THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME CARRY HIS SLEEPING DAUGHTER DOWN THE STAIRS WHILE LIMPING—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE FELL WHILE CHASING HER,” EVEN THOUGH I HAD TOLD NO ONE.

The chapel erupted into pure, unadulterated madness.

Luca didn't sign the papers. He didn't hesitate.

A Moretti Don never negotiates when his blood is threatened.

With blinding speed, Luca fired two rounds into the chest of Christian’s lead gunman. The heavy crack of the gunshots echoed like thunderclaps through the sacred hall. Pandemonium broke loose. Five hundred mobsters scrambled for cover, women screamed, velvet chairs were overturned, and gun smoke filled the air, choking the sweet scent of white lilies.

Marcus and the Moretti loyalists engaged Christian’s men instantly, a ferocious, close-quarters firefight erupting across the marble altar.

"Emma! Down!" Marcus roared, throwing himself in front of Sofia and me as bullets chipped shards of marble from the altar steps above our heads.

Christian bolted toward the heavy wooden door leading into the catacombs behind the sacristy.

"He’s going to destroy the batch!" I screamed at Luca over the deafening roar of gunfire. "Helena said the master supply is in the chapel vault! If he gets down there, Sofia dies!"

Luca didn't need to hear another word. His face was a mask of apocalyptic fury. He vaulted over the marble communion rail like a panther, completely ignoring the bullets ricocheting around him, sprinting after his cousin into the subterranean darkness of the catacombs.

"Marcus, take Sofia to the ambulance team in the courtyard!" I ordered, slipping the ceramic blade into my palm. "Keep oxygen on her! I’m going with Luca!"

"Emma, no! Your dress, your hip—"

"Do as I say!" I snarled, the command in my voice so absolute that Marcus instinctively obeyed, scooping the limp, pale child into his arms and sprinting toward the chapel’s reinforced side exit under the cover of his men’s return fire.

I ripped the heavy silk train from my wedding dress with two violent jerks, leaving the skirt torn and frayed at my knees, freeing my legs. My hip burned with agony, but my heart was pure fire. I bolted through the shattered sacristy door and down the winding, damp stone steps into the catacombs beneath the chapel.

The underground air was freezing, thick with the scent of mold, ancient bones, and fresh cordite.

At the end of the long corridor lined with stone sarcophagi of dead Moretti patriarchs, a heavy iron vault door stood wide open.

Inside the vault, illuminated by a single hanging work light, Luca and Christian were locked in a savage, life-and-death struggle.

Christian had dropped his gun, but he held a heavy steel crowbar, swinging it with desperate, wild ferocity. Luca caught the bar with his bare left forearm—the bone cracked with a sickening snap—but Luca didn't even flinch. He drove his right fist into Christian’s face, shattering his glasses and sending him crashing against a row of rusted metal shelving.

Medical supplies, old ledgers, and dusty bottles shattered across the stone floor.

"Where is it?!" Luca roared, pinning Christian against the cold stone by his throat, his good hand squeezing until Christian’s eyes bulged with terror. "Where is the vial, Christian?!"

Christian choked, blood pouring from his nose and split lips. He looked toward a small, temperature-controlled stainless steel cooler resting on a worktable ten feet away.

"It... it doesn't matter, Luca..." Christian gasped out, a bloody, psychotic grin stretching across his teeth. "Even if you give it to her... Sofia isn't yours."

Luca froze, his grip on Christian’s throat tightening until the man’s feet dangled inches off the floor. "What did you say?"

"Helena... Helena never loved you, Luca," Christian choked, his voice venomous and dying. "She was sleeping with Arthur Caldwell before she was ever pledged to you! Sofia... Sofia carries Caldwell blood! That’s why she has the genetic marker! That’s why she needed their cure! You killed Caldwell... you slaughtered his men... to protect another man’s bastard!"

The words struck Luca with the force of an artillery shell.

I saw the devastating blow land in Luca’s eyes. His grip faltered for a fraction of a second. The man who ruled an empire, who feared no army on earth, looked completely gutted, his soul ripped open by the possibility that his beloved daughter—the light of his dark existence—was a living monument to his wife’s infidelity with his greatest enemy.

Christian saw the hesitation. With a savage snarl, he pulled a small silver detonator from his vest pocket.

"If I don't rule this family," Christian spat, "none of us leave this tomb!"

He thumbed the switch.

A small thermite charge, wired directly to the stainless steel cooler containing the life-saving medicine, hissed to life with blinding, white-hot magnesium fire.