His fingers closed around my daughter’s hand. I called the nurse before his guards could move. Then the comatose man opened his eyes and whispered, “Sofia.”

By two o'clock on Friday afternoon, the fog over Chicago had turned into a steady, freezing drizzle.

I had spent four hours moving in circles through the city—taking two different city buses, switching to the Blue Line train at Jackson, and finally getting off in the Loop, making sure nobody was following us. I had dropped Lucia off at St. Jude’s Community Center, a secure, church-run daycare facility where my cousin, Teresa, worked as the head administrator.

"Keep her inside, Teresa," I had pleaded, holding my cousin's hands tightly near the heavy wooden doors of the church parish. "Don't let anyone pick her up except me. Not even if they have a police badge."

Teresa had seen the raw terror in my eyes and didn't ask questions. She had locked the doors behind us.

Now, I was standing across the street from St. Adrian’s Private Hospital, pulling my wet coat tightly around my shoulders.

The hospital towered above the avenue like a sleek fortress of black glass and steel. To anyone passing by, it was a palace of modern medicine. To me, it was a death trap waiting to spring.

Vincent Kane had given me until midnight to leave the state. He thought I was a terrified housekeeper who would take the fifty thousand dollars and scurry into the shadows like a beaten dog.

He didn't realize that a mother backed into a corner isn't afraid of dying—she's afraid of failing.

If I ran, Vincent would eventually track us down. Men like him don't leave loose ends, no matter how far you drive. The only way to protect Lucia permanently was to make sure Vincent Kane lost his power before midnight tonight.

And the only person who could strip Vincent of his power was currently lying on the fourth floor of that hospital.

I pulled my gray Environmental Services uniform tunic out of my leather tote bag, slipping it over my clothes, and pinned my plastic hospital ID badge onto my lapel.

I walked across the street, pushing through the heavy glass revolving doors into the hospital lobby.

The lobby was bustling with doctors, visitors, and administrative staff. I kept my head down, carrying a plastic bucket and a mop handle I had retrieved from the service closet near the parking garage, blend in perfectly with the background noise of the building.

I took the service elevator to the fourth floor.

When the doors slid open, the corridor was strangely quiet. The two guards who usually stood outside Room 412 were gone. Instead, standing near the nurses' station, talking in low, urgent tones with Dr. Whitmore, was Marco Bell.

He looked exhausted. His tie was loosened, his charcoal suit jacket rumpled, dark circles bruising the skin under his eyes.

I pulled my mop bucket along the linoleum floor, stopping ten feet away from them near a linen cart.

"—heart rate is fluctuating rapidly," Dr. Whitmore was saying, his voice laced with intense professional frustration. "We need to run a full cranial CT scan immediately, Mr. Bell. But your team keeps delaying the transport."

"Vincent wants his private physician from Northwestern to review the charts first," Marco growled, crossing his heavy arms over his chest. "No physical movement until Dr. Sterling arrives."

"Sterling is a vascular surgeon, not a neurologist!" Dr. Whitmore snapped. "Every hour we wait increases the risk of secondary brain swelling! If Dario suffers another spike in intracranial pressure, he will go into cardiac arrest!"

Marco didn't answer. He turned his head slightly, his sharp eyes catching my reflection in the dark glass panel of the nurse's station.

He froze.

He turned around slowly, staring at me in absolute disbelief as I stood there in my gray housekeeping tunic, holding a damp mop handle.

"Mrs. Reyes?" Marco whispered, stepping away from Dr. Whitmore. "What the hell are you doing here? I told you to take your daughter and go home."

"Dr. Whitmore," I said, ignoring Marco entirely and stepping up to the neurologist. "Has Mr. Kane regaining full consciousness today?"

"Who allowed you on this floor?" Dr. Whitmore asked, bewildered.

"She's off-duty," Marco interjected smoothly, grabbing my upper arm with a firm, warning grip. "I'll handle this. Come with me, Elena."

He pulled me down the hallway toward an empty consultation room, pushing the heavy wooden door shut behind us and clicking the lock.

"Have you completely lost your mind?!" Marco spat, dropping his polite facade. "Vincent’s men were at your apartment this morning! I know he sent a crew to your place!"

I pulled the thick crimson envelope from my coat pocket and threw it onto the small glass table between us.

The cashier's check and the photograph of Lucia tumbled out onto the polished glass.

Marco looked down at the photograph. He saw the crosshairs over my daughter's bedroom window.

His face drained of color.

For two long seconds, the hardened mob enforcer stood completely frozen, staring at the image of a six-year-old girl framed in a rifle scope.

"He targeted your kid..." Marco whispered, his voice cracking slightly.

"He gave me until midnight to leave the city," I said, stepping closer to Marco, my eyes burning with fury. "You said you gave me advice yesterday, Mr. Bell. Now let me give you some."

I pointed a finger at the photograph on the table.

"You've served the Kane family for twelve years," I said, my voice low and fierce. "You were loyal to Dario. But Vincent isn't Dario. Dario built an empire. Vincent is a coward who pays men to shoot little girls through bedroom windows. When Dario dies tonight—and he will die tonight if Vincent's doctor gets to him—do you really think Vincent is going to keep you around?"

Marco stared at me, his jaw working silently, his chest rising and falling in heavy, ragged breaths.

"You know who put Dario in that coma three weeks ago, don't you?" I pressed, stepping into his personal space. "It wasn't an rival gang. It was Vincent."

Marco swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to the floor. "I don't have proof..."

"You don't need proof!" I snapped. "You need Dario awake! My daughter woke him up yesterday with a song because he thought she was someone named Sofia! Who is Sofia, Marco?!"

Marco looked up at me, a deep, agonizing pain flashing through his dark eyes.

"Sofia was Dario's seven-year-old daughter," Marco whispered softly. "She died of leukemia six years ago. Her favorite song... was 'You Are My Sunshine.'"

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the small room.

The pieces of the puzzle slammed together in my mind with terrifying clarity. Dario hadn't woken up because of a medical miracle. He had pulled himself out of the dark void of a coma because, in his fogged, dying brain, he heard the voice of his dead child calling him back to the light.

"He loved that little girl more than his own life," Marco said, his voice raw with emotion. "When she died, it broke him. He buried himself in the business, became colder, darker... but he kept her picture in his pocket every single day."

Marco looked down at the photograph of Lucia on the table, then up at me.

"Vincent doesn't want Dr. Sterling to examine Dario," Marco said, his voice turning ice-cold as a sudden realization hit him. "Sterling isn't coming to run tests. He's coming to administer a lethal dose of potassium chloride into Dario's IV line. It causes cardiac arrest that looks like natural heart failure."

"When?" I demanded.