. “Take one more step and I blow his brains across this terminal!”

Elena didn't stop. She kept walking forward, her footsteps echoing sharply against the concrete floor.

“Let him go, Victor,” Elena said, her voice steady and lethal.

“You ruined everything!” Victor screamed, spittle flying from his lips, his hands shaking violently on the pistol grip. “I built this syndicate! I made millions! And a broke little waitress in a cheap uniform took it all away because she couldn't mind her own damn business!”

“You didn't build an empire, Victor,” Elena stopped ten feet away from him, her dark eyes locking onto his with absolute contempt. “You stole from people who were smarter than you, and you treated human beings like garbage. That’s why you lost.”

Victor’s face twisted in blind, suicidal rage. He shifted the gun barrel away from Arthur’s head and aimed it straight at Elena’s chest.

“Then die with him—!”

BANG!

A single, perfectly placed shot cracked through the room.

It didn't come from a DeLuca operative.

From the shadows near the back control panel, Arthur Moretti—who had somehow managed to slice his zip-ties using a concealed shard of glass in his palm—raised a heavy wrench he had grabbed off the floor, having already struck Victor’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger.

The bullet slammed harmlessly into the concrete floor.

Before Victor could recover, Roman crossed the distance between them with terrifying speed, grabbed Victor by the throat, and slammed him against the reinforced glass window overlooking the dark, churning waters of Lake Michigan.

“It’s over, Victor,” Roman whispered, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates.

With one effortless heave, Roman shattered the glass and dropped Victor Vescari out into the cold, empty night air.

A muffled scream faded into the wind.