New York’s most feared crime boss slipped a gold ring onto my swollen finger and told my unconscious body, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

The heavy glass bottle shattered against Costa’s kneecap with a sickening *CRUNCH*.

Costa shrieked in agony, his leg collapsing beneath him as he crashed heavily to the stone floor, his submachine gun clattering across the cellar into the shadows.

Before he could recover, Isabella fired.

*BANG.*

The round took Costa directly in the shoulder. He howled, rolling onto his back, clawing at the stone with his good hand, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared up at the two of us.

"You... you crazy b—"

The heavy oak door at the top of the stairs blew off its hinges with a deafening crash.

Dominic descended into the cellar like an archangel of death.

His suit was torn to shreds, drenched in dark crimson that wasn't entirely his own. A deep gash bled freely from his left temple, and his eyes were wild, consumed by a bloodlust so terrifying that even Isabella took a step back. In his right hand, he held an empty assault rifle; in his left, a combat knife.

He saw Costa on the floor. He saw Isabella with the smoking revolver.

And then his eyes found me—standing over the shattered champagne bottle, clutching my side where the sutures had finally torn, blood seeping through the emerald silk of my dress.

Dominic dropped the rifle. He didn't say a word. He crossed the cellar in three predatory strides.

"Dominic—wait!" Costa choked out, scrambling backward on his elbows, leaving a smear of blood on the stone floor. "The Commission! You can't—"

Dominic drove his boot into Costa’s chest, pinning him to the floor, the full weight of his fury crushing the man's sternum. Dominic leaned down, his face inches from the man who had terrorized our lives.

"You broke into my home," Dominic whispered, his voice dangerously low, almost gentle. "You pointed a gun at my mother. And you made my wife bleed again."

"Dominic, please—"

Dominic’s knife moved with clinical, merciless speed.

Costa gasped, his eyes going wide and glassy as the breath left his lungs in a single, rattling sigh. The cellar fell into a profound, suffocating silence, broken only by the steady drip of wine and blood pooling onto the ancient stone.

Dominic stepped back, not sparing the corpse a second glance.

He rushed to my side, catching me just as my legs finally gave out. The pain of the torn stitches was blinding, a roaring fire consuming my abdomen.

"I've got you," Dominic breathed, his voice cracking, his bloody hands pressing firmly against the fresh wound on my side to stem the bleeding. "I’ve got you, Tessa. Enzo! Get the medics down here now!"

"I hit him with the bottle," I whispered, a delirious, breathless laugh escaping my lips as the darkness encroached around the edges of my vision.

"I saw," Dominic said, pressing his forehead against mine, his tears mixing with the blood on my cheek. "You're a warrior, little bird. You're my queen. Stay with me. Don't you dare close your eyes."

"Dominic..."

"I'm here. I’m right here."

"My father..." I choked out, the world fading to gray. "Tell me he’s resting."

"He is," Dominic vowed, his voice breaking with an agony that tore through the dark cellar. "He is, my love. I swear it."