Vanessa called me a worthless maid for serving Luca a chipped bowl of chicken soup, but the moment he tasted it, he realized his mother had been waiting downstairs for nearly two hours.

The Grand Ballroom of the Drake Hotel was breathtaking.

Twenty-four hours after the massacre at the council, the underworld of the eastern seaboard had gathered under an armed truce. Over three hundred capos, consiglieres, and elite financiers sat at banquet tables illuminated by massive crystal chandeliers.

Luca and I entered together.

I wore an emerald silk gown that fell like liquid fire to the floor, my hair pinned with antique gold combs, the Carbone signet gleaming proudly upon my hand alongside the Moretti wolf. Luca was the picture of untamed majesty in a bespoke midnight-black tuxedo, walking with the calm, terrifying poise of a predator who had killed his rivals and returned to claim the throne.

Beside us walked Lorenzo and Mrs. Moretti, their presence silencing every whisper in the cavernous hall.

The delegates rose to their feet, bowing their heads in unison as Luca and I walked up the central dais to the two high-backed thrones carved of dark cherry wood.

Julian Vance stood to the side under the watchful, unblinking guard of two Phoenix operatives, his signed confession waiting in the leather folder beneath the podium. Don Corrado had been stripped of his title and was currently on a cargo vessel bound for a black site in the Mediterranean.

We had won. The city was ours. The alliance was unbroken.

Luca stepped to the microphone at the center of the dais, raising his crystal glass of wine.

"To the future of Chicago," Luca declared, his deep voice carrying into the rafters. "To honor, to blood, and to the unbroken alliance of Moretti and Carbone!"

The room roared with approval, hundreds of glasses raised high in a triumphant toast.

Luca turned to me, lifting his glass to tap against mine. "To my queen," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with unconditional love.

I raised my glass, the wine catching the golden chandelier light.

I brought the crystal rim to my lips—and then I stopped.

The faint, sweet aroma of almond drifted into my nostrils. It was almost undetectable beneath the rich vintage of the red wine, but for a girl who had spent five years memorizing the chemical smells of cleaning agents, lye, and kitchen pantry poisons, the scent struck my brain like an electric shock.

*Cyanide.*

"Luca, don't drink!" I screamed, slapping the crystal goblet from his hand.

The glass shattered against the dais floor, the dark red liquid sizzling violently against the white carpet, dissolving the fibers in a tiny wisp of acrid smoke.

The entire ballroom froze in dead silence.

Before Luca could draw his weapon, the massive projection screen behind the dais flickered to life with static. A low, distorted mechanical voice boomed through the ballroom’s sound system, echoing with chilling amusement.

"Did you really believe Julian Vance was the Architect, little bird?" the voice purred, mocking us through the speakers. "He was merely our clerk."

On the screen, a live video feed appeared.

It was the interior of St. Jude's sacred crypt, deep beneath the city—the ancient sanctuary where the foundation stones of the Carbone family had rested for over a century.

Tied to a stone pillar in the center of the crypt was a woman with grey hair, weeping silently into a gag.

Lorenzo’s glass slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor. His face turned as white as fresh chalk, his body trembling violently.

"Elena?" Lorenzo gasped, his voice breaking in sheer, unadulterated horror. "My... my wife? She... she died ten years ago!"

"Every king has a blind spot, Don Carbone," the mechanical voice whispered as a red digital countdown timer appeared over my mother's face on the screen: