The High-Rise Club sits on the fiftieth floor of the obsidian tower overlooking the foggy expanse of Lake Michigan. Downtown Chicago looks small from up here, a jagged grid of concrete and glass swallowed by the remnants of the morning mist.
Inside the private penthouse suite, the air is thick with the scent of expensive scotch, premium tobacco, and the unspoken scent of a death warrant.
The five remaining heads of the city's ruling families sit around a heavy glass table that reflects the gray sky outside. Don Lucchesi, a man with silver hair and eyes like dull coins, sits at the center, his hands resting on his gold-headed cane.
"He’s late," Lucchesi snaps, his gravelly voice echoing off the minimalist marble walls. "The Marchetti boy thinks because he wears his father’s ring, he can keep the Commission waiting. We have the Romano records. We know he’s compromised."
"He isn't late."
The double glass doors of the penthouse swing open with a violent, effortless force.
Dante steps into the room. He hasn't changed his clothes. The charcoal three-piece suit is still smeared with white flour dust from the bakery floor, and a faint, dried spray of crimson stains the cuff of his white shirt. He looks entirely out of place in the pristine, luxury suite—and completely terrifying.
Behind him walks Leo, his submachine gun held low, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk. And tucked firmly against Dante's side, my wrist locked in his scalding, unyielding grip, is me. My hands are still scraped, the diamond wedding band catching the harsh overhead lights.
The bosses freeze, their hands instinctively drifting toward their jackets.
"Don't," Dante says. It is a single word, spoken in a low, razor-sharp purr that completely cuts the oxygen out of the room.
He walks straight to the head of the glass table, dragging me along with him. He doesn't pull out a chair. He simply stands there, towering over the older men, his amber eyes burning with a dark, lethal fire that makes the entire room drop to zero degrees.
With a fluid, heavy motion, Dante reaches inside his waistband and tosses the thick, leather-bound ledger onto the center of the glass table. It slides across the surface, stopping right in front of Don Lucchesi's gold cane.
The cover is splattered with fresh, dark blood.
"You wanted the Romano ledger, Lucchesi," Dante murmurs, his baritone a flat, dead line of pure execution. "There it is. Go ahead. Open it."
Lucchesi stares at the book, his pale skin turning a sickly shade of gray as he recognizes the binding. "Where did you... our scouts said—"
"Your scouts are dead in the gutter on 4th Street," Dante interrupts, leaning forward until his shadow completely swallows the older man. The tiny pale scar through his left eyebrow twitches, his jaw setting into a rigid sheet of marble. "And every dirty judge, every bought politician, and every wire transfer your families have made for the last ten years is detailed on those pages."
He reaches out, his large, warm hand catching the nape of my neck, pulling me flush against his side. The heat of his palm sinks into my skin, a grounding anchor in the center of the lion's den.
"You thought you could use my wife’s name to weaken my perimeter," Dante says, his voice dropping into that terrifying, level register that signals an absolute massacre. "But her father left me the keys to your kingdoms. The Commission doesn't judge a Marchetti. A Marchetti rules the Commission."
Dante locks eyes with the other four bosses around the table. They look down at the blood-stained ledger, then up at Dante’s ruthless, unblinking glare, realizing in a single, breathless heartbeat that the old guard is already dead.
"Effective immediately," Dante announces, his grip on my neck tightening into a heavy, possessive promise, "the sectors are redrawn. You pay forty percent of your northern lines to the Marchetti house, or Leo starts leaking these pages to the federal prosecutors by noon."
He looks down at me, the amber flecks in his eyes burn.