The city was supposed to cool.

A marriage alliance. A calculated truce. A future built on control instead of blood.

It fails.

As Chicago's underworld begins to fracture, Dominic Mancini sees the pattern beneath the chaos-moves too precise to be coincidence, pressure applied exactly where it will break.

Seraphina Valenti was raised to stabilize power, not question it. But as the alliance collapses around her, she begins to understand that the system she serves was never meant to protect her.

And in the shadows, a woman known only as Nyx moves unseen, dismantling every structure designed to hold the city together.

As loyalties shift and violence becomes inevitable, Dominic and Seraphina are forced into a dangerous alignment that could expose the truth behind the war-or destroy everything they were born into.

Because this isn't just a conflict.

It's a design.

Note: This book contains dark themes, including violence, coercion, and an attempted sexual assault (non-graphic). Reader discretion is advised.