THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME LIFT HIS CRYING SON WITH A SCRATCH DOWN MY CHEEK—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE CAUGHT HER FACE ON A ROSE BUSH.”

The peace lasted exactly four days.

Four days of quiet dread. The syndicate summit had sent shockwaves through the city. Rumors were spreading like wildfire through the boroughs: Luca Moretti had drawn a gun on Don Rossi over a nanny. Some called him mad; others called him terrifyingly unpredictable. But none of them dared to cross the Moretti supply lines.

On the fifth afternoon, the sky turned the color of bruised plums. A fierce Atlantic gale swept in from the east, churning the ocean into violent, white-capped mountains of water and lashing rain against the fortified glass of the Montauk estate.

Mateo had been restless all day, confined indoors by the storm.

"Can we go see the horses, Emma? Please?" Mateo begged, pulling on my sweater in the grand gallery on the second floor. "Just to give Barnaby an apple?"

Barnaby was a gentle, aging draft horse Luca kept in the heated stables near the eastern edge of the property, inside the reinforced perimeter walls.

I looked out the window. The rain was heavy, but the path to the stables was covered by a long, stone-pillared walkway. More importantly, two guards stood stationed at the stable entrance.

"Only for ten minutes, Mateo," I relented, kneeling down to zip up his yellow rain jacket. "Then we come straight back inside for hot chocolate. Deal?"

"Deal!" he cheered, jumping up and down.

I grabbed an umbrella, took Mateo’s small hand, and walked down the service corridor toward the rear exit. Marco, one of Luca's senior guards, nodded as we stepped out onto the covered stone path.

"Keep it quick, Miss Emma," Marco said, his hand resting casually near his sidearm. "Visibility is garbage with this fog rolling in."

"Ten minutes, Marco. I promise."

The air outside smelled of salt, wet earth, and cedar. The wind howled through the stone pillars, whipping my hair across my face as Mateo happily skipped alongside me, clutching a red apple in his little pockets.

We reached the heavy wooden doors of the stable. The interior was warm, smelling of sweet hay, leather saddles, and dry wood. Barnaby whinnied softly from the third stall, recognizing Mateo’s footsteps.

"Barnaby!" Mateo ran toward the stall door, standing on his tiptoes to reach the wooden latch.

I laughed, walking up behind him to help him lift the heavy brass bolt. "Hold on, little guy, let me help you—"

The sound was subtle. A soft *pfft-pfft*.

Like a pneumatic tube firing.

Outside the stable doors, Marco didn't scream. There was only a heavy, wet *thud* as his body collapsed against the wooden siding.

My blood ran cold instantly.

Every instinct honed over six months of living in a mafia boss's house screamed in my head: *AMBUSH.*

"Mateo," I whispered, my voice trembling with sudden, violent terror. "Come here. Right now."

Mateo sensed the panic in my tone. His smile vanished, his eyes widening. "Emma?"

Before he could take a step, the side door of the stable—the delivery entrance leading to the dense coastal woods—burst open with a sickening splinter of wood.

Three men in black tactical gear, wearing ballistic masks, poured into the stable aisle. They didn't have heavy assault rifles; they carried compact, suppressed submachine guns. Professionals. Infiltrators who had bypassed the thermal sensors in the storm.

"Grab the kid!" one of them barked in a harsh, gutter accent. "Kill the girl!"

Time fractured into jagged, terrifying shards.

There was no time to run to the main house. The walkway was fifty yards of open space, exposed to whatever shooters were waiting in the fog.

I didn't think. I didn't hesitate.

I grabbed Mateo by the collar of his jacket, yanked him backward into the empty tack room behind us, and slammed the heavy oak door shut.

*Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft!*

Rounds shredded the wooden door, sending sharp splinters flying through the air like shrapnel. One of the splinters sliced across my forearm, drawing a line of fire, but I barely felt it.

"Quiet, Mateo! Don't make a sound!" I hissed, shoving him into the narrow space beneath a heavy workbench covered in saddle blankets. "Stay down! Cover your ears!"

Mateo was crying, tears streaming down his pale face, his little hands clamped over his ears, trembling so violently he could barely breathe.

The heavy door shuddered under a massive boot.

*BANG.*

The brass lock bent.

*BANG.*

The hinges groaned.

I looked around the small tack room desperately. There were no guns here. No guards. Just leather bridles, heavy iron stirrups, and a long, rusted pitchfork leaning against the corner.

I grabbed the pitchfork, holding it with both hands, my knuckles white, my entire body shaking with raw, maternal fury. If they wanted Luca’s son, they would have to step over my corpse to get him.

The door burst inward with a deafening crash.

A masked man stepped through the threshold, his weapon raised, the barrel pointing directly toward the workbench where Mateo hid.

I screamed—a primal, unhinged sound—and lunged forward with everything in me, driving the iron tines of the pitchfork directly into the man’s shoulder.

He grunted in shock and agony, stumbling backward. The weapon fired wild, rounds chewing up the concrete floor. He swung his heavy arm, striking me across the temple.

The world exploded into bright, blinding white light.

I crashed against the wall, sliding down, my head spinning, blood warm and sticky trickling into my hairline. Through the haze, I saw the second man step over his wounded comrade, raising his suppressed pistol directly at my face.

*This is it,* I thought. *I'm sorry, Mateo.*

Then, the rear wall of the stable didn't just open—it shattered.

A deafening roar ripped through the storm.

Luca.

He didn't have an umbrella. He didn't have body armor. He wore only his black trousers and a rain-soaked shirt clinging to his massive frame, wielding a high-caliber combat shotgun like an extension of his own arm.

*BOOM!*

The concussive blast in the enclosed space was catastrophic.

The man aiming at me was lifted completely off his feet, blown out of the tack room doorway by the sheer, devastating force of the buckshot.

*BOOM!*

The second man, still struggling with the pitchfork, collapsed instantly as Luca advanced with the cold, unstoppable momentum of an executioner.

The third intruder tried to raise his weapon from the aisle. Luca didn't even bother aiming the shotgun. He closed the distance in two massive strides, grabbed the man's throat with one massive, tattooed hand, slammed him against the wooden post of a stall, and drove a combat knife cleanly through his chest.

The entire fight had lasted less than eight seconds.

Silence fell over the stable, broken only by the roaring gale outside, the smell of cordite and blood, and Mateo’s muffled, terrified sobs beneath the workbench.

Luca stood in the center of the carnage, his chest heaving, rain and sweat dripping from his chin. His eyes were wide, feral, completely consumed by the madness of a father whose family had almost been slaughtered.

"Mateo!" Luca roared, his voice cracking with agony. "EMMA!"

"Luca..." I choked out from the floor, my vision blurring, clutching my bleeding temple.

Luca dropped the shotgun.

He fell to his knees beside me, his large hands trembling—actually trembling—as he cupped my face. His eyes darted over the blood on my forehead, the splinters in my clothes, the terror in my eyes.

"Emma," he breathed, his voice raw, broken into jagged pieces. "Emma, look at me. Stay with me."

"Under the bench..." I whispered, my voice fading as unconsciousness tugged at the edges of my mind. "Mateo... he's safe. He's under the bench."

Luca let out a ragged, choked sound that sounded terrifyingly close to a sob. He reached beneath the bench with one arm, pulling his crying son into his massive chest while his other arm pulled me tightly against his shoulder, holding us both against his racing heart.

"I have you," Luca swore into my hair, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, apocalyptic rage. "I have you both. And I swear to Almighty God, by tomorrow morning, there will not be a single Rossi left alive in this state."