My mafia boss husband's mistress had destroyed my marriage. My pregnant sister had threatened my son. And now, in the darkness of our mansion, a woman was telling me that my mother was still alive.

My breath caught in my throat.

Vincent was a ghost. His skin was the color of ash, his white shirt now completely red, but his dark eyes burned with a terrifying, unyielding fire.

My mother staggered into the room, collapsing against the wall, gasping for breath.

“Mom!” I cried, pulling Anthony with me as I rushed to her side.

“Dominic’s car went off the bridge,” she choked out, holding her bruised ribs. “The water… it broke the windshield. I got out. I found Vincent on the road.”

Vincent stepped fully into the cabin. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at Claire, who was sobbing on the floor, clutching her bleeding shoulder.

He looked directly at my father.

“Alberto,” Vincent rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones.

My father’s polite smile vanished. He stared at Vincent with genuine surprise.

“You’re a hard man to kill, Vincent,” my father said, slowly reaching toward the pistol he had placed on the coffee table.

“Don’t touch it,” Vincent commanded, raising the heavy assault rifle with his one good arm. The barrel didn’t waver an inch.

My father stopped. He raised his hands in mock surrender.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, son,” my father noted calmly. “You won’t make it to a hospital. Put the gun down, and I’ll ensure Evelyn and the boy are protected.”

“You don’t protect anything but your own power,” Vincent spat.

Vincent swayed slightly, his boots leaving bloody footprints on the hardwood floor.

“You engineered my entire life,” Vincent accused, his voice thick with agony and rage. “You chose my wife. You funded my mistress to keep me distracted. You treated my family like pieces on a chessboard.”

“Because you were a king who didn't know how to rule!” my father shouted, finally losing his temper. “I built the greatest syndicate in American history, and I handed it to you! All you had to do was follow orders!”

“I’m done following orders,” Vincent said softly.

He reached into his pocket and tossed a vintage silver rosary onto the floor between them.

Vintage silver rosary. Nguồn: wwing / Getty Images

It clattered against the wood, the silver crucifix catching the light.

My father stared at it, the color draining from his face.

“My mother’s rosary,” my father whispered. “Where did you get that?”

“From the FBI task force commander,” Vincent replied, offering a bloody, triumphant smile. “While you were hunting Claire and Evelyn… I was making a phone call.”

The room went dead silent.

Claire stopped crying, looking up at Vincent in sheer horror.

“You went to the feds?” Claire gasped. “Vincent, they’ll put you in a supermax prison for life!”

“I know,” Vincent said without looking at her. “I gave them the rosary. It’s the physical key to the vault beneath the cathedral. The one holding all of your physical ledgers, Alberto. The feds are raiding it right now.”

My father’s face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.

His life’s work. His untouchable empire. Burned to the ground in a single phone call by the man he thought he controlled.

“You stupid, arrogant boy,” my father hissed.

He dove for the pistol on the coffee table.

Vincent didn’t hesitate.

He pulled the trigger of the assault rifle.

The burst of gunfire was deafening in the small cabin.

My father’s body jerked violently backward, crashing over the sofa and onto the floor out of sight.

The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.

Vincent lowered the rifle. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a desperate, heartbreaking apology.

Then, his knees buckled.

He collapsed onto the floor, the rifle clattering away.

“Vincent!” I screamed, leaving my mother and Anthony to rush to his side.

I fell to my knees, pulling his head into my lap. His skin was freezing cold. There was too much blood.

“Evie,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering.

“Stay awake,” I sobbed, pressing my hands frantically against his wounds. “Vincent, please! The ambulance is coming!”

Sirens echoed in the distance. The FBI was arriving.

“Listen to me,” Vincent gasped, gripping my wrist with the last of his strength. “The feds… they have the physical ledgers. But they don’t have the offshore accounts.”

He coughed, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“The micro-SD card in your mother’s necklace,” he choked out. “It has eight hundred million dollars on it, Evelyn.”

I stared at him in shock.

“Keep it,” Vincent ordered, his voice fading. “Don’t give it to the feds. Take your mother. Take our son. Disappear. Build a new life.”

“Not without you,” I cried, tears falling onto his pale face.

Vincent smiled, a genuine, beautiful smile that reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with ten years ago.

“Tell Anthony… tell him his father wasn’t a good man,” Vincent whispered, a tear slipping from his own eye. “But tell him his father loved him enough to burn the world down to save him.”

His hand slipped from my wrist.

His eyes slowly closed.

And Vincent Moretti stopped breathing.

“No!” I screamed, shaking his shoulders. “Vincent, no!”

The flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers flooded the cabin windows, painting the walls in frantic colors.

Suddenly, a cold hand grabbed my ankle.

I gasped and looked down.

Claire had dragged herself across the floor. She was bleeding heavily from her shoulder, her face pale, but her eyes were filled with a vicious, venomous hatred.

“He’s dead,” Claire whispered, laughing through her pain. “He’s dead, and you have nothing.”

She reached out with her bloody hand, pointing a trembling finger at Anthony, who was sobbing into my mother’s arms.

“I’ll testify against you,” Claire hissed. “I’ll tell the feds you shot the old man. I’ll make sure you go to prison, Evelyn. And I’ll make sure Anthony goes into the system.”

I stared at the woman who had destroyed my marriage. The woman who had tried to kill my child.