**I Raided My Deadliest Rival's Headquarters—Only To Find My Perfect Secretary Sitting On The Blood-Soaked Throne**

The rain lashed against the shattered windowpanes of the library, spraying a fine mist over the dead bodyguards.

Sal DeMarco was on his knees, his hands pressed flat against the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “Alex—please, Alex! Carmine made the approach! He was going to execute my brothers if I didn’t give him the seal! I was backed into a corner!”

Alex didn’t even look down at him. He kept his rifle trained on Carmine Capello.

“Shut up, Sal,” Grace said, her voice cutting through the man’s hysterics like a straight razor.

DeMarco swallowed his breath, trembling so violently his teeth clicked together.

Grace walked past the desk, picked up the gold signet ring from the blotter, and turned it over in her palm. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a small linen handkerchief, wiped the blood from its engraved crest, and slipped it into her pocket.

“This belongs to the estate,” she said.

“You think you can rule New York, girl?” Carmine Capello rasped, his voice recovering a thread of its aristocratic arrogance despite the rifle pointed at his chest. “The Commission will never recognize an orphan with an accounting degree. The families in Chicago and Detroit will send enough men to turn this city into a slaughterhouse.”

“The Commission will recognize whoever holds the port clearances, Carmine,” Grace said, stepping closer to the desk until she was looking down into the old man’s face. “And Detroit hasn’t moved an ounce of freight through Newark in ten years without my signature on the bill of lading.”

Capello’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You thought Paulie was running the shipping corridors?” Grace let out a soft, pitying sigh. “Paulie had dementia by twenty-twenty-two, Carmine. For the last two years, every allocation, every tariff, and every political bribe in this city was processed through a terminal at Vitali Logistics. You haven't been dealing with an empire; you've been dealing with a desk.”

She turned to Alex.

“The hard drive on that desk,” she said, pointing to the silver terminal beside the dead bodyguard, “contains the routing numbers for the Capello family’s offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. Carmine’s entire operating capital is sitting in an escrow account waiting for his biometric confirmation.”

Alex stepped forward, pressing the cold muzzle of his Kimber against Carmine Capello’s temple.

“Press your thumb against the sensor, Carmine,” Alex said.

“Go to hell,” the old man spat.

Alex didn’t argue. He shifted his grip and brought the heavy steel handle of the Kimber down across Capello’s right kneecap with a sickening, wet crack.

Capello let out a strangled shriek, his body convulsing in agony, his face turning gray.

“My secretary has a seven-thirty breakfast meeting on Monday,” Alex said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “She doesn't like to be kept waiting. Press the thumb, Carmine, or I’ll start on the other leg.”

Weeping, cursing, and gasping for air, the old don dragged his trembling hand across the desk and slammed his thumb onto the glowing blue scanner.

The screen chimed with a soft, cheerful tone.

*TRANSFER COMPLETE. BALANCE: $0.00.*

“Where did it go?” Capello gasped, clutching his shattered knee. “Where did you send it?”

“To the Vitali Maritime Expansion Fund,” Grace answered without looking up from her laptop. “And thirty percent to the longshoremen’s pension pool to ensure our docks remain frictionless for the next five years.”

She closed her laptop with a sharp, definitive snap.

“What about Sal?” Alex asked, his gaze drifting to the man still shivering on the Persian rug.

Grace looked at DeMarco for three long seconds. There was no hatred in her eyes; there was only the cold, administrative calculation of an auditor balancing an irreconcilable deficit.

“Sal is a variable that cannot be managed,” she said simply.

She didn't wait for Alex. She raised her SCAR rifle, placed the muzzle against the back of DeMarco’s skull, and pulled the trigger.

The muffled report shook the room. DeMarco went limp instantly, collapsing onto the Persian wool.

She lowered the weapon, her face completely empty of emotion.