"They beat my housekeeper nearly unconscious because she wore my family crest, then left her bleeding in the rain as a warning to me. But the men who attacked Emma Carter made one fatal mistake: they thought hurting someone under my protection would frighten me.

The disastrous defeat at the docks broke the back of the Kolov syndicate. Alexei Kolov had lost his top lieutenants, his supply lines, and millions of dollars in destroyed cargo. He was a cornered animal, bleeding out in a city that no longer feared him.

But a cornered animal is the most dangerous kind.

Two days later, Marco handed me an encrypted burner phone.

"It’s Kolov," Marco sneered. "He is demanding a parley. A sit-down to negotiate terms of surrender."

I took the phone, pressing it to my ear. "You have nothing left to negotiate with, Alexei."

"I have my life, Castellano," Kolov’s voice rasped through the speaker, devoid of the arrogant boasting he had used to terrorize Emma. "And you have yours. We meet tonight. Neutral ground. The abandoned cathedral in the South Side. You bring the deed to the southern ports, and I will leave the country peacefully. If you refuse, I will use my last remaining explosives to level St. Jude’s hospital."

The threat was a desperate, horrific bluff, but it involved the hospital where I had paid for the oncology wing. He was threatening hundreds of innocent lives just to secure a payday.

"Midnight," I agreed coldly. "I will be there."

I hung up the phone. Marco looked at me, horrified.

"Boss, it’s a trap," Marco warned. "He isn't going to surrender. He’s going to execute you the moment you walk through those doors."

"I know it’s a trap, Marco," I said smoothly, strapping a heavy combat knife to my tactical belt. "But Kolov fundamentally misunderstands the man he is dealing with. He thinks I am walking in there to negotiate a peace treaty."