"Poor Maid Saved The Mafia Boss Twins While His Wife Abandoned Them — And Now He Won't Let Her Leave

The convoy of four black armored Suburbans moved like shadows along the winding, tree-lined switchbacks of the Berkshire Mountains.

It was past two in the morning. A heavy mountain sleet was falling, coating the asphalt in a slick sheen of black ice.

Clara sat in the middle row of the second vehicle, wedged between the two car seats. Oliver was asleep, clutching the soft velvet rabbit Damian had bought him three days ago. Owen was awake, staring out the tinted glass at the black pines rushing past.

Marco was in the passenger seat, his eyes glued to the tactical tablet in his lap. Damian was driving the lead vehicle three hundred yards ahead.

“How much further, Marco?” Clara asked quietly, her fingers nervously drumming on her knees. Her stomach had been knotted since they left Boston. Something felt wrong. The air felt heavy, like the static before a lightning strike.

“Ten miles, Miss Hayes,” Marco replied without looking back. “The compound is fully fortified. Twelve-foot perimeter walls, motion sensors, private security grid. You and the boys will be—”

*BOOM.*

The lead vehicle—Damian’s vehicle—erupted into a blinding ball of orange fire.

An anti-tank mine, buried beneath the asphalt, had detonated under the front axle. The three-ton armored truck was launched six feet into the air, flipping violently before crashing onto its roof and skidding fifty yards down the mountain road, showering the sleet with burning shrapnel.

“AMBUSH!” Marco roared, drawing his weapon before their driver even hit the brakes. “REVERSE! GET HER OUT OF HERE!”

Before the driver could shift gears, a heavy logging truck barreled out of an abandoned fire road behind them, ramming into the fourth Suburban in the convoy, crushing it like a tin can and sealing the mountain pass.

Automatic gunfire ripped through the night like a sheet being torn in half.

High-caliber rounds slammed against the armored glass of Clara’s vehicle, spider-webbing the thick laminate into frosted white circles.

“Down! Stay down!” Marco yelled, kicking his door open into the freezing sleet to return fire.

Clara didn't scream.

The terror she had felt in the manor was gone, replaced by a cold, feral instinct that seemed to bypass thought entirely. She unbuckled both car seats with lightning speed, gathered Oliver under her left arm and Owen under her right, and dropped into the footwell beneath the seats just as a heavy round punched through the driver’s side door, killing the driver instantly.

Outside, the mountain was a war zone.

Moretti’s men had not waited in Boston. They had known the route.

*Caterina.* Clara’s mind flashed with cold clarity. *She sold them out.*

Through the shattered front windshield, Clara saw the lead vehicle. Damian’s truck was lying on its roof, flames licking at the crushed engine block.

Suddenly, the crumpled driver’s side door of the burning truck was kicked off its hinges with a sickening metallic groan.

Damian Costello crawled out into the sleet.

His forehead was split open, blood pouring down the left side of his face, soaking into his white collar. His coat was shredded. But he was on his feet.

In each hand, he held an automatic weapon.

He didn't take cover. He walked forward into the hail of lead like a berserker from an ancient myth, firing with terrifying, surgical precision. Every burst of his rifle dropped a gunman in the tree line. Men screamed as Damian advanced, an unstoppable force of vengeance, cutting a bloody swathe toward the second vehicle.

“CLARA!” His roar pierced the gunfire, raw, desperate, and louder than the mountain wind.

“I’m here!” she tried to scream, but the gunfire drowned her out.

Suddenly, the rear door of her Suburban was ripped open from the outside.

A man in a tactical mask reached into the footwell, his gloved hands clamping around the strap of Oliver’s sweater.

“Got the brats!” the man yelled into his radio.

“NO!”

Clara didn't hesitate. She didn't think about her mother, her future, or her life.

She lunged forward, sinking her teeth deep into the gunman’s wrist, biting down until she felt the gristle and bone beneath the tactical glove.

The man shrieked in pain, letting go of Oliver and drawing back a heavy fist. He struck Clara across the temple, sending her crashing back against the floorboards, stars exploding behind her eyes. Blood filled her mouth.

The gunman reached for Oliver again.

*BANG.*

The back of the gunman’s head exploded in a mist of red. His body collapsed forward into the vehicle, lifeless.

Standing behind him in the sleet, his pistol smoking, was Damian.

He reached inside, dragged the corpse out into the snow with one hand, and stepped into the vehicle. His breathing was ragged, his chest heaving like a wounded beast, blood dripping from his chin onto his chest.

His gray eyes locked onto Clara.

He saw the blood on her lip. He saw the boys, unhurt, crying in terror beneath her protective embrace.

“Are they hit?” Damian rasped, his voice shaking with an emotion that sounded terrifyingly close to tears.

“No,” Clara sobbed, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “They’re safe. Damian, they’re safe.”

It was the first time she had ever spoken his first name.

Damian froze. The feral, murderous light in his eyes softened into something raw and vulnerable.

He dropped his weapons into the snow, fell to his knees in the cramped footwell, and pulled all three of them into his arms. He buried his bloody face into Clara’s neck, his massive frame trembling against her.