CHAPTER 7: The Enemy Who Knew Too Much
CHAPTER 7: The Enemy Who Knew Too Much
The ambulance doors slammed shut.
Sirens cut through the Chicago night.
Salvatore sat beside Tessa without saying a word, his blood-stained hands refusing to leave hers.
The paramedics recognized him immediately.
None of them dared ask him to move.
Tessa drifted in and out of consciousness.
When she finally opened her eyes, she saw his hands moving.
Stay awake.
She smiled weakly.
I'm trying.
At St. Catherine's Medical Center, surgeons worked for nearly three hours.
The bomb had been packed with ball bearings instead of powerful explosives.
Its purpose hadn't been mass murder.
Its purpose had been personal.
To scar.
To terrify.
To send a message.
When the lead surgeon finally stepped into the waiting room, Salvatore rose before the doctor spoke.
"She'll recover."
A long silence followed.
"But she shielded you with her left arm."
"The nerves were badly damaged."
"She may never have full movement in that hand again."
Those words struck Salvatore harder than the explosion.
A woman whose hands were her voice...
Might lose the ability to sign as she once had.
For the first time in years, guilt settled heavily on his shoulders.
Meanwhile...
His intelligence team uncovered something shocking.
The assassin hired at the restaurant had never worked for a rival mafia family.
His fingerprints belonged to a former military explosives specialist.
Someone with enormous money had recruited professionals from outside organized crime.
That meant only one thing.
This wasn't a gang war.
It was revenge.
Late that night, Salvatore entered the hidden archives beneath one of his warehouses.
Old files lined steel shelves.
He searched through records dating back fifteen years.
Finally, he found a faded photograph.
Three young men.
One was Salvatore.
Another was his late cousin.
The third...
Victor DeLuca.
A childhood friend everyone believed had died in the same car bombing that killed Salvatore's parents.
Except...
Victor had never been found.
Only presumed dead.
Salvatore's expression hardened.
May you like
"If you're alive..."
"...this ends now."
