The Feared Mafia Matriarch Returns In Fury To Protect An Innocent Bride And Reclaim Power

Julian crossed the thirty yards of open floor in three seconds, scooping the crying infant from the bassinet with his left arm while simultaneously firing his sidearm point-blank into the face of a mercenary who lunged for the child.

"I have her!" Julian shouted into his comms, tucking the baby tightly against his Kevlar chest, shielding her fragile body with his broad frame. "Constance, cover the dock!"

Constance didn't answer with words. She stepped forward, emptying the remaining rounds of her combat shotgun into the advancing mercenaries, advancing step by step like the wrath of God in an Armani coat. When the magazine ran dry, she drew two heavy semi-automatic pistols from her belt, firing with an icy, demonic precision that drove the remaining contractors back toward the burning exit.

Down in the submerged maintenance pit, the water was four feet deep, thick with brackish silt, floating motor oil, and debris.

Clara was locked in a life-or-death struggle. Her left shoulder burned like it had been dipped in liquid fire, the bullet wound bleeding heavily into the murky water.

Luciano, driven by the hysterical, inhuman strength of a dying madman, had his bony, ring-clad hands clamped around her throat.

"You... are... my... blood!" Luciano choked out, pressing Clara down beneath the freezing surface of the water. Bubbles escaped her lips as her vision began to darken, the oily sludge burning her eyes and nostrils. "You die... with... me!"

Clara’s hands scrambled desperately along the flooded concrete floor.

Her lungs screamed for oxygen. Her chest felt as if it were being crushed beneath a hydraulic press. Black spots exploded across her vision.

*No.*

*Not here. Not today. My daughter needs me.*

Her fingers brushed against a jagged piece of rusted iron rebar that had snapped off a collapsed drainage pipe.

With the last ounce of strength left in her dying body, Clara gripped the jagged iron rod, arched her back against the water, and drove the rusted spike directly through the side of Don Luciano’s neck.

The old man’s grip instantly shattered.

A sickening, wet gasp tore through his punctured windpipe. Blood—thick, black, and hot—gushed into the water between them, blooming like a dark cloud in the crimson emergency lighting.

Clara broke the surface of the water, coughing violently, gasping for air, her chest heaving as she hauled herself up onto the concrete lip of the pit.

Luciano stumbled backward in the waist-deep water, his hands clutching desperately at the iron spike protruding from his throat. His eyes bulged, staring at Clara with a mixture of disbelief, horror, and sheer, unadulterated shock.

"The blood..." Luciano tried to speak, but only crimson foam bubbled from his lips. He fell backward with a heavy splash into the dark canal current.

The water carried his body toward the open sluice gate, swirling him into the darkness of the Venetian bay.