Mafia boss Christopher Delacroix believed the young maid working inside his mansion was there for one reason, to clean the house, until he came home early one day and found her crying beside his dying mother, carefully shaving away the last strands of her hair.

The grand foyer was vast, paved with black Italian marble and dominated by a sweeping double staircase.

Standing beneath the crystal chandelier was Silas Delacroix. He was fifty-eight years old, immaculate in a tailored camelhair coat, his silver hair slicked back, carrying an ivory-handled walking cane that concealed an eight-inch stiletto blade. Behind him stood four heavily built enforcers, their bulky suits failing to conceal the shoulder holsters beneath.

As I descended the marble staircase, my steps echoing deliberately in the cavernous space, Silas broke into a wide, theatrical smile.

“Christopher! Nephew!” Silas opened his arms in a warm, familial gesture. “Forgive the unannounced intrusion, but the port authority in Jersey is giving us hell over the new manifests. I thought we should confer before the council meeting on Tuesday.”

I reached the bottom step and stopped, five feet away. I didn't return the smile. I kept my hands casually tucked into my trouser pockets.

“You brought four armed men into my private residence without clearance, Silas,” I said, my tone flat, razor-sharp. “You know the house rules.”

Silas’s smile twitched, just for a fraction of a second, before settling back into place. He lowered his arms and leaned slightly on his cane.

“A precaution, nephew. The streets are restless. Tensions with the southern families are running high.” He glanced past me, his eyes scanning the sweeping staircase, lingering on the locked double doors leading to the west wing. “Speaking of security... I hear unusual things from your household staff. You’ve dismissed two maid services this week. And rumor has it you’re hosting a very particular guest in the west suites.”

The air turned thin and electric. My security guards positioned along the upper mezzanine shifted their weight, their hands resting on their submachine guns.

“My private life does not concern the council, Silas,” I replied coldly. “Nor does it concern you.”

“Everything that happens inside the Delacroix bloodline concerns me, Christopher,” Silas took a step closer, lowering his voice, the mask of the doting uncle slipping away to reveal the predator beneath. “Especially when rumors reach my ear that Florence has been communicating with ghosts from twelve years ago. Names that should stay buried in the dirt.”

He knew.

He didn't have all the pieces yet, but his informants had confirmed that Florence had dug up the Vance name.

“Ghosts only bother men with guilty consciences, Uncle,” I whispered back, my eyes boring into his. “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

Silas stared at me. For five agonizing seconds, the two of us stood in an absolute deadlock, two apex predators measuring the distance between each other’s throats.

Then, a sudden, piercing alarm shattered the silence.

The estate’s automated perimeter defense sirens wailed through the ceilings. Red emergency strobes flashed along the cornices.

Franco’s voice roared through my earpiece: *“Boss! Breach at the east gate! Three black SUVs just rammed through the security barrier! Unknown hostiles on the grounds!”*

Before I could bark an order, Silas’s posture changed. The walking cane swung up, pointed directly at my chest.

“You should have kept your mother sedated, nephew,” Silas snarled, his eyes gleaming with lethal malice. “She talked too much. And now, you know too much.”

One of Silas’s enforcers drew a Glock from his coat.

I didn't hesitate. Twelve years of survival instincts exploded into motion.

I sidestepped, lunging inside the enforcer’s guard, grabbing his wrist and twisting it violently until the bone snapped with a sickening crack. I ripped the firearm from his hand, fired two rounds into his chest, and kicked his collapsing body straight into Silas.

Gunfire erupted.

The mezzanine guards opened fire on Silas’s remaining three men. Marble chips exploded from the pillars as high-caliber rounds tore through the foyer. Silas scrambled backward toward the heavy front doors, screaming curses, shielded by his two surviving men who fired blindly up at the mezzanine.

“Hannah!”

The thought struck me like lightning. The breach at the east gate wasn’t an attack on me—it was a coordinated strike to eliminate Florence and Hannah while the house was in chaos.

I turned and sprinted up the marble staircase, two steps at a time, bullets whistling past my ears and shattering the antique oil paintings on the walls.

I reached the second-floor west wing corridor. The steel security doors had been breached from the service elevator shaft. Two masked men dressed in black tactical gear were already advancing down the hall toward Florence’s room, suppressors raised.

“Get away from that door!” I roared.

The gunmen spun toward me. I dropped to one knee, raising the confiscated Glock, and fired four rapid, precision shots. Both men collapsed onto the carpet, lifeless.

I kicked their weapons aside and threw open the door to Florence’s room.

Inside, the scene made my heart stop.

A third mercenary had entered through the balcony glass, which lay shattered across the floor. Florence was cowering in the corner of her bed, clutching her chest.

Hannah was standing between the armed intruder and my mother.

She was holding a heavy brass floor lamp like a baseball bat, her face pale as death, her body shaking violently, but she had not run. She had placed herself directly in the line of fire to shield an old, dying woman.

The gunman had his pistol leveled at Hannah’s forehead. His finger was tightening on the trigger.

“Hannah, down!” I screamed.

Hannah dropped instantly to the floor, trusting my voice without a second’s hesitation.

I fired through the open doorway. The round took the mercenary in the neck, dropping him instantly over the shattered glass.

Silence fell, heavy and suffocating, punctuated only by the distant wail of sirens outside and the ragged sound of our breathing.

I lowered the gun, my chest heaving, adrenaline burning like battery acid in my veins.

Then I looked down at my own side.

A warm, wet heat was spreading rapidly across my white shirt, staining the fine linen a deep, crimson red. One of Silas’s stray rounds from the foyer had caught me beneath the ribs. The room spun violently. My knees buckled, and the heavy mahogany doorframe was the only thing that kept me from hitting the floor.

“Christopher!”