BENEATH THE MARBLE AND BLOOD: THE DELIVERY DRIVER WHO BROUGHT A MAFIA EMPIRE TO ITS KNEES

Thirty-six hours later, my mother was resting comfortably in a private intensive care room inside a secure, off-the-grid penthouse in Gold Coast, guarded around the clock by Dominic’s most trusted men. Her color had returned. For the first time in years, she didn't look like she was fading away.

I stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror inside Dominic’s personal armory, wearing an expensive, tailored charcoal women's suit with a silk camisole underneath. Tucked into the inner lining was a miniature EMP frequency disruptor and a silenced Walther PPK.

Dominic stood behind me, holding a high-resolution digital scanner.

"Ready?" he asked quietly.

I unbuttoned the left side of my jacket and lifted my shirt, exposing the delicate compass rose inked into my ribs. The lines were sharp, surrounded by intricate clusters of dots and microscopic Roman numerals that I had assumed were just decorative shading for eight years.

Dominic brought the scanner close, its blue laser line slowly sweeping over my skin.

On his tablet screen, lines of green code began assembling themselves in real-time.

"Incredible," Dominic murmured, his breath warm against my shoulder. "Thomas used an old military steganography cipher. The coordinates of the compass correspond to the base prime numbers, and the dots are binary offsets. It's a three-tier decryption key. No supercomputer on earth could have brute-forced this without the original blueprint."

I looked at our reflection in the glass. The billionaire mafia prince and the delivery girl from Cicero. Two people bound together by the blood of an old soldier.

"We have one shot at this," I said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "Marcus is under house arrest awaiting federal bail hearings, which means the Whitmore Tower will be crawling with his private security. They know we're coming for that drive."

"Let them watch the front door," Dominic said, stepping back and handing me a forged executive biometric pass. "Tonight, the Chicago Architectural Society is holding a charity gala on the 60th floor of the Whitmore Tower. Marcus couldn't cancel it without raising suspicion from the federal monitors."

"And the safe is on the 62nd."

"Two floors above the party," Dominic smiled, that sharp, lethal charm flashing across his face. "We walk in as honored guests. We slip away during the keynote address. We take the drive, upload the decryption key, and broadcast every crime the Whitmore family has ever committed directly to the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the press simultaneously."

"And Vanessa?" I asked.

"Vanessa is currently under federal indictment for attempted murder after we leaked the security footage from the clinic," Dominic said flatly. "She'll spend the next twenty years in a federal penitentiary."

Two hours later, we stepped out of a black Maybach at the curb of 200 Wacker Drive.

Paparazzi flashes exploded against the wet pavement. Dominic offered me his arm. I took it, holding my head high, ignoring the whispers of the high-society vultures who recognized Dominic Moretti but couldn't place the stunning, fierce-eyed woman at his side.

We ascended the glass elevator to the 60th floor. The ballroom was a sea of black ties, diamond necklaces, and champagne flutes.

At the far end of the room, near the VIP terrace, Marcus Whitmore’s brother and chief enforcer, Julian Whitmore, was watching the crowd with an earpiece pressed tightly to his head.

The moment he saw Dominic, his jaw tightened. He tapped his microphone.

"He's here," Julian murmured, turning toward the private service elevators.

"He took the bait," Dominic whispered to me, clinking his champagne glass against mine. "He thinks I'm here to negotiate. Avery, you have seven minutes before his security protocol completes its sweep."