Send the Ugly One, He'll Reject Her! They Laughed — But the Mafia Boss Was Speechless!

The following afternoon, the Boston Public Library’s historical archives were quiet.

Rain tapped against the tall, arched windows overlooking Copley Square. Adelaide stood in the center of the vaulted reading room, an open archive box of nineteenth-century land deeds resting on the long oak table before her.

Beside her stood Dante, dressed in an unassuming dark suit, his eyes scanning the balconies above.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the archive room clicked shut. The digital magnetic locks engaged with a heavy, mechanical hum.

Four men in tactical jackets stepped out from behind the towering bookshelves. Silencers gleamed on the barrels of their automatic pistols.

At the head of the group stood Marco Valenti, Salvatore Valenti’s nephew and chief enforcer—a hulking man with a brutal, scarred face and dead eyes.

“Well, well,” Marco sneered, raising his weapon. “The little accountant with the ruined face. Your daddy said you’d be right here.”

Adelaide didn't scream. She didn't drop her pen. She calmly closed the archive folder and looked at Marco through her gold-rimmed glasses.

“My father is remarkably predictable,” she said evenly. “He always relies on violent men to do the work he lacks the courage to finish.”

Marco chuckled, a wet, ugly sound. “Smart mouth. Too bad you won't have a tongue in about ten seconds. Valenti sends his regards, Miss Jones. Tell your mother we said hello.”

He raised his gun to level it at her forehead.

*Crack.*

The sound was not an explosion, but the muffled shatter of reinforced glass.

From the high decorative skylight forty feet above, two black-clad figures descended on tactical ropes. Before Marco’s men could react, Mateo Moretti hit the parquet floor with lethal precision, his sidearm already firing.

Two shots echoed in rapid succession. The two flankers dropped instantly, neutralized before their weapons could clear the tables.

Dante moved with terrifying speed, tackling the third gunman into a heavy mahogany bookshelf that crashed downward in an avalanche of leather-bound volumes.

Marco scrambled backward, panic flashing across his brutal features as he brought his weapon up toward Mateo.

“Moretti—!”

Mateo didn't fire. He closed the ten-foot distance like a panther, his left hand catching Marco’s wrist, twisting the joint until the bone snapped with a sickening crunch. Marco screamed, dropping his pistol.

Mateo drove his knee into Marco’s ribs, sending the towering man crashing into the archive table. Before Marco could recover, Mateo had him by the throat, pinning him to the wood, a cold steel blade pressed flush against his jugular.

“Who gave you the timing for her schedule?” Mateo growled, his voice a subterranean rumble of lethal fury.

Marco spat blood, choking under the iron grip. “Go to hell, Moretti!”

Mateo pressed the blade a fraction of an inch deeper. A thin ribbon of crimson welled beneath the steel.

“Adelaide,” Mateo called out without taking his eyes off the bleeding enforcer. “Did your father think to use encrypted channels when he texted Marco?”

Adelaide walked over calmly, picking up Marco’s fallen phone from the floor. She tapped the screen, bypass-cracking the simple four-digit pin with ease.

“No,” she said, showing the screen to Mateo. “He sent a voice note from his suite at the Harbor Hotel ten minutes ago. He offered Marco an extra fifty thousand dollars if he brought back my glasses as proof.”

Mateo’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure, merciless darkness.

“Dante,” Mateo commanded.

“Boss?”

“Secure this garbage in the basement of Pier 4. Valenti will want his nephew back, and the price will be every square foot of turf he owns north of the Mystic River.”

“Done,” Dante said, hauling the groaning, broken Marco to his feet.

Mateo wiped his blade on a silk handkerchief and turned to Adelaide. The murderous fire in his gaze vanished, replaced by an urgent, frantic search of her body.

“Did they touch you?” he demanded, his hands framing her face, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones. “Adelaide. Look at me.”

“I’m fine, Mateo,” she said softly, resting her hands against his chest, feeling the wild, furious beat of his heart. “Not a scratch. Your timing was perfect.”

Mateo pulled her against his chest, burying his face in her hair, holding her with a fierce, trembling desperation that proved just how close to the edge he had walked.