Chapter 7 - The Midnight Tribunal
The war did not last through the night; it lasted precisely two hours and forty minutes.
While two private physicians treated my chemical burns and flushed my scorched lungs with medicated saline in the master suite, Luca unleashed an ancient, biblical fury upon the city of Chicago.
He did not send assassins in the shadows. He went himself.
Backed by forty armored vehicles and two hundred heavily armed soldiers, Luca personally led the assault on the Bellini stronghold at the Calumet River docks. It was not a battle; it was a systematic demolition. The warehouses storing fifty million dollars of untaxed contraband were ignited with military-grade thermite. The private yachts were seized and sunk.
Don Antonio Bellini’s private estate in Lake Forest was surrounded before the old man could even finish his midnight scotch.
By three o'clock in the morning, the silence that returned to the Moretti mansion was heavy, absolute, and permanent.
In the master suite, Olivia was sound asleep on the giant king-sized bed. She had refused to return to her own bedroom until the broken glass was swept away, and she had refused to close her eyes unless she was holding my hand. Now, she lay between the silk sheets, her breathing slow and rhythmic, clutching her purple sea turtle, her lavender headphones resting on the bedside table.
My burns had been treated and wrapped in soothing gauze. The doctor had given me an injection for the smoke inhalation, and though my ribs ached with every breath, the terrifying tightness in my chest had begun to fade.
I sat propped against the pillows, watching the little girl sleep.
The heavy double doors of the suite clicked open softly.
Luca walked in.
He had showered and changed into clean black tactical trousers and a fresh shirt, but the scent of smoke, rain, and cold iron clung to him like a second skin. His knuckles were bruised, cut open across the bone, but his posture was that of a man who had finally excised a cancer from his world.
He closed the door silently, kicking off his boots before crossing the plush rug.
He stopped at the edge of the bed, his dark eyes instantly checking on Olivia. Seeing his daughter breathing peacefully, a long, ragged exhale escaped his chest.
Then, his gaze turned to me.
The raw vulnerability in his eyes took my breath away. He walked around the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress beside me.
"How are your lungs?" he asked softly, his deep voice hushed so as not to disturb Olivia.
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"Much better," I whispered, offering a small, reassuring smile. "The doctor said the gauze can come off tomorrow. It was mostly surface irritation."
Luca looked down at my bandaged hands, then reached out, his rough, scarred
