The most feared mafia boss in Chicago came home three hours early and found his housekeeper secretly feeding four identical little boys at the dining table no one had touched since his wife died. He was about to demand an explanation when one boy pointed at him and asked, “Elena, is that the man from the picture?” The spoon fell from her hand.

The southern gardens of the Valenti estate were bathed in smoke, fire, and the frantic strobe of tactical lighting.

I moved through the burning rose bushes like a wraith, flanked by the twelve operators of the Iron Guard. We moved in a synchronized, lethal wedge formation, crushing Carmine’s mercenaries before they could establish a defensive line.

The automatic suppressed fire of our rifles cut through the heavy night air. Carmine’s guards, despite their superior numbers, were disoriented by the total loss of power, the destruction of their automated camera networks, and the relentless, violent precision of our assault.

“Flank left!” Dom shouted over his radio, firing a heavy tactical shotgun into an advancing fireteam of Valenti soldiers. “Clear the lower patio!”

I vaulted over a low stone wall, dropping two guards with point-blank bursts to the chest before drawing my tactical sidearm to eliminate a third who was attempting to arm a heavy machine gun emplacement on the grand veranda.

The air was thick with the smell of burning fuel, cordite, and copper. Step by step, room by room, we cut our way through the sprawling outer estate, moving relentlessly toward the main mansion.

Every guard who stood in my way was met with absolute, unyielding lethality. I was not fighting for territory, for money, or for honor. I was fighting for four four-year-old boys who were currently sitting in a cold bunker in Canada, waiting for their father to fulfill his promise.

We breached the heavy double doors of the grand conservatory, glass shattering beneath our boots as we stepped into the high-ceilinged mansion hall.

A squad of eight elite Valenti bodyguards was waiting at the foot of the grand double staircase, opening fire with heavy submachine guns.

“Suppressing fire!” Dom shouted, throwing a smoke grenade into the center of the hall.

Thick grey smoke instantly filled the grand foyer. Using thermal-imaging goggles, I stepped through the smoke, seeing the heat signatures of the eight bodyguards clearly through the haze.

I fired eight calculated shots.

Eight heat signatures collapsed to the floor in rapid succession.

As the smoke began to clear, the grand foyer fell into a dead, suffocating silence. The fifty-acre fortress had been reduced to a graveyard in under twenty minutes. The surviving Valenti guards had fled into the surrounding woods, realizing that standing between Alejandro Moretti and his revenge was a guaranteed death sentence.

I stepped onto the marble staircase, my leather boots leaving dark, bloody footprints on the pristine white steps.

Dom moved up behind me, reloading his rifle, his eyes scanning the upper balconies.

“The main house is clear, Alejandro,” Dom reported softly. “Only the master suite at the end of the hall remains occupied. Thermal sensors show one person inside.”

I unclipped my tactical goggles, letting them hang around my neck, and pulled out my primary sidearm, checking the chamber one last time.

“Stay here, Dom,” I said quietly. “Secure the stairs. This final debt belongs to me.”

Dom nodded respectably, stepping back to take up a defensive position at the foot of the stairs. “Do what needs to be done, Boss.”

I walked down the long, carpeted corridor of the second floor, past oil paintings of Valenti ancestors, past gold-trimmed mirrors, until I stood before the heavy double mahogany doors of Carmine’s private suite.