Part 2

Dr. Rachel Miller’s words hung in the sterile hallway air, sharp and unyielding, cutting through the hum of fluorescent lights and the quiet panic ticking in my chest.

I took half a step forward, the heavy leather of my coat brushing against my thighs. My men remained a disciplined, silent wall behind me, their presence an unspoken barrier against the rest of the world. But inside that hospital corridor, their army-grade intimidation meant nothing. I was as vulnerable as any ordinary man facing the worst news of his life.

“What doesn’t match, Doctor?” I demanded, my voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that usually made my capos hold their breath.

Dr. Miller didn’t flinch. She had spent years dealing with emergency rooms in Detroit; she had looked into the eyes of drug lords, corrupt cops, and grieving fathers. She recognized the look of a predator cornered by forces he couldn’t shoot or bribe.

“Mr. Moretti,” she said, raising the clipboard slightly. “When the paramedics brought Mrs. Campbell in, they found her in the alley behind a warehouse district on Franklin Street. Her purse was missing. Her phone was missing. But what caught our attention during the trauma workup wasn’t just the cranial impact…”

She paused, looking past me toward Paige, who was anxiously wringing her hands.

“Go on,” I urged, a cold sweat breaking out along my spine. “Tell me.”

“The blunt force trauma to her head is severe—she has a fractured temporal bone and a subdural hematoma that we are monitoring closely. But when our technicians performed the routine obstetric ultrasound for the sixteen-week pregnancy…” Dr. Miller took a sharp breath. “We found defensive bruising on her forearms. And internal injuries that were inconsistent with a simple slip or fall.”

The world tilted on its axis.

“What are you saying?” Paige gasped, stepping closer. “Are you saying someone attacked her?”

“I am saying,” Dr. Miller replied carefully, “that Mrs. Campbell didn’t just fall. She was beaten. And based on the pattern of trauma, whoever struck her targeted her abdomen as well as her head.”

A sound escaped my throat—half growl, half intake of breath.

The air in the hallway suddenly felt completely depleted of oxygen. The temperature plummeted. Behind me, I heard the faint, ominous metallic click of a firearm being adjusted beneath a shoulder holster. One of my captains, Marcus, took half a step forward before I raised a single finger, freezing him in his tracks.

Targeted her abdomen.

Someone had known she was pregnant. Or someone had tried to kill our child before it ever drew its first breath.

“Where is she?” I asked, every muscle in my body locking into a taut, lethal spring. My voice was no longer loud; it was flat, quiet, and terrifyingly cold. “Take me to her room right now.”

“She’s in intensive care, Bed 4,” Dr. Miller said, stepping aside. “She is stable on a ventilator, but unresponsive. Mr. Moretti… I need to warn you. The next forty-six hours are critical. Because of the swelling in her brain, and the trauma to her system, we are fighting to keep both her and the baby alive.”

I didn’t wait for her to finish. I brushed past the doctor, my long strides eating up the linoleum floor, Paige trailing closely behind me.

The ICU was a sanctuary of rhythmic machinery and artificial light. Heart monitors beeped in steady, agonizing intervals, counting out the seconds of a life I had foolishly thought I could live without.

When I pushed open the door to Room 4, the sight of Hannah stopped me dead in my tracks.

The woman who had once filled my massive penthouse with laughter, who had curled up on my oversized leather sofa with a cup of chamomile tea and a worn paperback, now lay swallowed by white hospital sheets. A thick bandage wrapped around her head, stained slightly near the temple. A clear plastic oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, misting faintly with every mechanical breath.

Her skin was pale—almost translucent—against the pillows. The freckles across the bridge of her nose, which I used to kiss every morning before dawn when I slipped out of bed to manage my empire, stood out like scattered dust.

I walked slowly to the side of the bed. My knees felt heavy, as though I were wading through concrete.

Slowly, deliberately, I pulled off my left glove.

Beneath it, catching the cold glare of the overhead monitors, gleamed the platinum band I had never stopped wearing. I reached out and gently touched her hand. Her fingers were ice-cold.

“Hannah,” I whispered, the name tearing at vocal cords that had only ever barked orders or issued sentences. “I’m here.”

No response. Only the steady beep… beep… beep of the monitor.

Paige stood by the door, her hands covering her mouth, tears streaming silently down her cheeks. “Lucas… who would do this to her? Hannah didn’t have enemies. She worked at the historical archive downtown. She volunteered at the animal shelter on weekends. She was… she was good.”

She was good.

Those three words echoed in my mind like a judgment.

For six years, I had told myself that keeping Hannah away from my world was an act of mercy. I had convinced myself that my enemies would use her, torture her, or destroy her to get to me. That was why I had pushed her away. That was why, three months ago, when the pressure from rival syndicates and federal investigations reached a boiling point, I had looked her in the eye and lied.

I had told her our marriage was a sham. I had told her I never loved her, that she was just a convenient distraction in a life built on blood and concrete. I had manufactured the ultimate betrayal so she would pack her bags, walk out that courthouse door, and catch a flight far away from Detroit where my bullet-ridden shadow couldn’t touch her.

I had sacrificed our love to keep her safe.

And instead, she had stayed in Detroit. She had quietly built a life of her own, keeping her maiden name, hiding a secret she hadn’t gotten the chance to share—that she was carrying our child. And someone had hunted her down in an alley on Franklin Street.

“She wasn’t attacked by random street thugs,” I said softly, my eyes never leaving Hannah’s pale face.

Paige blinked, sniffing back her tears. “What do you mean?”

I turned my head slowly, looking past the glass partition of the ICU room into the corridor where my men stood guard.

“Franklin Street is two blocks away from the docks controlled by Viktor Vance,” I said, venom dripping from every syllable. “Vance is the Russian who tried to muscle in on our shipping routes last month. He knows who my associates are. He knows who my family is.”

Paige’s face drained of what little color remained. “You think Viktor did this to get to you?”

“I don’t think,” I said, my voice dropping an octave as a dark, absolute fury settled deep into my bones. “I am going to find out.”

I leaned down, pressing my forehead gently against the back of Hannah’s cold hand.

“Hold on, corazón,” I murmured against her skin, using the pet name I had only ever reserved for her in the quietest hours of the night. “Don’t you dare give up on me. And don’t let our baby go.”

I stood up straight, the sorrow instantly evaporating, replaced by something ancient, cold, and infinitely more dangerous. The underworld boss of Detroit was back. The man who wept in private, but executed justice in public.

I turned to Paige. “Stay here. Do not leave this room. I am doubling the guard at her door. No doctor, no nurse, no one gets in without my personal clearance.”

“Where are you going, Lucas?” Paige asked, panic lacing her voice.

“To pay a visit to Viktor Vance,” I said, sliding my glove back over my wedding ring. “And then, I am going to burn his world to the ground.”

Twenty minutes later, my black Mercedes Maybach cut through the freezing Detroit snow, trailing a convoy of three Escalades. The streets of the warehouse district were deserted, buried under a fresh blanket of white that would soon be stained red.

We pulled up outside an unmarked brick warehouse on Franklin Street—the very block where Hannah had been found.

Vance thought he was smart. He thought operating out of an abandoned fish-processing plant gave him cover. But in Detroit, every brick, every shadow, and every whisper belonged to me.

My men deployed with military precision, cutting the perimeter exits before kicking the heavy steel side doors open. I walked in last, my heavy wool coat swirling around my ankles, my Beretta resting comfortably in its holster beneath my arm.

Inside, the smell of rotting salt fish and damp concrete filled the air. Half a dozen of Vance’s men scrambled for their weapons from makeshift poker tables, but before they could clear leather, my team had them pinned against the walls with assault rifles trained on their chests.

Marcus grabbed the nearest enforcer by the collar and slammed him onto a wooden crate.

“Where is Vance?” I asked smoothly, pulling a leather glove from my right hand and tossing it onto the floor.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about—” the man stammered.

I didn’t waste time talking. I stepped forward, grabbed a rusty iron pipe leaning against a pillar, and drove it into the concrete floor inches from the man’s boot, the clang echoing off the corrugated metal ceiling like a gunshot.

“Let me rephrase,” I said, leaning in until my face was inches from his. “Your boss sent a message tonight. A cowardly message to a pregnant woman in an alley. Now, you have exactly three seconds to tell me which office upstairs he’s cowering in before I let my men turn this warehouse into your collective grave.”

The enforcer swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the metal staircase leading to the loft office above.

“Top floor,” he choked out. “Back office.”

I patted his cheek patronizingly, turned away, and walked toward the stairs.

“Secure the exits,” I told Marcus without looking back. “Nobody leaves alive.”

Viktor Vance was pouring himself a glass of cheap vodka when I kicked his office door off its reinforced hinges. The heavy wooden barrier splintered inward, crashing against his mahogany desk and sending glasses flying.

Vance spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for the Sig Sauer holstered at his hip.

He didn’t even get his fingers around the grip.

In two swift strides, I crossed the room, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him backward through the office window. The glass shattered outward into a shower of glittering shards as we crashed onto the metal catwalk overlooking the main warehouse floor below.

Vance gasped for air, his heels kicking uselessly against the grating as I held him suspended four dozen feet above the concrete floor, one hand clamped around his windpipe.

“Moretti…” he choked out, clawing at my wrist. “Are you… out of your mind? What is this about?”

“You made a mistake, Viktor,” I whispered, my face inches from his, my eyes burning with a cold, murderous fury. “You touched something that belongs to me.”

“I didn’t… touch anything of yours!” he gasped, his face turning purple. “Your shipments… we left them alone! We kept the truce!”

“Not shipments,” I snarled, tightening my grip just enough to make his eyes bulge. “Hannah Campbell. My wife. My child.”

Vance’s expression shifted instantly—not from fear of my wrath, but from genuine, bewildered shock.

“Hannah… Campbell?” he rasped. “The archivist? Moretti, what the hell are you talking about? I don’t give a damn about your ex-wife!”

I paused, freezing mid-motion. The absolute panic in his voice didn’t sound like a lie.

“Don’t lie to me,” I warned, pressing him further over the edge of the catwalk. “She was found beaten in an alley two blocks from your warehouse. Her purse was taken. Her phone was taken. That’s your signature, Viktor—clean up crews hiding behind common muggers.”

“It wasn’t me!” Vance wheezed, thrashing desperately. “I swear to God, Lucas! If I wanted to hit you, I wouldn’t touch a woman in an alley! I’d hit your supply lines! I’d hit your cash houses! I didn’t touch her!”

I stared down into his bloodshot eyes, searching every micro-expression for the telltale twitch of deception. In my line of work, you learned to read men better than books. And Viktor Vance wasn’t lying about this. He was arrogant, ruthless, and stupid—but he wasn’t suicidal enough to start a war over a pregnant woman unless he had planned it as a declaration of total annihilation. And if he had, he would have been gloating by now.

“Then who?” I murmured, my grip loosening slightly.

“I don’t know…” Vance coughed, grabbing my forearm for support as I hauled him back onto the solid metal walkway. He slumped against the railing, gasping for breath and rubbing his bruised throat. “Listen to me, Moretti. If someone else is hunting your people… someone who knew where she was, knew about the pregnancy… it wasn’t one of my crews.”

A cold dread settled in my stomach—far worse than the anger I had felt walking in.

If it wasn’t Viktor Vance… then who knew Hannah was pregnant?

Who knew where she lived?

And more importantly… how did they find her?

I let go of Vance, stepping back and wiping imaginary dust from my lapels. I looked down at him like he was an insect crawling across my boot.

“If I find out you’re lying,” I said quietly, “I won’t throw you off this catwalk, Viktor. I’ll feed you to your own men piece by piece.”

Without waiting for his answer, I turned on my heel and walked back down the stairs, pulling out my encrypted satellite phone as I stepped out into the freezing Detroit night.

“Marcus,” I barked into the receiver as I climbed back into the Maybach.

“Boss? Is Vance dealt with?”

“Vance didn’t do it.”

There was a heavy silence on the other end of the line. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Which means someone else is playing a very dangerous game.” I gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned. “I want every camera within a ten-block radius of Franklin Street pulled. Every traffic cam, every security feed from the local businesses, every ATM lens. I want to see every car, every face, and every shadow that was near Hannah tonight.”

“On it, Boss. What about the hospital?”

“I’m heading back now,” I said, starting the engine. “And Marcus?”

“Yeah, Lucas?”

“Double the guards inside the ICU. Not just at her door. Inside the room. If anyone so much as looks at Hannah or my child sideways… put a bullet between their eyes.”

Back at Wayne County General, the digital clock on the dash read 11:45 p.m.

I took the stairs to the fourth floor two at a time, ignoring the burning in my legs and the heavy ache in my chest. When I reached the ICU hallway, my men were stationed at every corner, their posture rigid and alert.

Paige was waiting outside Room 4, pacing back and forth with a Styrofoam cup of coffee she hadn’t touched. When she saw me approach, she rushed over.

“Lucas? Did you find Vance?”

“It wasn’t him,” I said flatly, pushing past her to look through the glass window of Hannah’s room.

Inside, Hannah was still lying motionless, hooked up to the mechanical ventilator. But something had changed.

A nurse was standing beside the bed, adjusting the IV drip, while a second nurse monitored the fetal heartbeat monitor nearby. The steady beep had quickened slightly—a faint, frantic rhythm.

I shoved the door open and stepped inside.

“What’s happening?” I demanded, my presence instantly filling the small room.

The nurse looked up, startled, her eyes widening as she recognized me. “Mr. Moretti… her blood pressure just dropped. We’re trying to stabilize her.”

My gaze dropped to Hannah’s face. Her eyelids fluttered—just a fraction of a millimeter.

“Hannah?” I stepped to the bedside, dropping to one knee so my face was level with hers. I took her cold hand in both of mine, pressing it against my cheek. “Can you hear me? I’m here. I’m right here.”

For a second, the monitors spiked.

Her lips parted slightly, a faint, ragged breath escaping the oxygen mask.

“Lucas…”

It was barely a whisper—so soft I almost imagined it. But I heard it. Every muscle in my body froze as those hazel-green eyes, heavy with pain and exhaustion, slowly cracked open.

She didn’t focus on the machines. She didn’t look at the nurses. Her gaze locked straight onto mine.

“You came,” she whispered, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye and tracking down her pale cheek.

“I told you I’d never leave you,” I lied softly, my own vision blurring as I pressed my lips to her knuckles. “You’re going to be okay. Our baby is going to be okay.”

Hannah tried to shake her head, a look of sudden, terrifying clarity flashing across her face. Her fingers suddenly gripped my wrist with surprising strength.

“Lucas… listen to me…” she gasped, struggling against the oxygen mask.

“Shh, don’t talk. Save your strength. The doctors are right here—”

“No,” she interrupted, her voice rising in a desperate, breathless plea. “It wasn’t a mugging… They didn’t want my purse…”

The room seemed to go dead silent. The heart monitor’s steady beep felt like a countdown.

“What are you talking about, Hannah?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Who did this to you?”

Hannah stared up at me, her eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in all my years in the underworld—a terror born not of thugs or syndicates, but of betrayal from someone we trusted.

“Your sister…” she whispered, her fingers slipping from my wrist as her eyes rolled back. “Paige…”

The heart monitor flatlined into a long, continuous, agonizing tone.