Five years after I called my wife broken and signed away our marriage because doctors said she could never give me a child, I walked into a sealed Manhattan restaurant and found a little girl coloring at table nine. Then she looked up with the same black-and-gold eyes that had marked every Valenti heir for generations—and the woman I had destroyed pulled her close and said, “She is mine.”

Dust fell from the ceiling as the shockwave of the underground explosion settled.

A primal, agonizing roar ripped from my throat.

I thrashed against the four men holding me, my mind consumed by a blinding, violent rage.

"No!" I screamed, feeling the zip ties cut deeply into my wrists as I fought like a wild animal.

Vincenzo laughed loudly, tossing the remote detonator aside.

"That solves the problem of the heir," Vincenzo sneered.

"Now, we just need to tie up the loose ends."

He pointed his gun at my brother Leo.

"Wait!" a voice echoed from the shadowed hallway outside the bunker.

Vincenzo turned, his gun raised, as a figure stepped into the light.

It was Julian Vance, covered in dirt and bleeding from a nasty cut on his forehead, but very much alive.

"The tunnel was a decoy, Vincenzo," Julian said, a cruel smirk playing on his lips.

"I built this bunker. Did you really think I wouldn't know you tapped my blueprints?"

Relief washed over me in a massive, dizzying wave.

Elena and Aria were safe.

"Kill him!" Vincenzo screamed at his mercenaries.

Before they could raise their weapons, the lights in the bunker abruptly cut out, plunging us into absolute, pitch-black darkness.

Julian had cut the main power line.

In the confusion, I felt a sharp blade slice through the zip ties binding my wrists.

Leo had managed to slip a hidden knife from his boot.

"Go time, brother," Leo whispered in the dark.

I snatched a rifle from the hands of a panicked mercenary, slamming the butt of the gun into his jaw.

Muzzle flashes illuminated the room like strobe lights in a nightmare.

Screams echoed as Julian and Leo took down Vincenzo’s guards with ruthless efficiency.

I pushed through the chaos, my eyes locked on the spot where Vincenzo had been standing.

When the emergency backup lights suddenly flickered on, painting the room in an eerie red glow, the mercenaries were all dead.

But Vincenzo was gone.

The Clumsy Maid Bathed His Dog—Then The Mafia Boss Said She Wasn’t Leavi...

She found her husband with another woman and walked away so quietly that...

The Mafia Boss Asked a Disabled Widow If She Was Okay

And so was Leo.

A trail of fresh blood led out of the bunker doors, disappearing into the dark woods outside.

Chapter 7 - The Reckoning