At thirty-two, I was the youngest mafia boss Chicago had ever feared—and somehow, I was dying in a mansion packed with the best doctors money could buy. Every night at exactly 2:17 a.m., my body turned to ice, while the woman I planned to marry stood beside my bed whispering, “You’re going to be fine,” with a certainty that terrified me more than death.

The violence of the seizure subsided into a dull, agonizing ache that radiated deep inside my marrow. My chest heaved as I dragged air into my lungs, tasting the metallic tang of frost and exhaustion.

Dr. Harris was already pressing a stethoscope against my back, his face pale under the warm recessed lighting. “Heart rate is dropping again. Blood pressure is sixty over forty. Christian, whatever is happening to your autonomic nervous system, it’s accelerating.”

I couldn’t answer. My jaw felt locked in a sheet of invisible ice. My eyes flicked past the doctor’s shoulder to where Elena knelt beside her daughter, shielding Lily from the grim spectacle of a dying mafia king.

Lily wasn’t crying. She stood tall, her small hand resting protectively on her mother’s shoulder. Those dark, piercing eyes—my eyes—tracked every movement in the room with a cold calculation that belonged in a boardroom, not a child’s bedroom.

“Elena,” I rasped, the word tearing through my frozen throat like broken glass.

Elena looked up, her face drained of color. She stood slowly, urging Lily toward the edge of the service rug, away from the tangle of IV lines and monitors.

“Mr. Vance... I’m sorry,” Elena whispered, her voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. The staff said we had to stay in the third-floor quarters after dark. I didn't want any trouble—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I interrupted, my voice dropping into a harsh, wheezing whisper that demanded an answer.

The room fell deadly silent. Dr. Harris paused his examination, looking between us with sharp curiosity.

Elena swallowed hard, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “Tell you what? That I worked a cleaning shift at the hotel downtown nine years ago? That I met a dangerous man who vanished before sunrise? What was I supposed to do, Mr. Vance? Walk into your headquarters on LaSalle Street with a baby in my arms and demand a paternity test from the most feared man in Chicago? You would have had me thrown in the river before I reached the lobby.”

She wasn’t wrong. Nine years ago, I was twenty-three and wading through a bloody gang war to seize control of the North Side docks. I took what I wanted, trusted no one, and left a trail of broken lives behind me. A woman from the South Side appearing with a baby would have been treated as a threat, a setup, or a weapon forged by my enemies.

“You knew who I was when you took the job here,” I stated, my eyes locking onto hers.

“I didn't have a choice,” Elena shot back, her voice flashing with sudden, fierce pride. Her maternal instincts finally breaking through her fear. “When the shelter closed, and we had nowhere to go, an employment agency sent me here. I saw your name on the contract. I thought... maybe, after all these years, you had changed. Maybe you’d look at her and see something other than a liability.”

I stared at the little girl. Lily stepped forward, slipping out from behind her mother’s skirt. She walked slowly toward the side of my massive mahogany bed, ignoring the blinking machines, the high-end medical gear, and the lingering scent of death.

She stopped right where Vanessa’s diamond-studded hand had rested hours earlier.

Lily looked up at me, her small jaw set in that unmistakable, stubborn line. “You’re sick,” she said simply.

It wasn’t a question. It was a flat, observant statement of fact.

“I am,” I replied, my voice softening just a fraction—a tone I had never used with anyone in my entire life.

“My mom says bad men make people sick,” Lily continued, her dark eyes searching my face with an unsettling maturity. “Are you a bad man?”

A bitter, humorless smile touched the corners of my frozen lips. “The worst kind, sweetheart.”

“Then why are you shivering?” she asked, tilting her head. “Bad men are supposed to be made of stone.”

Before I could answer, Dr. Harris cleared his throat loudly, breaking the heavy tension in the room. He turned to Elena with a sharp, professional urgency. “Mrs. Ramirez, I need you to help me with something. The medical panels I ran this evening showed unusual traces of a synthetic compound in Christian’s bloodstream. It mimics a rare neurological toxin, but it’s administered in micro-doses—just enough to destabilize his thermal regulation every night at the exact same hour.”

Elena’s eyes widened. “Poison?”

“Slow, methodical poisoning,” Dr. Harris corrected, glancing toward the heavy oak door leading to the hallway. “Someone inside this house is dosing him. Every single day. Through his food, his water, or his intravenous fluids.”

My gaze sharpened. The ice in my veins seemed to recede slightly, replaced by a sudden, burning surge of pure, unadulterated rage.

Vanessa.

It had to be Vanessa. She was the only one who controlled the kitchen staff, managed my private schedule, approved the medical supplies brought into the mansion, and stood by my bedside every night with that sickening, serene certainty that I was “going to be fine.”

She wasn’t waiting for me to recover. She was waiting for me to die.