"“I’m taking Sophia out first,” Vincent promised before leading another woman to safety while leaving his pregnant wife behind to burn.

“Sophia, put the detonator down,” Vincent commanded, his gun remaining lowered, his focus shifting entirely to the deranged woman. He took a slow, calculated step forward, positioning himself squarely between Sophia and where Anna stood.

“Stay back, Vincent!” Sophia shrieked, her thumb hovering over the red switch. “Under that van is fifty pounds of commercial explosive! If I press this, we all go! You, me, your precious ghost wife, and that little bastard!”

“Mommy! Daddy!” Leo wailed, thrashing in the kidnapper’s grip.

The word *Daddy* hit Vincent like a physical blow.

The boy had called him *Daddy*.

Vincent’s gaze locked onto Anna. For a single, suspended second in time, the past three years dissolved. The pain, the betrayal, the fire, the courtroom battles—everything vanished. They were just two parents looking at their child in the jaws of death.

Anna saw the shift in Vincent’s eyes. It was the look he had possessed when he dismantled rival cartels—cold, calculating, and completely devoid of self-preservation.

*He’s going to trade himself,* she realized with a jolt of raw horror.

“Sophia,” Vincent said, his voice dropping into a smooth, hypnotic calm as he took another step toward her. “You don't want the boy. You want me. You’ve always wanted me.”

Sophia’s eyes welled with unhinged tears. “You ruined everything! You gave away your empire! For her! For a dead woman!”

“I was wrong,” Vincent lied smoothly, his eyes never blinking. “I was terrified of what you did. But you’re right. Anna belongs to the past. Let the boy go to his mother. Take me. We have the offshore accounts. We can leave the country right now. Just you and me.”

Sophia’s hand trembled on the detonator. “You’re lying. You’re trying to trick me!”

“Have I ever lied to you, Sophia?” Vincent asked, his voice softening with deadly precision. “Remember the jet? Who did I pull out first? Who did I choose when the fire started?”

Anna flinched as if struck. The words were a blade to her chest, but she saw Vincent’s left hand behind his back, signaling three fingers, then two, then one.

*A distraction.*

Sophia smiled, a grotesque, vindicated grin. “You chose me. You always chose me.”

“That’s right,” Vincent whispered, now barely five feet from her. “And I’m choosing you now.”

In the fraction of a second when Sophia let her guard down, glancing toward the kidnapper to signal him to drop the boy, Vincent moved.

He didn't go for the gun. He went for the boy.

With superhuman speed, Vincent lunged across the grass, slamming his body into the kidnapper, tearing Leo from the man’s grasp and hurling the child safely into Anna’s outstretched arms.

“RUN!” Vincent screamed at Anna.

Sophia realized the betrayal. Her shriek tore through the park like a banshee.

“DIE!”

The kidnapper recovered, raising his weapon and firing point-blank.

*BANG.*

Vincent took both rounds to the torso.

He didn't fall. Driven by pure, feral adrenaline, Vincent closed his hands around the kidnapper’s throat, driving the man into the concrete curb with a sickening crunch. The kidnapper went limp.

Sophia screamed, lunging to depress the detonator.

A single rifle shot cracked from the perimeter roof. Julian Vance’s sniper put a bullet directly through Sophia’s forehead.

She collapsed to the pavement, dead before she hit the ground, the detonator rolling harmlessly across the cobblestones.

Anna clutched Leo tightly against her chest, turning around just in time to see Vincent stagger backward.

Blood blossomed across his dark shirt, pouring through his fingers as he clutched his chest. His knees finally buckled, and he collapsed onto the bloodstained grass.