“Marcus gave you a key?”

“Yeah, told me to come straight up.”

I grab him by the scruff of the neck, pressing my gun to the side of his head. “How much did Darren pay you to switch sides?”

“You going to shoot me, Ivan?” he asks, trying to squirm free.

“You going to tell me why you betrayed us?”

Cora’s voice cuts through the air. “What’s going on?” She rubs her eyes as she emerges from the bedroom, blanket wrapped around her naked body.

My focus fractures as I glance back at her. For a split second, I’m distracted, enough time for Peter to raise his gun and fire.

Cora screams.

The bullet misses me by a fraction, hitting the mirror behind my head. Glass explodes in a hail of jagged shards.

I yank the gun from his hand. He lunges for mine. We collide. Our bodies crash against furniture, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs. My gun is ripped from my grip in the struggle, clattering across the marble floor.

Peter isn’t much better off. His weapon has gone under the couch. Neither of us has time to retrieve them.

His fist slams into my ribs, driving me backward. Pain flares hot in my side, but I don’t hesitate.

I retaliate. A savage elbow to his throat. “You fucking traitor,” I snap. “Sold us out to the fucking Italians.” I hit him again. “Good men dead because of you.”

He staggers, gasping. His hand scrambles over the bar cart, fingers closing around a heavy glass bottle of whiskey. “Should’ve paid me more,” he replies as he swings the bottle my way.

I duck. The bottle whistles past my head, missing by an inch. It crashes against the table, shattering into shards of amber glass and spilled liquor.

I don’t give him a second chance.

I grab the nearest object—the suite telephone—and smash it into his face.

It’s an old-school model, heavy and solid. He grunts in pain, blood trickling from his nose, but he’s already moving, already countering.

His knee slams into my gut.

White-hot agony explodes through my ribs. I barely manage to shift before his fist comes down again, catching my jaw in a brutal hook.

"Come on, Ivan," he sneers, wiping blood from his mouth. "Is this the best you’ve got?"

I spit blood onto the carpet. "You talk too much."

He lunges, ramming me backward. We slam into the bar cart, toppling it over. Bottles spill onto the floor, liquor soaking into the plush carpet.

His fingers curl around a jagged shard of broken glass.

I catch his wrist before he can drive it into my throat.

“You’re getting old,” he hisses. “I get Chicago when I take you down, old man.”

I bare my teeth. "You think Darren will share with a turncoat?”

With a vicious twist, I force the glass from his grip, cutting deep into my own palm in the process.

I slam his head into the bar. Hard.

He stumbles, dazed but not down.