She Warned the Feared Mafia Boss She Had Five Kids, but His Answer Was Only the Beginning

The command center beneath Casco Ridge was blindingly bright, smelling of antiseptic, copper, and the cold ozone of high-powered communication equipment.

Declan sat on an examination table, three butterfly bandages holding together a deep laceration on his left cheekbone. The fourteen-year-old was staring at the floor, his fists clenched so hard his taped knuckles were bleeding through the gauze.

"I didn't hit him hard enough," Declan choked out, his voice thick with tears he refused to let fall. "I had the poker, Mom. I swung it, but I was too weak. He took Peter right in front of me."

Fiona stood in front of her eldest son, her own hands trembling as she gently touched his hair. Her knees felt hollow, her stomach churning with a nausea so violent she could barely stand. But looking at Declan’s crushed, self-loathing expression, she forced her spine to lock into place.

"You saved Sylvie and Minnie," Fiona said, her voice shaking but fierce. "You stood between a grown man with a rifle and your little brother. You didn't run, Declan. You fought. Your father would have been prouder of you tonight than on any day of your life."

Declan buried his face in Fiona’s stomach, his shoulders shaking with silent, racking sobs. She held him tightly, her eyes lifting across the room.

Sylvie was sitting in a corner chair, clutching a sleeping Minnie, while Jonah stood beside Malcolm, who was sitting shirtless while Dr. Aris stitched a through-and-through gunshot wound in his left deltoid.

Across the room, Roger Albani stood before a massive wall monitor displaying satellite maps of Portland Harbor.

He had changed into a clean black tactical sweater, cargo trousers, and heavy combat boots. A customized SIG Sauer pistol was strapped to his right thigh, a tactical knife inverted on his chest rig.

He was quiet.

The silence around Roger was far more terrifying than any shouting or swearing could have been. It was the absolute, frozen silence of an executioner checking the tension of the rope.

He held the titanium flash drive between his thumb and forefinger.

"Malcolm," Roger said softly.

The wounded security chief winced as Dr. Aris tied off a suture. "Yeah, Boss."

"What did the drive give us?"

Malcolm pointed a remote at the main screen. The satellite map zoomed in on Pier 42 at the edge of South Portland—a decommissioned, rust-streaked cold-storage warehouse surrounded by abandoned railway spurs and deep-water berths.

"It's all there," Malcolm said, his voice gravelly. "Thomas Prescott didn't just log the false ballasts. He logged the GPS transponder codes, the payoff schedules for six federal customs inspectors, and Vance’s personal offshore banking routing numbers in the Caymans. It’s Vance’s entire life. If this hits the Justice Department, Vance spends the rest of his life in ADX Florence."

"Vance doesn't care about federal prison tonight," Roger said, his eyes tracking the dark coastline on the screen. "He knows the moment he took a child from this house, the law stopped existing. He's at Pier 42?"

"Renzo’s van was spotted on highway surveillance passing through the Mill Creek junction twelve minutes ago," Malcolm confirmed. "They brought Peter to the cold-storage plant. Vance has at least fifteen men on site. Heavy weapons. They're preparing to load Vance onto a Panamanian-flagged cargo tender that's sitting three miles offshore."

Fiona stepped away from Declan, walking slowly toward the center of the command room. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, on the tiny red dot blinking over Pier 42.

"He wants the drive," she whispered.

Roger turned to look at her.

"Give it to him," she said, her voice cracking with desperation. "Roger, give him the drive. Give him the docks. Give him whatever he wants. Just let me have my boy back."

Roger stepped toward her, stopping inches away. He looked down at her pale, exhausted face, at the dark bruises blooming on her wrists where the mercenary had twisted them.

"If I give Vittorio Vance this drive, Fiona," Roger said gently, "he will kill Peter the second he confirms the files are intact. Men like Vance do not leave seven-year-old witnesses behind to describe faces to grand juries."

A low whimper escaped her throat. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I am going to Pier 42," Roger said. "I am going to give Vance exactly what he deserves."

"You can't go alone! He has fifteen men!"

"I am not going alone," Roger said quietly. He glanced toward the steel door of the armory.

Four men stepped into the light. They weren't domestic bodyguards. They were hardened men who had served with Roger’s family for twenty years—men whose faces carried the cold, unforgiving reality of Cumberland County’s true power structure. Every one of them was geared in heavy armor, carrying suppressed short-barreled rifles.

Roger turned back to Fiona.

He reached out, his bare hand cupping the side of her neck, his thumb resting against her frantic, racing pulse. For a moment, the lethal warlord vanished, and in his eyes, Fiona saw something vast, ancient, and utterly devastating in its tenderness.

"You warned me you had five children, Fiona," he whispered, his voice so low only she could hear. "You thought they were a burden. But this house was an empty tomb until your children filled it with spilled juice, broken rules, and drawings on the walls."

His fingers tightened gently against her nape.

"Peter is one of mine now," Roger murmured, every word carrying the weight of a sacred oath. "And no one takes what belongs to Roger Albani."

Before Fiona could draw breath, Roger leaned down.

His mouth found hers in a kiss that was fierce, electric, and desperate—tasting of rain, salt, and the fierce promise of life in the face of death. Fiona gasped against his lips, her hands instinctively grabbing the front of his tactical sweater, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in a collapsing world.

When he broke the kiss, his pale eyes were blazing like white phosphorus.

"Stay with Declan," Roger ordered softly. "Lock the vault behind me. I will bring your son home."