Everyone watched Victoria raise her hand against a helpless elderly woman, but only one waitress dared to stop her—and seconds later, Chicago’s most powerful billionaire walked straight toward them.

Vincent knelt beside his grandmother’s chair, pressing his forehead against her frail, jewel-ringed hand for a brief second. "Are you hurt?"

"I am annoyed," Elena corrected, her dark eyes flashing. "Vance’s trash shot up my rose garden and ruined my imported French doors. Where is Thomas Sterling?"

"Dead," Vincent replied. "At the bottom of the lake."

Elena nodded once, a grim acknowledgment of an old blood debt settled. Then her gaze shifted to Emma, who stood near the grand staircase, gripping her weapon. Elena held out a hand toward her. "Come here, child."

Emma stepped forward, kneeling beside the old woman. Elena took Emma’s bruised, soot-covered hand in her own, running her thumb over the cut Vincent had made across her palm.

"You look just like your grandmother, Catherine Ward," Elena whispered softly. "She had the same fierce chin. The same stubborn heart. When Marcus went into hiding, he made my husband promise that if the world ever turned completely black, the Moretti family would protect his heirs with our lives."

"Mrs. Moretti..." Emma began, her throat tightening. "They're coming here. Jonathan Vance is alive. He wants the cipher."

"I know Jonathan is alive," Elena said, a chilling smile touching her wrinkled lips. "I was the one who helped him fake his death fifteen years ago."

Vincent’s head snapped up, his gaze locking onto his grandmother with profound disbelief. "What?"

Elena looked at her grandson, unblinking. "Your father was too soft to make the hard decisions, Vincent. Fifteen years ago, the federal government was preparing an indictment that would have dismantled every enterprise we owned. Jonathan Vance proposed a syndicate pact: he would take the Vanguard underground, absorb the political heat, and allow the Moretti family to maintain surface control of Chicago. We were allies once."

"He came to slaughter us, Elena!" Vincent growled.

"He came because he is dying," Elena answered, pointing her silver revolver toward the window overlooking the frozen lake. "Jonathan has pancreatic cancer. He has less than three months to live. This isn't about forty billion dollars or global power anymore. This is about his legacy. He wants to wipe the board clean before he dies, so his heirs inherit a throne, not a confederacy."

Suddenly, the glass in the great hall rattled violently. A low, subterranean rumbling began to vibrate through the floorboards.

Outside, the heavy spotlights died. The emergency generators in the basement went dead with a high-pitched whine. Total darkness enveloped the estate, illuminated only by the dying embers of the fireplace.