The most feared mafia boss in Chicago came home three hours early and found his housekeeper secretly feeding four identical little boys at the dining table no one had touched since his wife died. He was about to demand an explanation when one boy pointed at him and asked, “Elena, is that the man from the picture?” The spoon fell from her hand.

The heavy oak doors of the grand foyer rattled as the tires of three black, reinforced SUVs screeched against the gravel driveway outside.

I didn't waste another second staring at the five words written across the back of the photograph. KEEP THEM SAFE FROM ALEJANDRO. The ink was fading, but the jagged desperation of Sofia’s handwriting hit my chest harder than a point-blank round.

"Boss!" Marco, my chief of security, burst through the dining room’s double doors, his hand already on his weapon. His face was flushed, sweat dripping down his temple. "Three unmarked vehicles just blew through the outer perimeter gates! They aren't local police, and they aren't standard outfits. They're heavily armed!"

"How many?" I snapped, my voice dropping into the cold, instinctual register honed over two decades of street warfare.

"At least twelve," Marco replied, his eyes briefly darting toward the four identical boys huddled behind Elena’s faded cotton dress. "Maybe fifteen. They’re dressed in grey tactical gear. No insignias."

Elena clutched the four boys against her knees, her entire body shaking like a leaf in an autumn wind. The children didn't scream. That was the most terrifying part. They didn't cry, yell, or thrash around like normal four-year-olds. They shrank into Elena’s skirt, four pairs of identical brown eyes staring up at me with a silent, eerie discipline that could only have been forged through years of hiding.

"Alejandro," Elena gasped, tears pouring down her aged, wrinkled cheeks. "They’ve tracked us. They knew you weren't supposed to be home today! They were waiting for the house to be empty!"

"Who are they, Elena?" I demanded, drawing my custom-engraved, dark-grey Sig Sauer P226 from beneath my tailored jacket. The metallic click of the slide cycling echoed sharply through the cavernous dining room. "Answer me!"

"There’s no time!" she sobbed, holding the boy named Mateo tightly against her chest. "If they get inside this room, those boys will never see the light of day again!"

"Nobody dies in my house," I growled, stepping past her toward the doorway. "Marco! Lock down the west wing! Get the boys into the sub-basement bunker through the kitchen pantry! Take four men with you!"

"Understood, Boss!" Marco barked, signaling two enforcers who had rushed into the hallway behind him.

I turned back to Elena, taking her by her thin, fragile arms. "Elena, listen to me carefully. Five years ago, I buried my wife. I thought my family ended with her. Now I’m looking at four boys who carry my blood and my face. You are going to take them down to the panic room, lock the steel door from the inside, and you are not going to open it for anyone except me. Do you hear me?"

Elena looked into my eyes, her lips trembling. "You don't understand, Alejandro... the man leading those men... he isn't a rival gang leader."

Before she could finish her sentence, the heavy stained-glass windows of the front foyer exploded inward in a shower of deadly crystal shards!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

High-caliber suppressor fire tore through the plaster walls, chewing up the hand-carved mahogany crown moldings and ripping priceless oil paintings to shreds.

"GO! NOW!" I roared, shoving Elena and the four boys through the service door leading into the kitchen.

I ducked behind a massive marble pillar as a volley of submachine gun fire swept across the hallway, pulverizing the stone floor where I had been standing half a second earlier. Dust and grey powder filled the air, smelling heavily of spent cordite and shattered plaster.

Through the haze of smoke, six men in unmarked tactical uniforms advanced through the ruined foyer. They moved with military precision—overlapping fields of fire, low center of gravity, flawless communication using hand signals.

These weren't hired thugs from the South Side. They weren't street soldiers from the rival Moretti splinter factions. These were professional mercenaries.

I peeked around the marble pillar, lined up my sight on the lead point-man, and squeezed the trigger twice.

BANG! BANG!

The heavy 9mm hollow-point rounds caught the mercenary squarely in the throat, above his tactical vest. He collapsed instantly, his rifle clattering against the shattered glass floor.

I rolled behind the grand staircase as a torrent of return fire chewed away the corner of the pillar. "Marco! Status!" I shouted into my collar radio.

"They're secure, Boss!" Marco’s voice cracked over the static. "Elena and the kids are inside the vault! The reinforced steel door is sealed! But we’ve got more hostiles coming over the rear garden wall!"

"Hold the perimeter!" I commanded, dropping my empty magazine, slapping a fresh one into the magwell, and racking the slide. "Leave one alive. I want answers!"

I stepped out from behind the staircase, firing three rapid shots into the chest of a second mercenary who was attempting to flank the dining room corridor. The heavy impact threw him back against the wall, blood spraying across the floral wallpaper.

Within six minutes, the thunderous roar of gunfire inside the mansion faded into a heavy, suffocating silence.

Twelve mercenaries lay dead or dying across my foyer floor. The lingering smoke drifted through the shattered front entrance, catching the cold afternoon sunlight.

I walked slowly down the marble steps, my shoes crunching over broken glass and brass casings. I stopped beside a wounded mercenary who was gasping for air, clutching a deep chest wound.

I knelt down, resting my heavy leather shoe directly over his shattered collarbone, pressing down until he let out a choked, bloody scream.

"Who sent you?" I asked, my tone flat, emotionless, and colder than a Chicago winter.

The mercenary spat blood onto his cracked visor. He sneered, his teeth stained red. "You... you think you're the only devil... in this city, Moretti?"

"I don't think," I whispered, leaning in closer until my face was inches from his. "I know. Give me a name, or I'll spend the next three days dissecting you in my cellar."

The man choked on a laugh. "Check... check his phone... the client... is already... inside the city..."

His head fell back against the marble, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as his pulse stopped.

I stood up, wiping a splash of blood from my cheek with the back of my hand. I reached into his tactical vest, pulled out a encrypted military-grade satellite phone, and flipped the screen open.

There was only one contact saved on the speed-dial log.

DOMINIC VANCE.

My breath caught in my throat.

Dominic Vance was Sofia’s older brother. My brother-in-law.

A powerful, corrupt United States Senator who had spent the last decade using his political shield to cover up the dark, illegal shipping channels running through the Great Lakes.

When Sofia died five years ago in a horrific car crash along Lake Shore Drive, Dominic had stood at her funeral, weeping openly, hugging me, and swearing that he held no grudge against my family.

Why would a United States Senator send an elite tactical hit squad to murder four four-year-old boys inside my house?