MY BILLIONAIRE EX THREW $30 AT ME WHEN I WAS PREGNANT AND SAID: "TAKE IT AND DISAPPEAR!" 10 YEARS LATER, I SAW HIM ON TV TELLING MILLIONS: "MY GREATEST REGRET IS THAT I NEVER HAD CHILDREN." I LOOKED AT THE 10-YEAR-OLD TWINS SLEEPING BESIDE ME—BOTH CARRYING HIS UNMISTAKABLE FACE—AND LAUGHED. THEN I TEXTED MY LAWYER: "GET THE INVITATIONS READY. WE'RE ATTENDING HIS COMPANY GALA."

"Mom," Noah mouthed silently through the falling rain.

He didn't speak the word. He simply shaped his lips.

I understood instantly.

Noah had not left the seaplane drone on the boat.

High above the villa, hidden in the pitch-black clouds at four hundred meters, the miniature carbon-fiber aircraft had been circling on an automated holding pattern, its thermal cameras locked onto the dock below.

Noah’s thumb moved against the tiny toggle switch concealed in his palm.

Above our heads, through the howling wind, a sharp, high-pitched scream cut through the rain like a falling artillery shell.

The seaplane didn't bank. It entered a terminal vertical dive, accelerating to ninety miles an hour, its miniature carbon-fiber nose aimed directly at the center of the wooden dock.

"What is that noise?!" Seraphina screamed, her eyes darting frantically toward the dark sky.

Noah slammed his thumb down.

BOOM.

The drone’s emergency magnesium flare pod detonated fifteen feet above the dock in a blinding, two-million-candlepower explosion of blue-white chemical fire.

The mercenaries screamed, their hands flying to their scorched eyes as the sudden, overwhelming brilliance blinded them instantly.

Seraphina flinched, her gun hand wavering off Sophie’s temple for a single, critical fraction of a second.

"Sophie, drop!" Noah yelled, throwing his entire weight sideways, tackling his twin sister off the wooden dock straight into the freezing, deep water of Lake Como.

SPLASH.

The children disappeared beneath the black surface.

Ethan moved with the explosive violence of a hurricane.

He closed the thirty feet in two strides, his combat knife clearing its sheath in a blur of silver, driving the blade through the forearm of the lead mercenary before the man could clear his eyes.

He spun, drew his suppressed .45, and put two rounds cleanly through the chest of the second shooter, driving his heavy combat boot straight through Seraphina’s ribs with enough concussive force to send the heiress flying backward off the pier into the churning water.