"THE NURSE BROKE THE MAFIA BOSS’S ONE FORBIDDEN RULE—THEN DISCOVERED WHY HIS FIRST WIFE NEVER LEFT THAT ROOM ALIVE

Before we could exit the forensic facility, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket. It was an unknown, encrypted number.

I glanced at Dominic, who nodded grimly. I tapped speakerphone.

“Miss Bennett,” a sharp, desperate female voice echoed through the line. Vivian Vance. “If you want to keep Dominic alive, tell him to meet me at the Vance Memorial Conservatory in Lincoln Park. Alone.”

“Vivian, listen to me,” I urged, speaking rapidly before she could disconnect. “You’ve been lied to! Dominic didn't kill your sister!”

A bitter sob cut through the speaker. “He locked her in that room! Anthony showed me the security footage from the night she died! Dominic was standing over her while she choked to death!”

“That footage was manipulated!” I shouted. “We have the certified pathology report from Cook County! Elena was poisoned with thallium from Anthony’s docks! Anthony fabricated the narrative to manipulate you into finishing what his fireplace couldn't do!”

There was a long, suffocating pause on the other end of the line.

“Thirty minutes,” Vivian choked out, her voice cracking. “Lincoln Park. If Anthony’s men follow you, I will detonate the gas main under the glasshouse. We will all burn together.”

The line went dead.

“It’s a trap,” Marcus warned immediately, checking the street cameras on his tablet. “Anthony knows we’re onto him. He’s using Vivian as bait to draw Dominic into the open before the syndicate council convenes.”

“Of course it’s a trap,” Dominic said coldly, adjusting the cuffs of his coat. “Which is why we are going to walk right through the front door.”

“Dominic, no,” I pleaded, grabbing his arm. “She’s volatile. She believes with every fiber of her soul that you murdered her twin.”

Dominic looked down at my hand on his coat sleeve. Slowly, his fingers closed over mine, warm, steady, and grounding.

“Claire, four years ago, I failed to protect Elena because I was too blind to see the viper sleeping in my own house,” he said softly, his voice trembling with an emotion he rarely allowed the world to see. “I will not let Vivian become another casualty of my family's greed. And I will not let Anthony touch a single hair on your head.”

Twenty minutes later, the black SUV pulled up to the perimeter of the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The historic glass dome rose into the rainy afternoon like an emerald palace, surrounded by dripping oak trees and thick mist.

Dominic ordered Marcus to hold back with the tactical team. “If Anthony’s snipers see a squad, they’ll execute Vivian and blame it on us. Claire and I go inside.”

“I’m coming?” I asked, startled.

“She trusts you more than she trusts me,” Dominic said. “You’re a healer, Claire. She knows you saved me. She needs to hear the truth from your mouth.”

We slipped through the side entrance into the Fern Room. The humid, tropical air hit us immediately, smelling of damp earth and moss. Giant palm fronds cast jagged shadows across the stone paths.

In the center of the rotunda, standing beside an empty marble fountain, stood Vivian Vance.

She wore a long black coat, her dark hair pinned up, looking so terrifyingly identical to Elena’s portrait that Dominic’s steps faltered for a second. In her right hand, she held a remote detonator; in her left, a semi-automatic handgun aimed directly at Dominic’s chest.

“Stay right there, Dominic,” Vivian commanded, her hand shaking violently, tears streaking her pale face. “One more step, and I trigger the charges.”

“Vivian,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a calm, resonant tone. He slowly raised his empty hands. “Look at me. Have I ever lied to you?”

“You killed her!” Vivian screamed, her composure shattering. “Anthony showed me the banking transfers! You cut off her medical funds! You locked her in that library to die!”

“Anthony lied to you, Vivian!” I stepped forward, taking the folded pathology document from my pocket and holding it up for her to see. “Look at this! Anthony was poisoning Elena for six months with thallium sulfate from the Calumet shipping depot! When Dominic found her collapsed, he thought it was a heart attack because Anthony had forged Dominic’s signature to cancel the autopsy!”

Vivian’s eyes flickered between me and Dominic, raw confusion battling the grief that had consumed her for years. “No… no, Anthony rescued me from Europe! He gave me the keys to the estate tunnels! He said Dominic was trying to erase all trace of our family!”

“If Anthony wanted to help you,” Dominic said, taking a slow, steady step forward, “why did he weld the fireplace flue shut three weeks ago? Why did his contractor tell the police that *you* paid him?”

Vivian gasped, stepping back against the fountain. “What? I never met a contractor! Anthony told me to hide in the old service tunnels and watch for Dominic’s collapse!”

“He was setting you up, Vivian,” Dominic said softly, his voice filled with sorrow. “He wanted you to be the scapegoat. If I died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Anthony would reveal your presence in the walls, call it the vengeful ghost of the Vance family, and have his men execute you on the spot. He would inherit the entire empire—clean, untouchable, and victorious.”

The gun in Vivian’s hand dropped an inch. Her knees buckled. “Elena… oh God, Elena…”