Elena Vitiello POV:

"Death wish."

I stood in the center of the Outfit Manor's underground intelligence room. The massive wall of monitors cast a cold, blue glow over the dark space.

Julian’s fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, the rapid clacking echoing off the concrete walls.

"I tracked the proxy bounce from the email," Julian said, his eyes glued to the scrolling code. "I’m tapping into the municipal and dark-net camera grids around that Queens black market."

"Show me," I demanded, my voice tight.

Julian hit a final key. The main screen flickered and brought up a live, hacked feed from a damp, abandoned garage in Brooklyn.

I stared at the screen.

In the center of the filthy garage, Sofia stood in front of a cracked, dirty mirror.

Even through the grainy camera feed, I could see the grotesque ruin of her face. The burns she had suffered from her own industrial firework had left a thick, red scar crawling up her cheek like a centipede. Her greatest weapon—her beauty—was entirely gone.

On the screen, Sofia raised her trembling hands and touched the scarred tissue.

She opened her mouth and let out a silent, agonizing scream. She raised her fist and smashed it directly into the broken mirror.

The glass shattered into tiny pieces. I watched the blood drip from her knuckles onto the concrete floor. She didn't even flinch. The physical pain was nothing compared to her madness.

I knew exactly what was driving her. I had seen the Chicago basement where my father had thrown her. I knew the rats, the dampness, the absolute degradation she had suffered to bribe a guard and escape. All that humiliation had twisted into pure, lethal hatred for me.

The garage door on the screen rolled up. A heavily tattooed black market dealer walked into the frame.

He covered his nose in disgust as he looked at Sofia. He kicked a heavy black canvas bag across the floor toward her.

Sofia fell to her knees and unzipped the bag.

My breath caught in my throat.

The bag was packed tight with crude, homemade explosives and blasting caps.

The dealer held out his hand. Sofia reached into her filthy coat and pulled out a glittering diamond necklace.

Julian enhanced the image.

"That's a Chicago heirloom," Julian noted, his voice grim. "She stole it before she ran."

The dealer inspected the diamonds, nodded, and pointed to the back of the garage. Sitting in the shadows was a beat-up, grey van with peeling paint.

Sofia limped toward the van, her eyes wide and manic.

The heavy steel door of the intel room banged open.

Dante stormed in. The air pressure in the room dropped instantly. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles twitched.

"I got the report," Dante snarled. He looked at the screen, his eyes burning with rage. "Lock down the city. Every bridge, every tunnel. I want my men tearing apart every borough until they find this rat."

"No," I said sharply, turning to face him.

Dante stopped, his chest heaving.

"If you flood the streets with soldiers, she will go underground," I explained, keeping my voice level. "She has nothing left to lose. We need to draw her out."

Julian interrupted us. "Mrs. Moretti. I ran the plates on that grey van. It’s a ghost vehicle. Unregistered."

I looked back at the screen. Sofia was moving the explosives into the passenger seat of the van.

My brain processed the data instantly. She bought cheap, unstable explosives and a junk vehicle.

"It's a suicide bombing," I said, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "She wants to take me with her."

I glanced at the heavy gold watch on my wrist.

"I have the Columbia University foundation donation ceremony in two hours," I said.

Dante stepped forward, his massive frame blocking the monitors. "Cancel it. You are not leaving this house."

"I am going," I said, stepping right into his space, refusing to back down. "It's a public schedule. She knows exactly where I will be. It is the perfect bait."

Dante grabbed my arms, his grip bruising. "Elena, it's a bomb."

"I will be in the armored Rolls Royce," I said smoothly. "Let her come to me."

I turned my attention back to the monitor.

On the screen, Sofia was taping the blasting caps to the steering wheel. Her movements were clumsy, but deadly.

She climbed into the driver's seat. The engine sputtered and roared to life, a rough, grating sound through the audio feed.

She picked up a printed photo from the passenger seat. It was a picture of me. She had slashed it to pieces with a knife.

She stared at the camera feed for a second, her eyes completely devoid of sanity.

"Let's go to hell together."

Elena Vitiello POV:

"Let's go to hell together."

Sofia’s twisted words echoed in my mind as the heavy, armored doors of the Rolls Royce locked into place with a solid *thud*.

The convoy of three black, bulletproof SUVs rolled out of the Outfit Manor gates, heading straight for Manhattan.

I sat in the back of the Rolls Royce, my legs crossed. I wore a long, tailored black wool coat over my suit. The heated leather seats did nothing to warm the cold, calculated anticipation spreading through my chest.

Thirty minutes later, the convoy approached the grand plaza of Columbia University.

The sky was a bruised, heavy grey. A freezing, biting wind whipped through the streets, carrying the threat of sleet.

Through the dark, tinted, bomb-resistant glass of my window, I saw them.

Luca and Matteo.

They were standing in the dead center of the open stone plaza. They looked like common vagrants.

Luca was clutching his side, clearly agonizing over the fractured ribs my guards had given him days ago. His designer clothes were filthy, torn, and stained with street grime.

Matteo leaned heavily on a cheap, wooden crutch. His left leg ended in a stump below the knee. His prosthetic was gone, shattered by my security detail. He was shivering violently in the wind.

A small delivery truck from a local florist was parked haphazardly by the curb. The driver was tossing out massive bundles of red roses.

I watched Luca dig into his dirty pockets. He pulled out a few crumpled, damp dollar bills—likely their last remaining cash—and shoved them into the driver's hand.

Matteo hobbled forward. With painful, agonizing slowness, he bent down and began spreading the red roses across the cold, grey paving stones.

They were arranging the thousands of flowers into a gigantic, pathetic heart shape.

Luca knelt in the center of the flowers. He pulled out a lighter and began lighting cheap, windproof candles, trying to create a pathetic illusion of romance.

A crowd of college students had already gathered. They pointed, whispered, and held up their phones, live-streaming the humiliating spectacle. They recognized the former princes of the Chicago syndicate, now reduced to freezing beggars.

Luca tried to look up with a soulful, tragic expression. But his jaw was still swollen and bruised from being shattered, making him look grotesque.

He actually believed this would work. He believed that if he groveled, if he performed this grand, dramatic gesture, I would revert to the obedient, desperate girl who used to crave his scraps of affection.

He didn't realize that girl died in a Chicago basement.

My convoy roared into the plaza. The massive engines drowned out the wind.

The three vehicles drove right onto the pedestrian stones, stopping aggressively at the edge of the rose heart.

Ten heavily armed Outfit guards poured out of the front and rear SUVs. They physically shoved the crowd of students back, forming a tight, impenetrable perimeter around my Rolls Royce.

Luca saw the convoy. A manic gleam of hope ignited in his bloodshot eyes.

He dropped to his knees right in the middle of the wet roses.

"Elena!" Luca screamed. His voice was hoarse, ragged, and utterly pathetic. "Elena, please!"

Inside the silent, soundproof cabin of the Rolls Royce, I felt my stomach turn.

I looked at the red roses. All I could see was the memory of the cheap, insulting diamond ring he had thrown at me years ago.

My lead guard tapped the intercom button. "Queen. Do you want us to clear this trash?"

I stared through the glass at Luca’s kneeling form. A dark, cruel smirk touched my lips.

"No," I replied smoothly. "That is too easy."

I picked up my encrypted phone. I dialed a direct line to the New York municipal sanitation director—a man whose gambling debts Dante owned.

"This is Elena Moretti," I said. "Send a heavy-duty street sweeper to the Columbia University main plaza. Immediately."

I hung up.

I smoothed the lapels of my coat. I pulled a pair of black leather gloves from my pocket and slid them onto my hands, adjusting the fit over my fingers.

My guard opened the heavy car door.

The freezing wind instantly rushed into the cabin.

I stepped out onto the concrete. My high heels clicked against the stone.

Luca saw me. He tried to crawl forward on his knees, his hands crushing the roses beneath him.

I stood at the top of the stone steps, looking down at him. I looked at him exactly the way one looks at a dead rat rotting in a sewer.

"You dirtied my carpet."

Elena Vitiello POV:

"You dirtied my carpet."

My voice cut through the freezing wind, sharp and completely devoid of pity.

Luca didn't care about the insult. He was completely unhinged. He dragged himself forward, his knees scraping against the rough stone. His hands, caked in mud and grime, reached out desperately toward the hem of my black wool coat.

He used to recoil if I even brushed against his sleeve. Now, he was begging to touch the dirt on my shoes.

Before his fingers could even come close, my lead guard stepped forward.

The guard drove his heavy combat boot directly into Luca’s injured shoulder.

The impact produced a sickening *crack*. Luca was launched backward. He tumbled through the wet roses and landed face-first in a puddle of freezing mud.

Luca curled into a ball, clutching his chest. He coughed violently, a spray of red blood splattering onto the white stones. Yet, his eyes remained locked on me, wide and pleading.

Matteo hobbled forward, leaning heavily on his wooden crutch. "Elena, please! We have nothing left!"

Another guard didn't even hesitate. He swung the heavy stock of his assault rifle and smashed it into the small of Matteo’s back.

Matteo screamed. He collapsed forward, his stump hitting the hard ground.

The surrounding college students gasped collectively. The flashes of their phone cameras strobed like lightning, capturing every second of the Chicago heirs being treated like stray dogs.

I stood perfectly still. The wind whipped my hair around my face, but my expression remained carved from ice.

"I know I was wrong!" Luca sobbed, spitting mud from his mouth. "Give me one more chance, Elena! I love you!"

I let out a low, mocking laugh.

"Do you think this is moving, Luca?" I asked, gesturing to the crushed red roses. "Do you think a few dead flowers erase the basement?"

Before he could answer, a deep, mechanical rumbling vibrated through the soles of my shoes.

At the far end of the street, a massive, heavy-duty city sanitation water truck turned the corner. Its enormous yellow chassis dominated the road.

The truck slowly rolled up to the edge of the plaza, stopping right in front of the heart-shaped bed of roses.

The driver leaned out of the window and gave a sharp nod to my guard captain.

I raised my black-gloved hand and flicked my wrist forward.

The driver slammed his hand down on the control lever.

The high-pressure water cannon mounted on the front of the truck erupted.

A thick, violent stream of water blasted out with the force of a localized hurricane. It slammed into the ground, instantly shredding the thousands of red roses into a slurry of red pulp and mud.

The cannon swept across the plaza. It hit Luca dead center.

The sheer kinetic force of the water lifted his emaciated body off the ground. He was thrown backward, sliding helplessly across the rough stones for ten feet.

The water blasted Matteo next. His wooden crutch was snapped and washed away into the gutter. He lost all balance and face-planted directly into the freezing, red-stained sludge.

The freezing water soaked them to the bone. They lay in the mud, shivering so violently their teeth chattered, gasping for air as the cannon mercilessly pinned them down.

The crowd of students erupted into cruel laughter. The romantic gesture had been completely obliterated, turning into a humiliating circus act.

Luca lay in the puddle, sobbing uncontrollably. The last microscopic shred of his dignity had just been washed down the drain.

I looked at their pathetic, broken forms. The heavy knot of anger that had sat in my chest for years finally dissolved. They were nothing to me anymore.

I turned around to walk back to the Rolls Royce.

Suddenly, the tiny earpiece tucked into my right ear cracked with static.

"Queen!" Julian’s voice screamed through the comms, panicked and urgent. "The grey van! It just blew past the outer perimeter cameras! It’s coming in hot!"

I whipped my head around. I looked past the water truck, down the long avenue.

Three blocks away, a rusted grey van was tearing down the street. It ignored the red lights, swerving violently around civilian cars.

The engine screamed, a high-pitched mechanical wail of a machine being pushed past its absolute limit. White smoke poured from the tires as they burned against the asphalt.

My guard captain drew his weapon. "Protect the Queen!" he roared.

I didn't move. I stood at the top of the stairs, my eyes narrowing.

Through the cracked windshield of the speeding van, I locked eyes with the horrific, scarred face of the driver.

"Sofia."