Lily was freezing.
Her lips were blue. Her blonde hair was matted with mud and blood from a cut on her forehead. Her tiny eyes opened slowly.
“Daddy?”
Matteo broke.
“I’ve got you, my angel. Daddy’s here.”
He wrapped his jacket around her and held her against his chest as if he could pour his own life into her.
His men lowered a tow cable. Matteo tied it around his waist and held Lily tight while they hoisted them from the bin.
Then he saw what Lily was clutching in her small fist.
A silver lighter.
Engraved with a crest.
The crest belonged to the Caruso family.
But Matteo knew that lighter.
It did not belong to Dante Caruso.
It belonged to Paulie.
Matteo had given it to him ten years earlier.
Across the rain-slicked hood of the Mercedes, Paulie saw it too.
The color drained from his face.
For three seconds, the dump went silent.
Paulie’s hand drifted toward his waistband.
“Don’t do it, Paulie,” Matteo said.
Four loyal guards instantly aimed rifles at the underboss.
Paulie stammered. He said Dante had played him. He said Dante took his wife and threatened to send her back in pieces unless Paulie helped. He said he only thought Dante wanted leverage over the docks.
“So you gave him my daughter?” Matteo asked.
Paulie fell to his knees.
“We’re brothers.”
Matteo shielded Lily’s face against his chest.
“Brothers protect each other’s families.”
Then he nodded to Enzo.
The suppressed gunfire was brief.
Paulie collapsed into the mud.
Matteo did not look back.
He carried Lily into the SUV and pulled Caleb in after him.
“Northwestern Memorial,” he ordered. “Tell Dr. Hayes we have an emergency. We bypass triage.”
At the hospital, Dr. Jonathan Hayes—Evelyn’s older brother—met them at the emergency bay. Lily had exposure, mild hypothermia, and a head wound, but she was alive.
When they took her inside, Matteo turned to Caleb.
The boy stood in the sterile hallway, overwhelmed and silent, still wearing the filth of the scrapyard.
Matteo knelt and took his dirty hands.
“You saved her life tonight. You saved my life.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Caleb asked.
“She is going to be perfect,” Matteo said. “And you are never going back to that scrapyard. You belong to my family now. Warm bed. Food. Education. Anyone who ever tries to hurt you will answer to me.”
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