Rocco Moretti's voice cut through the dining room like a blade. The mafia boss stood frozen as Sophia Bellini, the maid's eight-year-old daughter, held a crying newborn against her chest and pointed toward the hospital bracelet on his tiny wrist.

The grand salon of the Moretti mansion looked like a war zone.

The two DeLuca hitmen had dragged Elena Bellini out of the cellar and thrown her onto the floor in the center of the room. One of the men had a bloody rag pressed against his eye where Sophia had smashed the wine bottle; the other had Sophia pinned against the wall by the collar of her sweater, his gun pressed against her temple.

"Where did the baby go, you little brat?" the blinded man snarled, kicking Elena in the ribs. Elena cried out, curling into a ball. "Tell us, or I blow your mother’s head off right in front of you!"

Sophia’s face was bruised, her lip split, but her eyes blazed with a defiance that no child should ever possess. "I won't tell you. Mr. Moretti will be here soon. And he’s going to kill you."

The man holding the gun laughed harshly. "Moretti is dead at the docks, kid. Nobody is coming to save you."

"Is that what you think?" a voice purred from the darkness behind them.

Before the hitmen could turn, the heavy French doors leading from the terrace exploded inward.

Rocco Moretti did not walk into the room—he struck like lightning.

In a fraction of a second, Rocco closed the distance. His hand shot forward, gripping the wrist of the man holding the gun to Sophia’s head. With a sickening, splintering snap, Rocco broke the man's arm backward at the elbow.

The hitman screamed, dropping the weapon. Rocco didn't let him fall. He grabbed the man by the throat, lifted his two-hundred-pound frame off the floor, and slammed him down spine-first across the marble edge of the hearth. The man went limp instantly, his back broken.

The second hitman—the one with the injured eye—panicked, fumbling for his sidearm.

Dante stepped through the shattered doorway and fired a single round through his knee. The man collapsed, howling in agony, clutching his shattered leg.

Silence fell over the room once more, broken only by the crackle of the dying hearth fire.

Rocco turned. He knelt in front of Sophia.

The little girl was trembling now, the adrenaline finally leaving her small body. But when she saw Rocco, she didn't look at his blood-splattered clothes or the weapon in his belt. She looked directly into his eyes.

"Is the baby safe, Mr. Moretti?" she whispered.

Rocco reached out, his thumb gently wiping a speck of blood from the cut on her lip. "The baby is safe, Sophia. And his mother is outside in the car, waiting to hold him."

Sophia’s face lit up with a breathtaking, beautiful smile. She pointed upward toward the mantelpiece. "He’s behind the chimney flue. In the old dumbwaiter. I pulled the brake so they couldn't reach him."

Rocco looked up at the stone chimney. With Dante’s help, he reached into the service flue, disengaged the manual lock, and gently pulled the wooden basket down.

Inside, swaddled in cashmere, sleeping soundly through the gunfire and the screams, was the boy.

Rocco lifted the infant out with both hands. He held his son against his chest, feeling the tiny, rhythmic beat of the child’s heart against his own ribs. For the first time in ten years, Rocco Moretti closed his eyes, and a single tear escaped, rolling down his cheek.

"Thank you, Sophia," Rocco said, his voice thick with emotion. He extended his hand to Elena, pulling the bruised maid gently to her feet. "Both of you. You saved my family."

"Don Rocco," Dante interrupted quietly from the doorway. "The council has arrived. All Five Families are assembled in the grand pavilion. They demand an explanation for the gunfire."

Rocco’s expression instantly shifted. The softness evaporated, replaced by the terrifying, unyielding majesty of the Don.

He handed the sleeping baby to Elena. "Take him to Clara. She is in the medical suite with Dr. Finch. Do not let anyone near them."

Rocco walked over to the surviving hitman groaning on the floor. He leaned down, retrieved the man’s dropped gun, and handed it to Dante.