Everything changed the moment my daughter released my hand in Lincoln Park and ran toward a little girl sitting alone beneath an oak tree. When Lily turned and shouted, “Dad, she looks exactly like me,” I saw the face of the twin I had never known was alive.

"Get down!" I shouted, scooping both seven-year-old girls into my arms simultaneously.

Lily wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, accustomed to emergency drills, while Emma let out a terrified scream, burying her face into my shoulder. I sprinted toward the stone structure of the park conservatory just as the passenger windows of the approaching vehicle blew open.

POP-POP-POP-POP!

The distinct, suppressed chatter of automatic weapons echoed through the autumn air, shattering the peaceful Sunday atmosphere. Bullets chewed through the oak bark above us, showering us with splinters and dirt.

"Return fire!" Leo roared.

My four personal bodyguards—former elite military operators who had served with me for a decade—drew their sidearms, moving with lethal, disciplined synchronization. They formed a moving wedge around me and the children, laying down precise, suppressive crossfire into the windshield of the invading SUV.

The SUV swerved violently as its front tires were blown out by Leo’s shots, slamming hard into a concrete statue of Abraham Lincoln fifty yards away. Steam hissed from the crushed radiator.

Four men in tactical gear and ballistic masks scrambled out of the wreck, raising submachine guns.

"Blackwell!" one of the gunmen shouted over the engine roar. "Leave the girl! The Moretti Council claims the child!"

The Moretti Council.

My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. The surviving remnants of the old family—the faction that had fled to Europe seven years ago—had returned. They didn't just want Emma; they wanted Grace's surviving twin as leverage to force me to surrender my shipping ports in the Great Lakes.

"You picked the wrong park, gentlemen," I growled softly.

I set Lily and Emma down behind the heavy stone pedestal of a bronze fountain. "Lily, hold your sister. Do not look up until I tell you."

"I've got her, Daddy," Lily said, her voice shaking but her grip on Emma absolute. Emma was crying silently, clutching her torn teddy bear.

I drew my customized Kimber .45 from my shoulder holster—a weapon I hadn't fired in three years.

I stepped out from behind the stone pedestal just as a gunman rounded the corner. Before he could bring his weapon to bear, I placed two rounds into his center armor and a third through his visor. He collapsed like a sack of wet concrete.

"Flank them!" Leo yelled, advancing on the remaining three mercenaries.

The firefight was over in less than forty-five seconds. My men didn't shoot to injure; they shot with cold, clinical lethality. Three mercenaries lay dead on the grass, and the fourth was pinned to the mud beneath Leo’s heavy combat boot, his arm shattered.

Sirens began to wail in the distance—Chicago Police units responding to reports of gunfire in Lincoln Park.

I walked over to the pinned mercenary, my shoes crunching on broken glass and spent shell casings. I pressed the warm barrel of my pistol directly against his forehead.

"Who bought the child from Karen?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.

The man spit blood onto his mask, wheezing through cracked ribs. "Vincenzo... Vincenzo Moretti came back from Milan... He knows... he knows she's your blood, Blackwell... He's going to wipe out your whole line..."

I pulled the trigger without a second thought.

I turned back to the fountain. Lily was holding Emma, whispering comforting words into her hair just like Grace used to do for Lily when she was a toddler.

"Boss," Leo said, wiping blood from a minor graze on his cheek. "CPD will be here in three minutes. We need to move."

"We aren't going to the main estate," I said, picking up both girls once more. "They know about the estate. We go to the Citadel in River North. And call Dr. Sterling. I want a full DNA extraction and medical team waiting in the basement bunker before we arrive."