Page 12 of Broken Vows (Empire City Syndicate #2)

Vincent

I leave Melinda sleeping in the guest room and retreat to my office, closing the door behind me.

The adrenaline from the parking garage incident is wearing off, replaced by cold calculation.

Someone endeavored to assassinate my future wife tonight. Someone is going to pay for that mistake.

I pour three fingers of bourbon and settle behind my desk, opening secure communication channels.

My fingers move across the keyboard, pulling up surveillance footage, financial records, personnel files.

The attack was too coordinated to be random, too precise to be amateur.

The first call goes to Tony. "Status report."

"Three shooters down, one wounded and secured. We're moving him to the warehouse on Pier 47 for questioning." His voice is clipped, professional. "Boss, these weren't street thugs. Professional grade weapons, coordinated positions, clean escape routes."

"IDs?"

"Working on it. But the tattoos, the methodology—looks like the Perezzi family."

I pause, bourbon halfway to my lips. The Perezzis are mid-tier, ambitious but usually smart enough to avoid direct conflict with major families. They've had grievances with both Russos and Mastronis for years, but nothing worth starting a war over.

"Why would the Perezzis want Melinda dead?"

"Maybe they don't know she's carrying your kid. Maybe they just see an opportunity to hurt the Mastronis."

"Or maybe someone's paying them to take both of us out at once." I pull up financial records on my screen, following money trails that lead through shell companies and offshore accounts. "Someone knew we'd be there today, Tony. Someone knew exactly where and when."

"You want me to start looking at leaks?"

"Yeah. And run deep backgrounds on everyone who had access to today's location. Staff, security personnel, even the fucking parking attendants."

I end the call and immediately dial my technical specialist. Adrian, a genius with computers who's kept our digital operations invisible for five years.

"I need surveillance footage from Mount Sinai's parking garage, going back forty-eight hours," I tell him. "And traffic cameras from every intersection within six blocks. Someone was watching Melinda, learning her patterns."

"How deep you want me to dig?"

"Deep enough to find out who's been tracking her movements. Hospital security, parking logs, credit card transactions—everything."

While Adrian works his magic, I study the tactical breakdown of tonight's attack. The positioning was textbook—multiple angles, overlapping fields of fire, escape routes planned. Professional work, which means professional money behind it.

My phone rings. Dad, again. This time I answer.

"Vincent." His voice carries that familiar edge of controlled impatience. "Where the hell have you been? I've been calling for hours."

"Handling business. What do you need?"

"We need to talk. Face to face. There are developments you need to know about."

I check the time—nearly midnight. "Can't it wait until morning?"

"No." There's something in his tone that makes me sit up straighter. "The Mastroni situation is more complicated than we thought. Their eldest daughter is back in the city."

My blood chills. "Melinda?"

"You know her?" The question is sharp, probing.

"I know of her. Medical degree, worked overseas. Thought she'd cut ties with the family." My words are careful, almost a lie but not quite.

"Nobody cuts ties with families like ours, Vincent. You should know that by now." Antonio's voice carries decades of bitter experience. "Intelligence suggests she's back under Max's protection. Someone tried to end her life two weeks ago."

I keep my voice neutral. "Any idea who?"

"Working theory is the Colombians, maybe the Russians. Someone who sees leverage in hurting Max through his sister." He pauses. "I want you to look into it. See if there's an opportunity there."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"The kind that gives us access to Mastroni pharmaceutical operations. The kind that puts us in position to negotiate from strength instead of constantly reacting to their expansion."

My father wants me to use Melinda as a weapon against her own family. The irony would be amusing if it weren't so dangerous. "I'll look into it."

"Good. And Vincent? Be careful. The Mastronis protect their own, especially their women. Any move we make has to be clean, untraceable."

After he hangs up, I sit in the darkness of my office, bourbon burning in my throat. My father wants to exploit the woman carrying his grandchild. He wants to turn my future wife into a tactical advantage against her own blood.

The situation is spiraling beyond my control, and control is everything in this business.

I check the guest room—Melinda is still sleeping, curled on her side with one hand resting on her stomach. Even in sleep, she's protecting our child. The ring on her finger catches moonlight from the window, my mother's diamond marking her as mine.

Back in my office, I review the surveillance footage Adrian sent over. Three days of Melinda's routine at the hospital—arriving at seven, leaving between six and eight, always alone, always careful but not paranoid. Someone with patience could have mapped her entire schedule.

Yet, there remains something else in the footage that makes my blood run cold. A black sedan, same one from tonight, parked across from the hospital entrance for the past week. Someone's been watching her long before our lunch meeting.

My secure line rings. Adrian again.

"Boss, you need to see this. I pulled traffic camera footage from the attack site." His voice is tight with concern. "The shooters weren't just targeting the doctor. They had clean shots at her for twenty minutes before you showed up. They waited for her to get there…to be with you ."

"They wanted both of us?"

"Looks that way. This wasn't about hurting the Mastronis. This was about taking out a specific combination—you and her, together."

I close my eyes, pieces clicking into place. Someone knows about the baby. Someone knows about our connection. Someone wants to eliminate both parents before the child can be born and change the balance of power in New York.

"Keep digging," I tell Adrian. "Find me everything—financials, communications, travel records. Someone's orchestrating this, and I want to know who."

I pour another bourbon and walk to the windows overlooking the city. Somewhere out there, people are planning my death and Melinda's. They're planning to kill our unborn child before it can draw its first breath.

They have no idea what they've started.

The guest room door opens quietly. Melinda appears in the hallway, wearing one of my shirts over silk pajama pants. Her hair is mussed from sleep, but her eyes are alert, calculating.

"Can't sleep?" she asks.

"Too much to process." I gesture toward the chair across from my desk. "You should be resting."

"Hard to rest when people are trying to kill me." She settles into the leather chair, tucking her legs under her. "What have you found out?"

I could lie, give her sanitized information designed to keep her calm. But Melinda Mastroni wasn't raised to be sheltered from harsh realities. She was raised to face them head-on.

"The attackers were Perezzi family soldiers. Professional grade operation, well-funded, carefully planned." I turn my laptop screen toward her, showing the surveillance footage. "They've been watching you for at least a week, learning your patterns."

She studies the images with detachment, the same way she probably examines X-rays. "They had opportunities to take me alone. Why wait for you?"

"Because this isn't about hurting your family or mine separately. Someone wants both of us dead."

Her hand moves automatically to her stomach. "Someone knows about the baby."

"That's my working theory. A Russo-Mastroni heir represents a shift in power dynamics. Some people would rather eliminate the threat than adapt to it."

Melinda is quiet for a long moment, processing implications. When she looks up, her eyes are hard as amber glass. "Who else knows about us?"

"My security team. Your family, I’m sure. The restaurant staff, but they're paid to forget what they see and hear."

"Some hospital staff saw us together at the gala."

"But they wouldn't necessarily connect that to pregnancy." I lean back in my chair, studying her face. "Someone had inside information, Melinda. Someone who knew we'd be meeting today."

She freezes. "You think there's a leak in my family?"

"I think there's a leak somewhere. Could be mine, could be yours, could be someone else entirely. But the timing is too perfect to be coincidental."

My phone vibrates with a text from Tony: Package secured at warehouse. Ready for your questions.

I show Melinda the message. "One of the shooters survived. I'm going to have a conversation with him."

"I'm coming with you."

"Absolutely not."

She stands, moving to the window.

"Someone tried to destroy my child tonight, Vincent. I want to look him in the eye."

"It's not safe?—"

"Nothing is safe anymore." She turns back to me, and for a moment, I see past the doctor to the Mastroni underneath. The woman who grew up watching her father conduct business in blood and fear. "Besides, I might be able to get information you can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a trauma surgeon. I know exactly how much pain a body can take before it shuts down permanently." Her voice is calm, professional, terrifying. "I know how to keep someone conscious and talking for a very long time."

I should be horrified.

But fuck, it turns me on.

She’s exactly the kind of dangerous I want in my bed—and at my side.

And the thing that keeps circling in my mind isn’t the shooters.

It’s her.

Her hand on her stomach. The tremor in her voice.

And the one thing I know for fucking certain:

I won’t let anyone touch what’s mine. Not ever again.

My phone rings again. Tony's number.

"The package is getting restless," he says.