At 3:23 P.M., my premature son died in my arms while my husband, Chicago's most feared mafia boss, was flying home from a vacation with his mistress

Before Claire could react, Damian surged from the mud like an explosive charge.

His massive frame slammed into her, wrapping around her body, driving her violently into the soft earth behind the thick stone retaining wall of the cottage garden.

*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*

The night erupted into gunfire.

Automatic rifle rounds tore through the wet air, chipping baseball-sized chunks of granite from the top of the stone wall, showering them with razor-sharp stone shards and pulverized mortar. The windshield of Damian’s sedan shattered into a million safety-glass diamonds.

The Rossi remnants.

The surviving capos from the North Side syndicate whom Damian hadn't caught—men who knew their lives were forfeit once Damian’s federal testimony became public. They hadn't come to negotiate. They had tracked Damian to Maine to execute him, and they didn't care who died in the crossfire.

“Claire! Look at me!” Damian shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire.

He was pinned over her, shielding her entire body beneath his own, his broad back absorbing the blast of falling debris. His eyes were wide, focused entirely on her face, searching for blood.

“Are you hit? Did they hit you?” he gasped.

“No! No!” Claire cried, her hands gripping his wet shirt in pure instinct. “Damian, who are they?”

“My sins,” he whispered fiercely.

He reached behind his back, pulling a heavy Glock 19 from a concealed holster beneath his waistband—the only weapon he had brought with him. He checked the chamber in a fraction of a second.

Down the driveway, the sound of car doors slamming echoed over the rain. Heavy boots hit the gravel.

“Moretti!” a guttural voice shouted through the storm. “Come out, you rat bastard! You think you can sell the family to the feds and hide out with your whore in Maine? We’re going to put you both in the dirt!”

Damian looked down at Claire.

The terror in her dark eyes was absolute. But beneath the terror, he saw something else: the raw, desperate will to live that had kept her breathing after Leo died.

A strange, beautiful peace settled over Damian’s face.

The darkness, the violent torment that had haunted him for fourteen months, vanished. He smiled down at her—a soft, gentle, heartbreaking smile that belonged to the boy she had fallen in love with in college, before the blood had stained his soul.

He reached up with a muddy, trembling hand and gently brushed a wet strand of hair from her forehead.

“I was late for our son,” Damian whispered softly, his thumb caressing her cheek. “I will not be late for you.”

“Damian, wait—”

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. A lingering, sacred kiss that felt like an eternal goodbye.

“I love you, Claire. I’m sorry it took me a lifetime to learn how to love you properly.”

Damian shoved her deeper beneath the overhang of the stone foundation, turned, and vaulted over the wall into the open gunfire.

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

Damian fired with lethal, terrifying precision.

The lead gunman dropped instantly, clutching his throat, his rifle clattering onto the gravel. Damian didn't take cover. He moved forward into the open driveway, drawing every single rifle barrel toward himself, away from the stone wall, away from Claire.

*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*

Claire screamed from behind the wall as she heard the sickening *thud* of bullets tearing into flesh.

Damian staggered.

A bullet struck his left shoulder, spinning him halfway around. Another ripped through his lower abdomen. Blood erupted through his soaked trench coat, turning the rain cascading down his body into brilliant crimson rivers.

Yet, he didn't fall.

Driven by a sheer, supernatural willpower, the Chicago kingpin raised his weapon with his right hand and fired three double-taps into the mist.

Two more gunmen collapsed into the puddles.

The final shooter, panicked by the sheer monstrous resilience of a man who refused to die, raised an automatic shotgun, aiming directly at Damian’s chest.

*Click.*

Damian’s Glock locked back. Empty.

The shooter sneered through the rain, his finger tightening on the shotgun trigger. “Die, Moretti.”

*CRACK!*

A heavy stone slab, thrown with every ounce of strength Claire possessed, struck the shooter squarely across the side of his skull.

The man stumbled sideways, his shot blasting harmlessly into the pine trees above.

Claire stood in the downpour, her face pale, her hands bleeding from lifting the fifty-pound masonry cap, her eyes wide with fury.

Before the shooter could recover, Damian closed the distance. With a final, guttural roar, Damian drove his combat knife into the man’s throat, tackling him into the freezing gravel.

The gunman choked, shuddered once, and went completely still.

Silence fell over the driveway.

The only sound was the howling wind and the torrential rain washing the blood down the gravel toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Damian stood swayingly in the center of the yard.

He looked down at his chest. Four bullet wounds were leaking dark, arterial blood through his shredded clothes. His skin had turned the color of damp chalk, his lips tinted with blue.

He turned slowly toward Claire.

His knees buckled.

“Damian!” Claire screamed, rushing across the gravel, sliding on her knees into the red mud beside him.

She caught his heavy head in her lap before it struck the stones. Her hands pressed desperately against the gaping wounds in his chest, hot blood pouring through her fingers, impossible to stop.

“Stay with me! Damian, look at me!” she sobbed hysterically. “Damian! Don't you dare close your eyes!”

Damian looked up at her through a dimming haze.

He reached up with a blood-soaked hand, his fingers barely having the strength to touch the silver locket resting against her neck—the locket containing their son’s ashes.

“Claire…” he whispered, his breath bubbling with pink foam. “Is he… is he waiting for me?”

“Don't talk like that!” Claire wept, pressing harder against his chest, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face. “The ambulance is coming! I’m calling 911! You’re not dying here!”

“Claire…” Damian coughed, his dark eyes searching hers with a desperate, fading clarity. “Did I… did I protect you?”

Claire looked at the man who had broken her universe, the man who had failed their child, the man who had just taken four bullets into his own flesh to ensure she lived to see the morning sun.

She leaned down, pressing her cheek against his cold, wet forehead.

“Yes,” she sobbed softly into his ear. “You protected me, Damian. You made it in time.”

A single, peaceful tear slipped from Damian Moretti’s eye, cutting through the blood on his cheek.

His hand fell from her locket, hitting the gravel with a soft, final thud.