The most feared mafia boss in Boston opened his mansion expecting an enemy’s trap, but a tiny girl in a child-sized cleaning apron walked through his doors and said

The drive to the docks was a blur of rain and neon light. Emma sat in the back of the SUV, huddled into the leather seat, staring out the window with a silent, heavy maturity that belonged to a child who had seen too much.

I looked at her through the rearview mirror. The resemblance to Elena was terrifying. The same curve of the jaw, the same hauntingly sad blue eyes. My mind raced through the past, connecting dots I had spent a decade trying to erase.

Elena was supposed to be in Europe. She was supposed to be married to a man who didn't deal in blood and black-market steel. She was supposed to be safe. But the woman on this resume had been working in a factory on the outskirts of Boston for three years.

"Why did your mommy wait so long to come here?" I asked, keeping my tone steady.

Emma looked at me, her face pale. "She said you were a bad man. She said if I went to see you, I would never be able to come back. But she couldn't breathe today, mister. She was coughing, and she was so hot. I didn't know what else to do."

A bad man. The assessment was accurate, but coming from her, it felt like a sentence.

We pulled up to a dilapidated building that looked like it would crumble if the wind blew any harder. This was the poverty-stricken heart of the city—a place where people like me went to disappear.

"Stay in the car," I ordered Harold. I grabbed my weapon, checked the chamber, and pushed open the door.

The stairwell smelled of damp rot and misery. I climbed the steps, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I reached room 4B, the wood splintered and peeling. I didn't knock. I kicked the door open, my gun raised, my senses screaming for danger.

The room was empty of threats. It was filled only with the smell of stagnant air and sickness.

In the corner, on a threadbare mattress, a woman lay shivering under a pile of moth-eaten blankets. Her dark hair was matted with sweat, her skin pale as parchment.

"Elena?"

The woman gasped, her eyes flying open. When they landed on me, the terror was so profound it silenced the room.

"Dante?" she whispered, the name sounding like a plea. "How… how did you find her?"

I crossed the room in two strides, falling to my knees beside her. Her hand was burning, her pulse fluttering like a trapped bird. "Emma found me. Why didn't you come to me? Why have you been living like this?"

Elena laughed, a wet, rattling sound that turned into a coughing fit. "Because you are a monster, Dante. And I didn't want Emma to be part of your world. But I… I have no one left. The money is gone. The factory closed. And I am dying."

She reached out, her trembling fingers gripping my coat. "She doesn't know. She thinks you’re just a… a man I used to know. Keep her safe. That’s the only debt you owe me."

I felt a surge of rage, a cold, dark fire that had nothing to do with my enemies and everything to do with the waste of her life. "You’re not dying," I said, the command echoing in the small room. "Harold!"