Around us, the air smelled of expensive cigar smoke, aged leather, and something metallic—the faint, sharp tang of fear.

“He’s not breathing properly,” Dmitri muttered, his usually steady voice cracking. The big Russian’s face had lost all its color, the jagged scar running along his jaw standing out like a brand against his pale skin.

“Move!” One of the armed guards—a bulky man named Viktor whom Sophie had once tried to feed a gummy bear—lurched forward, his hand dropping automatically toward the heavy pistol holstered beneath his tailored jacket.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” I screamed, throwing myself between Viktor and my daughter.

Sophie didn’t even flinch. At four years old, she possessed a stubborn, immovable focus that she had undoubtedly inherited from her father—whoever he was, long gone before she took her first breath. Kneeling beside the crumpled form of the most feared man in Chicago, she held a plastic pink stethoscope against Alexei Petrov’s broad chest.

The toy instrument was a joke. It was made of cheap neon-pink molded plastic, complete with a plastic disk that clicked when pressed against skin. It couldn't amplify a heartbeat. It couldn't diagnose a failing organ.

Yet, as Sophie pressed it against Alexei’s sternum, the terrifying tension in the room plummeted into a dead, suffocating silence. Three heavily armed hitmen, men who routinely settled disputes with silenced firearms and unmarked graves, stood frozen like statues, hypnotized by a preschooler in denim overalls and a yellow duck shirt.

“Don’t be scared,” Sophie whispered, her small fingers patting Alexei’s heavy black-wool jacket with maternal gravity. “I’m a doctor.”

My throat tightened, a hot tear spilling over my lashes. For nineteen months, I had scrubbed this man’s floors, polished his crystal, and folded his silk shirts. I had watched him conduct hushed meetings in languages I didn't understand, surrounded by men who looked like executioners. I knew the whispered rumors on the South Side: that Alexei Petrov didn’t just control the docks; he owned the judges, the police captains, and the silence of everyone who ever crossed him.

Yet this was the same man who had found me crying in the pantry six months ago when Sophie had a raging fever and my rent check bounced, sliding an unmarked white envelope across the table without a word. “Take care of the little one,” he had said. “A clean house means nothing if the people inside it are suffering.”

And now he was dying on the floor.

“Mommy,” Sophie whispered again, her voice dropping from playful innocence into something sharp, cold, and entirely unchildlike.

“What is it, baby? Please, step back, let Dmitri— ambulance is coming—they’re on their way—” I stammered, reaching out to scoop her up.

Sophie pushed my hand away. Her tiny finger pointed straight at Alexei’s slack, graying lips.

“Look.”

I forced my gaze down, past his stubbled jaw, past the expensive silk tie that was pulled loose around his thick neck, and focused on his mouth.

At first, I saw only the pale dryness of a man losing oxygen. Then, a microscopic detail caught the harsh glare of the desk lamp. A faint, powdery white residue frosted the corners of his lips. A tiny, crystalline trace of something foreign, smelling faintly—if you leaned in close enough past the cigar smoke—of bitter almonds.

Cyanide.

Or worse, a synthetic, fast-acting neurotoxin designed to mimic a massive heart attack so the coroner would sign off without a second glance. Someone inside the inner circle had tried to take down the boss. And if the poison was fast enough to drop Alexei Petrov in under thirty seconds, it was already airborne, or worse, someone in this very room was holding the antidote.

Dmitri leaned forward, his heavy brows knitting together as his eyes caught the white powder on Alexei’s mouth. A low, dangerous growl ripped from the back of the big Russian’s throat. He slowly stood up, turning his glacial gaze away from his fallen boss and fixing it directly on the three guards standing by the door.

“Lock the doors,” Dmitri whispered. His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. It was the sound of an executioner sharpening his blade. “Nobody leaves this estate. Because we have a traitor among us.”