“PUT THAT PEN DOWN! HE DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER HIS OWN SON!” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 48-YEAR-OLD NURSE FOR HELPING HIS ELDERLY FATHER SIGN THE FAMILY GUESTBOOK—BUT WHEN THE OLD MAN SCRATCHED THREE WORDS ACROSS THE PAGE, DOMINIC ROMANO STOPPED THE MUSIC. “CELESTE… WHAT IS IN THE BLUE BOTTLE?”

BANG.

The explosion was blinding even with my eyes shut tight. The concussive wave vibrated through the gravel into my chest.

Screams of disorientation erupted from the other side of the gate. Arthur’s men stumbled blindly, clutching their ears and eyes.

Before the smoke even began to clear, Dominic and Julian moved like ghosts from the shadows of the estate’s garden.

Dominic didn’t use his rifle. He used the chaos.

He vaulted the wrought-iron side fence with one arm, landing directly on top of the two men guarding the SUVs. The brutal efficiency of his violence was terrifying to witness. He incapacitated three men in the span of five seconds.

I scrambled to my feet, my ears ringing violently from the flashbang.

“Lily!” I screamed, pushing my way through the iron gate, which Julian had just unlocked from the control box.

Lily was on her hands and knees in the gravel, coughing. I grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her into my arms, crushing her against my chest.

“Mom,” she sobbed, burying her face in my neck.

“I’ve got you,” I cried, pulling her back toward the estate doors. “Don’t look. Just run.”

I dragged her up the marble steps, pushing her inside the grand foyer.

Outside, the gunfire was brief and entirely one-sided. Dominic’s remaining guards had flanked Arthur’s blinded men, disarming them before they could recover their vision.

The opera music abruptly cut off.

The silence that followed was heavy with the smell of cordite and burnt gravel.

I stood in the doorway, shielding Lily behind me, watching Dominic walk slowly toward Arthur Bell.

The lawyer was lying on the ground, his gun discarded, clutching his bleeding nose from where he had fallen during the blast.

Dominic towered over him. He looked like the devil himself, bathed in the moonlight, his white shirt stained deep red.

“You lost, Arthur,” Dominic said, his voice carrying effortlessly in the quiet night.

Arthur spat blood onto the gravel. He looked up at Dominic, a twisted, hateful smile spreading across his face.

“Did I?” Arthur wheezed. “You think this is over, Dominic? I’m just a lawyer. Do you really think I had the manpower to pull off a coup on my own?”

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Who backed you?”

Arthur began to laugh. “You were so focused on the poison. So focused on my embezzlement. You didn’t even think to ask why Celeste’s family agreed to this.”

Julian stepped forward, aiming his gun at Arthur’s chest. “Tell us.”

Arthur looked at the young man, Vincent’s son.

“You think your father died in a random explosion twelve years ago, kid?” Arthur sneered. “The D’Amato family planted that bomb. Celeste’s father murdered your dad. And tonight, he’s coming to finish off the rest of the Romanos.”

A cold chill swept over the grounds.

Before Dominic could process the revelation, a convoy of heavily armored black vehicles turned onto the private road leading to the estate. There were at least ten of them, headlights cutting through the darkness like predator eyes.

“The D’Amato family,” Dominic whispered, realization dawning.

Celeste hadn’t just been a gold-digging fiancée. She was a trojan horse.

“Get inside!” Dominic roared, grabbing Arthur by the collar and dragging him toward the house. “Julian, lock down the steel shutters!”

We scrambled into the foyer as the heavy steel plates slammed down over the windows and doors, sealing the estate like a fortress.

The sound of high-caliber weapons hitting the reinforced steel echoed like thunder. The D’Amato family wasn’t here to negotiate. They were here to massacre.

We retreated to the center of the house, moving back toward the study.

Lily was shaking violently. “Mom, what is happening? Who are these people?”

“I don’t know, baby, but we’re going to survive this,” I promised, gripping her hand.

Inside the study, Dominic threw Arthur onto the floor. The lawyer was bleeding, but he looked smug.

“They have enough C-4 to blow the steel doors off their hinges,” Arthur said, leaning against the mahogany desk. “You have five minutes, Dominic. The reign of the Romano family ends tonight.”

Dominic ignored him. He walked over to a framed painting on the wall and pulled it aside, revealing a hidden wall safe. He keyed in a code, and it clicked open.

He didn’t pull out a weapon or money.

He pulled out a small, framed child’s drawing.

It was a crude crayon sketch of two stick figures holding hands. Above them, written in a child’s messy scrawl, was: Dom and Vince forever.

Dominic stared at the drawing for a long second, his jaw tight. Then he looked at Julian.

“Your father drew this for me when we were boys,” Dominic said quietly. “I promised him I would never let anyone destroy this family. I failed him twelve years ago. I am not failing him tonight.”

Dominic set the drawing down and turned to a hidden weapons cache beneath the floorboards.

He pulled out an antique, double-barreled hunting shotgun.

“Grace,” Dominic said, turning to me. “Take Lily down to the bunker. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”

“I’m not leaving you up here to die!” I yelled.

Dominic walked over and grabbed my face in his hands, pulling me close. His dark eyes were fierce and desperate.

“You are not going to watch me die,” Dominic whispered fiercely. “You are going to take your daughter, and you are going to survive. Because if I know you’re safe, I have nothing left to fear.”