SHE'S NOT GETTING UP TO MAKE A SPEECH! LOOK AT HER HANDS—SHE CAN BARELY HOLD A GLASS!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD MAID FOR HELPING HIS ELDERLY MOTHER STAND AT THE DINNER TABLE—BUT WHEN TERESA MORETTI GRABBED

The ticking sound echoed off the steel walls of the cargo hold, cold and rhythmic.

Luca didn't lower his gun. His dark eyes remained fixed on his brother.

“I didn't bring explosives, Dante,” Luca said calmly. “I don’t need a bomb to kill you.”

Dante’s eyes darted frantically around the hold. The ticking grew louder. It was coming from inside one of the massive wooden shipping crates stacked near the center of the room.

“If you didn't plant it, who did?” Dante demanded, his grip tightening on Matteo’s arm. The little boy was crying softly, terrified of the man holding him.

Suddenly, a harsh, metallic voice crackled over the ship’s intercom system.

“The explosive device will detonate in four minutes. All hands abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship.”

Dante’s face turned gray.

“The Bratva,” Luca realized, the pieces clicking together in his mind. “You stole money from the Russians, Dante. You used them to fake your death ten years ago, and you didn't pay them their cut.”

“They’re bluffing!” Dante yelled, backing toward the steel door at the rear of the hold.

“Three minutes, fifty seconds,” the intercom voice droned mechanically.

“Let the boy go!” I screamed, stepping forward, my gun raised. “Dante, you’re going to die here! Let him go!”

Dante looked at me, and a cruel, jagged smile crossed his face. “Ah, the miraculous mother. You survived the crash. You survived the coma. But you won’t survive this.”

He shoved Matteo violently toward a heavy iron support pillar and raised his weapon to fire at me.

Luca was faster.

He didn't shoot Dante in the chest. He shot the heavy overhead crane hook suspended directly above his brother’s head.

The bullet shattered the locking pin. The massive steel hook plummeted, crashing into the catwalk Dante was standing on, collapsing the metal grating.

Dante screamed as he fell fifteen feet to the lower deck, disappearing beneath a pile of shattered steel and wooden crates.

“Matteo!” I screamed, dropping my gun and running toward the little boy.

He was huddled against the iron pillar, shaking violently, his knees pulled to his chest.

I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around him, pulling him tightly against my chest. He felt so small, so fragile. The scent of his hair, the warmth of his skin—it broke a dam inside me that had been closed for five years.

“I’ve got you,” I sobbed, burying my face in his neck. “I’m your mommy. I’ve got you.”

Matteo clung to my tactical jacket, crying softly. “He said my daddy was a bad man.”

Luca ran up beside us. He dropped to his knees, his eyes filled with overwhelming emotion as he looked at the son he thought was dead for four years.

“He was lying, Matteo,” Luca whispered, reaching out to gently touch the boy’s cheek. “I’m your daddy. And I am never letting anyone hurt you again.”

Matteo looked up at Luca. His tear-filled eyes widened.

He reached into his small pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to Luca.

It was another child’s drawing in blue crayon.

It was a picture of a man in a black suit, standing tall like a superhero.

“Catherine told me about you before she went to Heaven,” Matteo whispered. “She said you would come find me.”

Luca closed his eyes, a single tear escaping as he took the drawing. Catherine, even in her final moments, had protected his image in the boy’s mind.

“Two minutes,” the intercom warned.

The floor of the cargo hold shuddered as the ship’s engines suddenly cut out. The crew had abandoned the vessel, leaving it drifting in the dark waters of Lake Michigan.

“We have to move!” Luca shouted, scooping Matteo up in his arms.

We sprinted toward the metal stairs leading up to the main deck.

But as we reached the first landing, a bloodied hand shot out from the shadows and grabbed my ankle.

I screamed, falling hard against the steel grating.

Dante Moretti pulled himself out from under the collapsed catwalk. His face was covered in blood, and his left leg was broken, bent at a horrifying angle. But his eyes were wild with absolute madness.

He held a detonator switch in his hand.

“If I don’t get the money,” Dante spat, coughing blood, “nobody gets to live.”

Luca spun around, aiming his gun.

“Don’t shoot!” Dante laughed hysterically. “This is a dead-man’s switch! Connected to the main fuel line! If my thumb slips off this button, the ship blows immediately!”

Luca froze. We were trapped. If he shot Dante, the switch would release, and we would die instantly.

“Put the boy down, Luca,” Dante ordered, struggling to pull himself up against the railing. “Leave him with me, and you and the maid can jump overboard. You have one minute.”

“I’m not leaving my son!” Luca roared.

“Then you all burn!” Dante sneered.

I looked at the detonator in Dante’s hand. His thumb was pressing down hard on the red button, but his grip was shaking. He was losing blood fast.

I had to do something.

I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the cold silver of the rosary my mother had given me before she died.

I pulled it out and looked at Dante.

“My mother wanted me to give you this,” I lied, my voice remarkably steady.

Dante frowned, his eyes darting to the silver beads dangling from my hand. For a fraction of a second, the mention of the woman who had loved him, the woman he had abandoned, broke his concentration.

It was all the time Luca needed.

With blinding speed, Luca didn't shoot. He threw his heavy pistol directly at Dante’s face.

The heavy metal struck Dante squarely in the forehead. He stunned backward, his grip faltering.

Before the detonator could fall from his hand, Luca lunged forward, grabbing Dante’s wrist and clamping his own massive hand over Dante’s thumb, keeping the red button depressed.

“Hannah, take Matteo and run!” Luca ordered, his muscles straining as Dante fought him wildly. “Get to the top deck! Jump into the water!”

“I’m not leaving you!” I cried.

“Go!” Luca roared, his eyes blazing with the fierce, absolute love of a father sacrificing himself. “Keep our son safe!”