Twenty Wounded Mafia Men Begged Me for Shelter—By Sunrise, the Sheriff Had a Gun on Me and Wanted My Diner.

Emily kept the gun leveled at my heart, but her eyes were on Dominic.

“You think Mercer ambushed you on the highway by accident?” Emily laughed. “I told Mercer you were coming. I let him do the heavy lifting to drive you right into this diner.”

“To get the diamonds,” Dominic said.

“To get the diamonds, and to get you in one room,” Emily corrected.

Mateo raised his gun, aiming at Emily’s head. “Drop it, lady. You’re outnumbered twenty to one.”

“Am I?” Emily smirked.

With her free hand, she unzipped her yellow raincoat. Beneath her sweater, a small black wire was taped to her collarbone, connecting to a radio transmitter on her belt.

She pressed a button on the belt.

“They have the package. Breach the building.”

Outside, the roar of heavy engines shattered the night. The three SUVs Mercer had parked at the edge of the lot suddenly turned on their high beams, flooding the diner in blinding white light.

But it wasn’t Mercer’s deputies stepping out of the vehicles.

It was a dozen men in tactical gear, carrying assault rifles. Costa hitmen.

“Mercer thought he was using us,” Emily said. “We used him.”

It was a three-way standoff. Mercer’s cops, the Costa cartel, and Dominic’s bleeding crew.

Dominic didn’t flinch. He looked at Emily with a terrifying emptiness. “You made a mistake, Emily.”

“What’s that?”

In a blur of motion, Dominic stepped forward. He didn’t grab for her gun. He grabbed the coffee pot from the burner and hurled the boiling black liquid directly into Emily’s face.

She screamed, dropping the Glock.

Mateo lunged, kicking the gun away and pinning Emily to the floor.

“Get down!” Dominic yelled, shoving me and Toby behind the heavy steel of the pie case.

The front window of the diner exploded.

Glass rained over the booths as the Costa men opened fire. Dominic’s men returned fire instantly, the deafening roar of gunshots echoing through the small space. Wood splintered. Vinyl tore. The smell of gunpowder overpowered the smell of chili.

I covered Toby with my body, burying his face in my chest so he wouldn’t see the violence tearing our home apart.

“Hold the line!” Mateo roared, firing through the shattered window.

Dominic crouched beside me, pulling a satellite phone from his pocket. He dialed a single number.

“It’s Vale,” he said calmly into the phone over the gunfire. “Bellwether. Burn it down.”

He hung up.

Suddenly, Mateo stopped firing.

He slowly turned around, his gun raised. But he wasn’t aiming at the window anymore.