a.He Watched Her Take Five Bullets for His Mother and Then the Most Feared Man in Chicago Fell Apart

Alarms blared across the two-hundred-acre estate, high-pitched shrieks cutting through the quiet afternoon air.

"Breach! Perimeter breached!" the security radios crackled.

The estate's security team responded instantly, engaging the invaders in a fierce firefight across the front lawn. Gunfire echoed through the manicured trees, breaking glass and tearing into the stone facade of the mansion.

Inside the greenhouse, Lena dropped her shears. Her heart seized with immediate, icy terror—not for herself, but for Danny and Isabella.

She didn't run to hide. She ran straight toward the main house.

She cut through the back kitchen entrance, ducking low as bullets tore through the upper windows, showering the floor in glass shards.

She sprinted up the service stairs to the second floor. She found Danny in his room, frantically trying to wheel himself toward the door.

"Danny!" Lena cried, rushing inside and grabbing the handles of his wheelchair.

"Lena! What’s happening?!" Danny panicked.

"We have to get to the panic room!" Lena urged.

Marco had shown her the panic room during her first week at the estate—a reinforced steel vault hidden behind the bookshelf in the master study, equipped with independent air filtration, satellite comms, and heavy blast doors.

"Where is Mrs. Duca?!" Danny shouted over the sound of automatic rifle fire coming from the hallway below.

"I’m getting her first!" Lena said, wheeling Danny rapidly into the study. She tapped the hidden keypad behind the leather-bound encyclopedia, and the heavy oak bookcase slid open with a deep hydraulic hiss. "Get inside, Danny! Lock the inner door!"

"Lena, no! Don't go back out there!" Danny begged, pulling on her arm.

"I have to get Isabella!" Lena shouted back, tearing her arm free. "Stay inside!"

She slammed the button, and the steel door began to slide shut, securing Danny safely inside.

Lena turned and sprinted down the long, carpeted corridor toward Isabella’s room.

As she reached the door, two Moretti hitmen stepped out of the stairwell, automatic pistols raised. They saw Lena.

"There she is!" one gunman shouted. "The boss said take her alive!"

Lena didn't pause. She threw open a heavy bronze display vase standing on a pedestal beside her, shoving it with all her weight. The heavy marble base tipped over, crashing into the first gunman’s knees, sending him tumbling down the stairs.

The second gunman lunged forward, grabbing Lena by her hair.

Lena shrieked, pain shooting down her neck. But she wasn't the helpless girl from Pilsen anymore. She drove her elbow back into the man’s nose with all her strength.

CRACK!

The man howled, blood spurting from his nostrils as he stumbled backward. Lena grabbed a heavy brass floor lamp from the wall and swung it like a bat, striking him across the jaw, knocking him unconscious onto the carpet.

Breathing heavily, her hands shaking, Lena burst into Isabella’s bedroom.

Isabella was standing near her bed, holding an old snub-nosed revolver her late husband had given her thirty years ago, her face pale but resolute.

"Lena!" Isabella gasped.

"We have to move, now!" Lena ordered, grabbing the old woman’s arm and pulling her into the hallway.

They made it halfway to the master study when the central glass skylight above the grand staircase exploded downward in a shower of glittering shards.

Three men rappelled down from the roof, landing on the second-floor balcony, blocking the path to the panic room.

Standing in the center was Antonio Moretti himself, holding an ivory-handled pistol, a cruel, triumphant sneer on his face.

"Well, well," Moretti purred, stepping over the shattered glass. "The famous caregiver. Marco burned half the city for you, little girl. Let’s see if he’ll give me his empire to get you back."

Isabella lifted her revolver with shaking hands, pointing it at Moretti. "Touch her, Antonio, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes."

Moretti chuckled dismissively. "Put the gun down, old woman. You're outmatched."

He raised his weapon, aiming directly at Isabella’s chest.

Lena stepped in front of Isabella without a moment's hesitation, her chin held high, her eyes blazing with fierce, defiant anger.

"If you want to get to his family, Moretti," Lena spoke, her voice loud, clear, and ringing with absolute fearlessness, "you’ll have to kill me first. Again."