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June 12 | 4:37 AM

"Fucking hell, I must be cursed." Robert Caruso's broad shadow loomed over the two officers seated across from him, his thick, calloused fingers gripping the rim of an empty coffee mug. "First my father, then my mother, then my first wife." His voice, rough and low, carried a weight that pressed into the room like a storm cloud. The words weren't a plea for sympathy—they were a declaration, a pointed act of intention.

As Chief Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, Robert had seen the city's ugliest truths: riots turned deadly, children robbed of innocence, gang wars spilling blood in the streets, even corruption among his own ranks. Years of witnessing humanity's darkest depths had hardened him, the numbness becoming his shield. He had often called it a blessing in disguise—a grim kind of armor.

His pain wasn't a secret. He shared his scars with recruits, with veterans, with wide-eyed schoolchildren, using them as lessons, as warnings. Pain, he believed, made him stronger. It sharpened his instincts, hardened his resolve, molded him into the kind of man who could fight fire with fire. But this... this was different.

"Do you believe in karma?" he asked, his voice gravelly, almost hollow. "Feels like life has a way of settling its scores, don't you think? Balancing the damn books. Because how the hell else do you explain this?"

The room fell silent.

Hours earlier, they'd pulled his son's body—what was left of it—out of a burning dumpster behind the Golden Nugget Pancake House. The smell of charred flesh and melted plastic still clung to Robert's senses.

Rafael Caruso wasn't just any victim. He was a rising star—a former CPD digital investigator turned FBI agent. The kind of man who left good impressions everywhere he went. A promising future. A name people spoke with respect.

Now, his name would be spoken in whispers. His ruthless death—naked, burned beyond recognition—would overshadow everything else he had been.

No witnesses.
No cameras.
No DNA.

Just a timeline pieced together by half-sober restaurant employees and spotty phone records. All of it leading to one name: Marco Montanari.

Robert's jaw tightened at the sound of his son's name scribbled in black and white across the case file. Rafael—his boy. The ache in his chest clawed its way up his throat as he repeated the words aloud, testing them as if they might break apart under their own weight.

"My son...," he croaked, his voice cracking. "I... I just don't understand. I truly can't."

The Montanaris had been a thorn in his side for years. Robert had fought their shadowy empire tooth and nail, watching the fallout spill blood across his city. "What the hell were the two of them doing together?" he muttered, more to himself than the officers.

It wasn't just a question. It was a wound, festering and raw, and he couldn't stop poking at it. His hand shook as he lifted the empty mug to his face, inhaling the faint ghost of coffee that had once filled it. The bitter aroma did nothing to steady his nerves.

The room was suffocating, yet Robert didn't move. His mind raced, chasing shadows he couldn't catch. The dead didn't speak. The evidence didn't lie. And yet, nothing about this made sense.

Nothing ever did in this godforsaken city.

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