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"Victor is currently indisposed," I say darkly. "Gemma sent word from Moscow ten minutes before the hospital breach. She took out Victor's top lieutenant and has the Bratva boss by the throat in his own penthouse. Victor gave up the names of the five Scottish priests funding this coup, along with their safe houses in upstate New York."

Iris's breath hitches. "Gemma did that alone?"

"Gemma is a Messina, Kitten. People look at her tiny frame and pretty face and forget she was trained by the most ruthless hitman our family ever produced." I dry her hands with a soft towel, lifting each of her slender fingers to press a kiss to the knuckles, lingering over the emerald on her left hand. "Victor thought he had leverage over me by taking my cousin. Instead, he handed me the keys to his entire supply chain."

I toss the towel aside, gathering Iris into my arms and lifting her clean off the floor. She wraps her legs around my waist, burying her face into the crook of my neck, inhaling my scent like it's the only air keeping her lungs working.

"You are going back to New York, Iris," I whisper against her ear, feeling the frantic flutter of her pulse against my collarbone. "You are going to see your father before he closes his eyes. And then you are going to stand beside me as Donna Messina while I burn every last traitor who dared to step foot in our city."

She shivers against my chest, her arms tightening around my shoulders until her fingernails dig through my shirt, marking me with her grip.

"No more hiding in the dark, Romeo," she whispers, her voice hardening with the fierce, dangerous pride of Danny O'Connor's daughter. "If they want a war with the Messinas, let them see who sits on the throne."

My chest expands with a roar of pure, possessive triumph.

"That's my girl," I growl, carrying her toward the door. "Now let's go paint New York red."

TWENTY

IRIS

New York smells like wet asphalt, cold exhaust, and old rot. Can’t say I missed it too much.

Capri had lemons and salt and a kind of quiet I did not trust at first. This city does not pretend. It smells like the years I lost in it, like the hospital corridor where my father signed me away and the streets I used to listen to from behind locked glass. Coming back should feel like victory. It feels like putting my hand on a bruise to see if it still hurts, and of course it does, and of course I keep pressing anyway because this is home, whether I like the men who run it or not.

The warmth of Capri evaporated the second the private jet touched down at JFK in the middle of a downpour. Now, the heavy scent of hospital disinfectant burns my nose, sharp with rubbing alcohol, synthetic citrus, and the metallic tang of dried blood.

The floor under my heels is slick linoleum. Every three paces, the rhythmic scuff of armed men shifting in tactical gear echoes down the corridor. Romeo has turned the entire fourth floor of Queens Hospital into an armed army. I can hear the quiet static of earpieces, the unmistakable click of safeties flicking off, and the low, tense murmurs of Messina soldiers guarding every doorway.

Sofia walks glued to my left leg, her body tense, emitting a low, vibrating hum of warning in her chest that tells me she smells danger in the air.

Romeo walks behind me, his large hand resting heavy and warm on the curve of my waist, guiding my steps with a reassuring grip. He doesn't say a word, but his heartbeat thuds against my back every time he leans down to steer me around a metal cart or a cluster of hushed doctors.

"In here, boss," Tony's gravelly voice calls out from down the hall.

The heavy door swings open with a soft sigh of hinges.

The room inside is quiet, broken only by the steady, mechanical beep of a heart monitor and the wet, wheezing hiss of an oxygen ventilator.

The smell of death hits me like a physical blow. It isn't just medicine; it is the stale, sour smell of whiskey leaking out of failing pores, mingled with the heavy iron of internal bleeding.

My throat tightens. My chest aches so violently I have to press a hand over my sternum to keep my lungs working.

"Leave us," Romeo orders the guards stationed inside the room.

Footsteps shuffle past us, the door clicking shut behind them. Sofia sits at attention near the threshold, her ears perked, while Romeo brings me forward until my knees bump against the plastic edge of a hospital mattress.

"Danny," Romeo says, his voice flat, devoid of its usual mocking arrogance. "Your Rose is here."

A sharp, ragged inhale rattles from the bed, followed by a wet, painful cough that makes the machines jump in pitch.

"My Rose?" Danny's voice is barely a shadow of the booming thunder that used to shake the walls of our brownstone home. It sounds thin, papery, stripped of all its Irish bluster. "My Rose... is that you, lass?"

Tears burn behind my eyelids, soaking into the scarlet silk ribbon tied over my eyes. I reach out blindly, my fingers trembling through the air until my knuckles brush against coarse, calloused skin.

His hand feels ancient. Cold and paper-thin, wrapped in medical tape and IV tubes, trembling violently as his fingers curl around mine.

"Da," I choke out, the childhood name slipping past my lips before I can stop it.