Grease was the first thing I remember about that night. Not rain. Not headlights. Not the old man’s trembling hands wrapped around a black leather loafer

The next forty-eight hours were a nightmare of tension.

Julian launched a full-scale economic and tactical war against the Marcone syndicate. The news was filled with stories of sudden corporate bankruptcies, police raids on Marcone warehouses, and mysterious fires at key docks across the city. Julian was executing a masterclass in modern warfare—using financial leverage, political pressure, and surgical force to dismantle his enemy piece by piece.

But Dominic Marcone was a cornered rat. And cornered rats bite.

On Thursday afternoon, I received a frantic phone call on my encrypted estate phone.

"Chloe!" Arthur’s nurse cried out over the line. "He's gone! Don Arthur slipped through the greenhouse exit while I was fetching his tea!"

Panic surged through me. "Did he go toward the gates?"

"No! He went toward the lake road! He took his old hat!"

I didn't wait for the guards. I sprinted out of the guest cottage, running through the misty woods toward the secondary road that ran along the lake cliffs.

"Arthur!" I called out, my voice echoed against the trees. "Arthur!"

I found him half a mile down the trail, standing near the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the churning black waves of Lake Michigan.

"Arthur!" I gasped, running toward him. "Please, step back from the edge!"

Arthur turned around, smiling warmly. "Chloe! Look, I found Martha’s favorite spot! She promised to meet me here!"

Before I could reach him, a black sedan screeched to a halt on the dirt road behind us.

The doors flew open, and Dominic Marcone himself stepped out, accompanied by three armed henchmen. He was a greasy, heavy-set man with cruel eyes and a sneering smile.

"Well, well, well," Marcone chuckled, raising a pistol. "The old senile Don and his pretty little nurse. Julian's soft spots, served on a silver platter."

"Leave him alone, Marcone," I said, stepping directly in front of Arthur, shielding him with my body. "He doesn't even know who you are."

"I don't care who he is," Marcone spat, aiming his gun at my head. "Julian ruined my empire in two days. Now I'm going to take his whole world away before I bleed him dry."

Arthur blinked, looking at the gun, then looking at me. Something shifted in the old man’s clouded eyes. A sudden, rare moment of total clarity broke through his dementia.

"You don't touch the girl," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a deep, booming tone that sounded shockingly like Julian's.

Marcone laughed hysterically. "What did you say, old man?"