THE MAFIA BOSS’S SECRET HEIR: THE DRAWING IN THE FIRE AND THE WOMAN WHO PROTECTED HIM

Back at the Moretti estate, the lights flickered twice and died, plunging the master bedroom into pitch-black darkness.

The sudden cut of power killed the central heating, leaving the vast suite filled with the sound of the freezing rain howling against the glass.

Oliver gasped, sitting bolt upright in the center of the king-sized bed, his breathing coming in frantic, terrified gasps.

“Emma?” the boy cried into the dark, his voice shaking violently.

“I am right here, Oliver,” I whispered instantly, reaching out through the blackness until my uninjured hand found his trembling shoulder.

“Do not be afraid.”

“Is it the bad men?” Oliver asked, burying his face against my wool shawl as he grabbed my sleeve.

“Did they come to take me back to Rockford?”

Before I could answer, a sharp, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack echoed across the roof above us, followed by the muffled crump of an explosion detonating near the east gatehouse.

The floorboards vibrated beneath my feet, and the sharp chatter of automatic rifle fire erupted from the formal gardens below the balcony.

My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Luca had told me to stay in this room, but the sounds of warfare echoing through the walls told me that the perimeter had already failed.

The door of the bedroom flew open, and Thomas, the secondary security commander, stepped into the threshold holding a tactical flashlight and an assault shotgun.

His face was streaked with sweat and carbon scoring, his tactical vest bristling with spare magazines.

“Miss Hayes! Grab the boy!” Thomas commanded in a harsh, urgent whisper.

“Salvatore didn't flee the city—he hired twenty former cartel mercenaries to hit the house from the lakefront!”

“They bypassed the outer road and came in on rigid-hull inflatables under cover of the storm!”

“Where are Mr. Moretti and the others?” I asked, scooping Oliver into my arms and pulling the heavy wool blanket tightly around him.

“They are twenty minutes out on the interstate!” Thomas answered, scanning the dark corridor behind him with his weapon raised.

“The mercenaries cut our backup generators and took out the security hub on the ground floor.”

“They are not here to loot the house, Emma.”

“They are here to retrieve Oliver or kill him so Luca has no legal heir to claim the Bellini assets.”

Oliver let out a terrified whimper against my neck, his small arms wrapping around me with desperate strength.

“We need to get to the reinforced panic vault in Matteo’s old study at the end of the east gallery,” Thomas said, motioning for us to follow.

“It has an independent air supply and ten-inch ballistic steel doors.”

“Move! Stay low!”

I followed Thomas into the pitch-black corridor, keeping my head down and shielding Oliver’s body with my own.

The smell of cordite and burning electrical wiring hung heavy in the air.

Glass crunched beneath Thomas’s boots as we navigated past the grand portraits of deceased Moretti patriarchs that lined the gallery walls.

From the grand foyer below, the sounds of gunfire were deafening.

Moretti loyalists were fighting room-by-room, their handguns and submachine guns barking against the heavier caliber rifles of the attackers.

Screams of pain, shouting in Spanish and Italian, and the shattering of priceless antique marble filled the echoing halls.

We were twenty yards from the heavy double doors of Matteo’s study when a beam of blinding white tactical light swept across the far end of the gallery.

“Contact! Front!” a harsh, accented voice shouted in Spanish from the top of the servant stairwell.

Two heavily armed men clad in dark gray tactical gear stepped into the hallway, raising assault rifles fitted with laser sights.

“Get down!” Thomas roared, shoving Oliver and me into the alcove of a deep linen closet.

Thomas leaned out of the alcove, firing three deafening blasts from his assault shotgun into the corridor.

The heavy buckshot tore through the woodwork, catching the lead mercenary in the shoulder and sending him sprawling backward down the stairs.

The second mercenary returned fire with a blistering burst of fully automatic fire.

High-velocity bullets chewed through the plaster walls, showering Oliver and me in powdery white dust and splintered lath.

Thomas grunted, his body jerking violently as two rounds caught him in the side of his tactical vest, spinning him around.

He collapsed against the doorframe, his shotgun clattering across the floorboards.

“Thomas!” I cried, dropping to my knees beside him.

The commander coughed, dark blood bubbling onto his lips as he weakly pushed his service pistol toward me with trembling fingers.

“Go... Emma...” Thomas choked out, clutching his chest.

“The vault... door handle turns left... code is... 1-9-8-8...”

The sound of heavy tactical boots began running up the carpeted stairs toward our position.

There was no time to think.

There was no time to be afraid.

I grabbed the heavy black semi-automatic pistol from the floor, cocking the slide just as I had seen Luca do in the study hours earlier.

The weight of the cold steel in my hand was terrifying, but looking down at Oliver’s wide, terrified hazel eyes gave me a surge of reckless, ferocious courage.

I was not going to let these butchers touch this child.

“Oliver,” I whispered, staring directly into the boy’s eyes.

“Run to that big oak door at the end of the hall.”

“Do not stop, do not look back.”

“Punch the numbers 1-9-8-8 into the keypad beside the handle.”

“Go!”

Oliver scrambled out of the alcove, his small feet flying across the carpeted runner toward Matteo’s study.

At that exact moment, the second mercenary rounded the corner of the stairwell, his rifle swinging up to track the fleeing child.

“Hey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, stepping out of the alcove directly into the beam of his weapon light.

The mercenary turned his barrel toward me in surprise, not expecting an unarmed maid to step into his line of fire.

I raised the heavy pistol with both hands, squeezing the trigger with all the strength left in my injured arms.

The gun kicked violently against my wrists, the deafening report blinding me with an orange muzzle flash.

I fired once.

Twice.

Three times.

The first shot went wild, embedding itself in the ceiling chandelier.

The second round struck the mercenary in the thigh, causing him to stumble with a roar of fury.

The third bullet tore through his collarbone, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing against the gallery banister.

Before he could recover, his rifle clattered over the railing, plummeting thirty feet down into the marble fountain in the grand foyer below.

The mercenary let out a vicious curse, drawing a heavy combat knife from his chest rig and lunging toward me with murder in his eyes.

I pulled the trigger a fourth time, but the slide locked back on an empty chamber.

Panic seized my throat.

The man closed the distance, his massive hand grabbing my throat and slamming me against the wall.

Pain exploded in the back of my head, and stars danced across my vision as his fingers squeezed, cutting off my air.

“Where is the bastard boy?” the mercenary hissed, raising the gleaming steel blade toward my chest.

I clawed at his wrist with my fingernails, my heels kicking desperately against his shins.

Beneath the sleeve of my uniform, my reopened laceration bled freely, slicking his forearm with my blood.

“Never,” I choked out, spitting blood onto his tactical mask.

The mercenary sneered, drawing the blade back to drive it into my heart.

Crack.

A single, ear-splitting gunshot echoed through the hallway.

The mercenary’s head snapped sideways, a clean, circular hole appearing in his temple.

The light vanished from his eyes instantly.

His grip on my throat slackened, and his massive, armored body collapsed to the floor like a sack of stones, revealing the figure standing at the top of the grand staircase.

Luca Moretti.

He looked like a demon stepped straight out of the underworld.

His face was streaked with soot and rain, his eyes burning with an unholy, terrifying fire.

He held his smoking pistol at his side, dropping the empty magazine with a flick of his wrist and slamming a fresh clip into the well in a single fluid motion.

Behind him, Daniel and eight heavily armed Moretti soldiers poured up the stairs, systematically clearing the hallways with ruthless, lethal efficiency.

Luca took three massive strides, reaching my side before my knees could buckle beneath me.

He caught me by the waist, pulling me up against his broad, solid chest just as my legs gave out.

“Emma!” Luca’s voice cracked with an emotion so raw, so terrified, that it shook his entire frame.

“Emma, look at me!”

I looked up into his face, gasping for air as my hands clutched the wet wool of his tactical vest.

“Oliver...” I wheezed, pointing a trembling hand toward the end of the corridor.

“He is at the door... I sent him to the vault...”

Luca turned his head, his breath hitching sharply.

At the end of the gallery, Oliver was pressed flat against the reinforced oak door of Matteo’s study.

The boy’s small fingers were still hovering over the glowing keypad.

When Oliver saw Luca standing in the hallway, holding me in his arms, the boy let out a wail that broke through the lingering smoke.

“Uncle Luca!”

The word echoed down the blood-stained gallery with the power of a thunderbolt.

Uncle Luca.

Not Mr. Moretti.

Not the big boss.

Uncle Luca.

Luca lowered me gently onto the velvet bench against the wall, ensuring my back was supported, before turning toward the boy.

He dropped to both knees in the middle of the hallway, extending his long arms wide.

Oliver ran as fast as his small legs could carry him, throwing himself headlong into Luca’s embrace.

Luca caught the boy, lifting him entirely off the floor and burying his face into the child’s neck.

The ruthless mafia Don, a man who had executed kings and toppled syndicates without blinking, was shaking violently as he held his nephew against his chest.

“I have you, Oliver,” Luca choked out, his voice thick with unshed tears.

“You are safe.”

“Nobody will ever hurt you again.”

Oliver sobbed against Luca’s shoulder, his small hands clutching the collar of Luca’s shirt like he would never let go.

“Emma shot the bad man,” Oliver cried between gasps.

“She stood in front of me, Uncle Luca.”

“She didn't let him touch me.”

Luca slowly turned his head, his dark eyes looking across the hallway to where I sat trembling on the velvet bench.

He saw the blood dripping from my reopened bandages.

He saw the dark, red fingerprint bruises darkening around my throat where the mercenary had tried to crush my windpipe.

And he saw the empty service weapon lying on the floorboards beside my feet.

Luca rose slowly, carrying Oliver securely on his hip, and walked over to where I sat.

He knelt down in front of me, bringing himself level with my eyes.

He didn't speak for several seconds.

The silence between us was heavier than the gunfire that had just ended, charged with a profound, unspoken reverence that transcended everything I had ever known.

He reached up with his free hand, his large, warm fingers gently cupping the side of my bruised neck with infinite tenderness.

His thumb brushed away a tear running down my cheek, catching the blood on his skin.

“You fought a professional assassin with an empty gun to save my brother’s son,” Luca murmured, his voice trembling with a reverence that made my breath catch in my throat.

“I couldn't let them take him, sir,” I whispered, leaning slightly into the warmth of his palm.

“He has suffered enough.”

Luca’s eyes locked onto mine, burning with a fierce, unbreakable resolve that made the hair on my arms stand up.

“Emma Hayes,” Luca said, his voice ringing with absolute, sacred finality.

“From this second forward, my life belongs to you.”