I hid a shattered forearm beneath my silk opera glove at a press shoot, knowing if my mob boss husband knew I took a hit meant for him, he'd burn the city to ashes.

The private recovery suite in the Carretti estate was suffocatingly warm.

Dr. Rossi had done his work with meticulous skill. Clara lay in the center of the four-poster bed, her left arm now encased in a clean, lightweight, high-grade medical cast of dark navy fiberglass, extending from her palm to mid-forearm. The crude tape and shears were gone, replaced by proper orthopedic padding. A slow drip of non-narcotic pain medication hummed quietly through a small cannula in the back of her right hand.

The bedroom door opened with a soft groan.

Clara tensed, expecting Dominic, but it was Leo Navarro who slipped through the gap, carrying a delicate porcelain cup of chamomile tea.

“How’s the patient?” Leo asked, his face a portrait of solicitous cousinly affection. He walked across the room with easy, graceful strides, pulling a high-backed velvet armchair up to the bedside.

Clara pulled the duvet a little higher over her chest. Despite being part of the Carretti family for nearly a decade, she had never felt entirely comfortable around Leo. Dominic was dangerous, yes—a predator who could command violence with absolute precision—but Dominic had an unyielding code of honor. Dominic protected his own with his life.

Leo was different. Leo was an accountant of blood, a man who measured human lives purely in leverage and profit margins.

“Better,” Clara said, her voice raspy. “Dr. Rossi is very thorough.”

“Good. Good,” Leo murmured, setting the tea on the nightstand. He looked down at the dark blue cast, shaking his head with an expression of tragic solemnity. “It turns my stomach to see this, Clara. Truly. You shouldn't have had to carry this alone. If you had just come to me Tuesday night, I could have handled Dominic. I could have broken the news gently.”

“Dominic doesn't understand 'gently,' Leo,” Clara countered, her eyes watching him carefully. “You know that better than anyone. If he knew my arm was broken, he would have called the capos before midnight.”

“And he would have been right to do so!” Leo snapped, his voice flaring with sudden, passionate indignation. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Clara, look at what they did to you! The Falcos don't respect treaties! They respect fear! Salvatore Falco sits in his glass tower in Midtown, drinking Chianti while you lie here with a shattered limb. Dominic is being weak. He’s letting his desire for a clean legacy blind him to the reality of the streets.”

Clara frowned slightly. The word *weak* felt like an obscenity when applied to her husband.

“Dominic is not weak,” she said coldly.

“He’s distracted, Clara,” Leo urged, his voice dropping into an intimate, conspiratorial whisper. “By you. He loves you so much that the thought of an all-out war terrifying you has paralyzed him. But while he hesitates, the other families are watching. If the Carrettis don't retaliate for an assault on the boss’s wife, we lose our standing. We lose the docks. Within six months, we won't have an empire left to protect you with.”

Clara turned her head toward the window, her jaw set. “The attacker is dead, Leo. There’s nothing more to gain from burning the city.”

Leo’s eyes darkened for a split second, an ugly flicker of frustration rippling across his polished features before he quickly smoothed it away.

“You’re a noble woman, Clara,” he said, rising from the chair. “Too noble for this world. But don't worry. I won't let your suffering be ignored. Dominic might be frozen by his conscience, but I still have a duty to this family.”

He leaned down, pressing a dry, cold kiss to the crown of her head.

“Rest now,” he whispered. “Let the men handle the rest.”

Clara watched him walk out of the room, an icy chill settling deep in her gut. There was something terribly wrong with the rhythm of his words—the urgency, the desperate hunger for a war that Dominic had spent half a decade trying to prevent.

Ten minutes later, the door opened again.

This time, Dominic entered. He had stripped off his suit jacket, his white dress shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark, winding ink of the Carretti family crest on his right wrist. He looked tired, but the lethal stillness in his eyes was sharper than it had been that morning.

He didn't sit in the chair Leo had used. Instead, he walked around to the other side of the bed, sitting directly on the mattress beside her hip.

“How’s the pain?” he asked softly.

“Dull,” she admitted, looking up at him. “Dominic… Leo was just here.”

Dominic’s fingers paused as he reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “What did he say?”

“He’s pushing for a strike. He told me you were being weak by holding back. He said the Commission thinks you’re paralyzed.” She reached out, her fingers catching the front of his shirt. “Dominic, don't let him push you into a war. Promise me.”

Dominic looked down at her small, pale hand resting against his chest. Slowly, he placed his palm over hers, pressing it against the steady, heavy beat of his heart.

“I’m not going to war with the Falcos, Clara,” Dominic said.

Clara let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

“Because the Falcos didn't break your arm,” Dominic added, his voice flat and dead.

Clara froze. The breath locked in her lungs. “What?”

“The hitman in the garage was a hired hand from an auto shop in South Jersey,” Dominic explained, his voice chillingly methodical. “He had five thousand dollars in cash deposited into his sister’s account two hours before the attack. The ink on his arm was fresh—applied forty-eight hours prior by a parlor on Twelfth Street that operates on our payroll.”

Clara stared at him, her mind racing, trying to assemble the horrific puzzle pieces. “Our payroll? But… why would someone do that? Who would want to frame the Falcos?”

“Someone who stands to inherit the northern docks if Salvatore Falco is wiped out,” Dominic said, his gray eyes locking onto hers with terrifying clarity. “Someone who knew that the only thing in this world that could make Dominic Carretti lose his temper and abandon his brain was a direct, violent strike against his wife.”

The color drained completely from Clara’s face. The memory of Leo’s voice echoed in her mind: *“If you had just come to me Tuesday night, I could have handled Dominic…”*

“Leo,” she breathed, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. “Leo staged the hit?”

“Leo orchestrated the entire theater,” Dominic confirmed, his jaw tightening into a line of iron. “He leaked our exit route from the Meridian. He hired the muscle. He instructed him to swing at me—knowing full well that my bodyguards were behind us, knowing that the chaos would instantly shatter the peace summit. But he didn't count on you.”

Dominic’s hand moved down to rest gently against the navy fiberglass cast encasing her wrist.

“You weren't supposed to jump in the way, Clara,” Dominic whispered, his voice trembling with an agonizing mixture of pride and fury. “The pipe was supposed to miss me, hit the concrete, and leave behind a dead 'Falco' soldier to force my hand. But you ruined his script. You took the blow meant to ignite the city.”

Tears welled in Clara’s eyes, not from physical pain, but from the horrifying realization of the betrayal. “Dominic… he’s your blood. Your father raised him after his parents died.”

“He is my blood,” Dominic agreed, his eyes turning into two black pits of pure, concentrated vengeance. “Which is why he will bleed from the same veins he used to poison my house. But not yet.”

“What are you going to do?” Clara asked, her voice trembling.

Dominic leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers. “Tomorrow night is the Annual Heritage Gala at the Metropolitan Museum. The entire Commission will be there. Salvatore Falco will be there. And Leo has already arranged a surprise for the evening.”

A grim, terrifying smile touched the corner of Dominic’s mouth.