The Pregnant Maid Cried Alone Behind the Trash Cans — Unaware the Mafia Boss Heard Every Broken Word The sirens on Lakeshore Drive had already faded, but Willow Whitlock could still feel them beating inside her ribs.

A black silhouette vaulted through the broken window frame from the second-story balcony.

Veto Ferrante landed with predatory grace, a suppressed automatic pistol already raised in his right hand.

Two muffled coughs echoed through the room.

The second thug standing behind Enzo collapsed instantly to the rug, lifeless. Enzo barely had time to turn before Veto was upon him.

Veto didn’t fire his weapon. He seized Enzo’s gun wrist, twisting it until the revolver clattered uselessly to the floor. With his other hand, Veto drove Enzo’s skull straight into the oak doorframe with a sickening crack.

Enzo dropped to his knees, sobbing, holding his shattered nose as blood pooled on the hardwood floor.

“Please… Veto, please!” Enzo wept, his voice reduced to a pathetic whine. “It was about the money! It was just business!”

Veto stood over him, his coat dripping with melted snow, his face a mask of terrifying, demonic rage. He didn’t look human; he looked like the incarnation of vengeance itself.

He stepped past Enzo and knelt in front of Willow, who was trembling against the wall, clutching her stomach.

“Are you hurt?” Veto asked, his voice shaking with a fear he had never shown to any living man. His hands checked her shoulders, her face, her belly. “Did they touch you?”

“No,” Willow choked out, burying her face into his wet wool coat. “Bruno protected me… I’m okay, Veto. The baby is okay.”

Veto closed his eyes for three seconds, letting out a ragged breath against her hair. Then he stood up and turned back toward Enzo.

The master of the Ferrante family did not yell. He walked over to the desk, picked up a heavy silver letter opener, and tossed it onto the floor in front of the groveling loan shark.

“Pick it up,” Veto whispered.

Enzo looked up, terrified, his eyes darting between the blade and Veto’s dead eyes. “What?”

“Pick it up and try to kill me,” Veto said coldly. “Give yourself one second of dignity before I end you.”

“I won’t… I swear I’ll leave Chicago! I’ll go to Florida! You’ll never see me again!” Enzo screamed, pressing his forehead against the floorboards.

Veto looked at his head of security, Leo, who had just rushed into the room with three more armed men.

“Take him to the meatpacking plant in Englewood,” Veto commanded quietly. “I want him alive until I arrive. Then wipe this floor clean.”

The men dragged the kicking, screaming Mancini down the service stairs.

Veto turned back to Willow. Without a word, he scooped her up into his arms, carrying her out of the ruined, cold room toward his private master suite down the hall.