90 "**“STOP WAVING YOUR HANDS! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!”

The hidden servant passage was cold, narrow, and smelled of century-old stone. The muffled roar of war raged outside the thick walls—grenade blasts that shook the masonry, the rhythmic hammer of machine guns, and the guttural shouts of men dying in the halls of Moretti manor.

I ran through the darkness, guided only by the weak flashlight beam from my phone, holding Isabella tightly behind me. My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged beast.

We descended the winding stone stairs toward the reinforced vault beneath the library. Just twenty more yards. If we reached the five-inch titanium blast door, we would be safe.

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the bottom of the landing.

The heavy oak door connecting the passage to the lower cellar was kicked off its hinges. The harsh beam of a tactical flashlight cut through the dark, blinding me instantly.

"Well, well," a heavy, Russian-accented voice chuckled from the shadows. "The Don’s little mute prize and his pretty new wife."

I pushed Isabella behind my back, flattening her against the damp stone wall.

Two men in black tactical gear and Kevlar stepped into the beam of light. Their rifles were lowered slightly, arrogant in the assumption that an unarmed woman and a child were easy plunder.

"Dmitri said we bring the girl alive," the second mercenary grunted, stepping forward with zip-ties in his hand. "The woman... we can have some fun before we put a bullet in her pretty face."

"Over my dead body," I whispered.

The first mercenary laughed, reaching out a gloved hand to grab my hair.

I didn't scream. I didn't plead.

I raised the Glock from beneath the folds of my ruined velvet dress, two-handed, exactly as Luca had drilled into my muscle memory, and pulled the trigger.

*BANG.*

The hollow-point round took the first man directly through the center of his forehead. The sheer kinetic force snapped his head back, his rifle clattering to the flagstones as his limp body collapsed like a sack of stones.

The second man’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "You bitch—!"

Before he could raise his assault rifle, a small blur of white darted from behind my legs.

Isabella, with the feral survival instinct born of her bloody childhood, didn't run. She lunged forward, grabbing a heavy cast-iron wall sconce that had fallen from the masonry during the explosion, and hurled it with all her strength directly into the mercenary’s groin.

The man grunted, doubling over in agony.

That split-second distraction was all I needed. I stepped forward, closed the distance, and pressed the hot barrel of the Glock under his chin, pulling the trigger twice.

The deafening reports filled the narrow corridor with blinding flashes and smoke. The mercenary crashed to the floor, motionless.

My ears rang violently. My hands trembled, the gun smoking in my grip. The smell of blood and sulfur was overwhelming.

I looked down at Isabella.

She was standing over the fallen men, her breathing shallow, her eyes fierce and dark. Slowly, she looked up at me. Her small, blood-splattered hands lifted in the dim light of my phone:

*GOOD SHOT, MAMA.*

Tears choked my throat. She had called me *Mama*. For the first time, in the midst of blood and slaughter, she had given me the title I had longed for with every beat of my heart.

"Come on, baby," I choked out, grabbing her hand and stepping over the corpses. "We have to lock the door."

We made it to the vault entrance, but before I could punch the digital code into the keypad, the door behind us blew inward with a horrific bang.

A figure was thrown across the flagstones, landing hard at my feet.

It was Marco. His tactical vest was torn to shreds, his face covered in blood, coughing weakly.

"Signora... get in... now..." Marco wheezed, his hand trying to raise his empty sidearm.

Stepping through the shattered entrance was a monster of a man. Standing well over six-foot-six, with a jagged scar splitting his left eye and wearing the insignia of the Russian Vor, was Dmitri Volkov himself. In his massive, tattooed hand, he held a smoking shotgun.

"Marco, the loyal dog," Dmitri sneered in English, his boots crunching over the stone. "And the little family Luca died trying to save."