TAKE THAT LITTLE GIRL'S MICROPHONE AWAY, YOU IGNORANT LITTLE MAID! SHE HAS NOTHING IMPORTANT TO SAY!”

Emily didn't waste a single millisecond.

The moment the firefight erupted down the hallway—the thunder of automatic weapons echoing off the marble floors—she hoisted Isabella onto her hip and lunged toward the corner bookshelf. She reached behind the leather-bound encyclopedias, found the brass release latch Luca had indicated, and pulled.

The entire false bookcase swung inward, revealing a narrow, dust-choked utility passage designed during Prohibition for smuggling liquor between the estate's wings.

“In, Isabella! Crawl, sweetheart, don't look back!” Emily urged, pushing the girl into the darkness.

Emily crawled right behind her, pulling the false door shut until the latch clicked. The deafening noise of the hallway was instantly muffled, replaced by the sound of their own ragged breathing and the thumping of their hearts.

The crawlspace was barely three feet wide, lit only by thin slivers of light passing through the floorboards. Pipes hissed above them, radiating heat. Isabella was crying, but she scrambled forward on her hands and knees with remarkable grit, her little fingers clawing through cobwebs.

“Emily, Daddy got hurt,” Isabella sobbed ahead of her. “I saw the red on his shirt.”

“Your daddy is the strongest man in this city,” Emily said, her voice fiercely steady despite the terror threatening to choke her. “A little scratch won't stop him. Keep moving, Bella. Look for the small brass grate on your left.”

Ahead, a sliver of white light appeared. Isabella reached the grate and pushed. It gave way, opening into the cavernous master suite closet, lined with hundreds of Luca’s dark suits and Elena’s untouched evening gowns.

Isabella tumbled out onto the thick carpet. Emily scrambled out behind her, instantly scanning the room.

The master bedroom was eerily quiet, the distant sounds of gunfire now moving toward the ground floor. Marco’s counter-assault team was clearly pushing the Bellini hit squad back out into the courtyard.

Emily found the biometric panel disguised behind a row of cashmere coats. “Press your thumb here, Isabella,” Emily instructed, lifting the girl. “Your father said you have access.”

Isabella pressed her small thumb against the optical glass.

*Beep.*

The back wall of the closet slid open with a whisper of hydraulic pressure, revealing the vault-like panic room. Inside were soft leather benches, medical supplies, monitors displaying exterior camera feeds, and secure satellite communications.

“Go inside, Isabella,” Emily said gently, setting her down on the threshold.

Isabella stopped, turning to look at Emily. “Aren't you coming in?”

Emily looked back toward the open master bedroom doors.

On the camera monitor beside the vault, she saw the grand foyer.

Two masked Bellini men were retreating, firing blindly over their shoulders. But near the base of the grand staircase, Luca was pinned behind a fallen marble statue. His Beretta was empty, the slide locked back. He was holding his bleeding left shoulder, his face pale from blood loss, while a third gunman—a massive enforcer armed with a shotgun—was advancing up the stairs toward him, leveling the barrel straight at Luca’s head.

Marco was nowhere in sight, tied down in the courtyard.

If Emily stepped into the vault and sealed the four-ton door, she and Isabella would be completely untouchable. The police would arrive in ten minutes. Isabella would be safe.

And Luca Moretti would be executed on his own staircase.

Emily looked down at Isabella. “Sweetheart, sit on that bench and close your eyes. Count to one hundred. Do not step outside this room. Do you hear me?”

“Emily, please!”

“One hundred, Bella. Go!” Emily pushed the interior override button, leaving the door cracked just enough for one person, and turned back into the bedroom.

Her eyes frantically scanned the room for a weapon. On the nightstand lay a heavy, solid-brass decorative eagle—an heirloom weighing at least eight pounds, its talons sharp as razors. Emily grabbed it by the base, gripped it with both hands, and ran silently out of the master suite.

She reached the second-floor mezzanine overlooking the grand foyer.

Below, the massive Bellini enforcer had reached the landing where Luca leaned against the shattered marble plinth, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Carlo Bellini sends his regards, Don Moretti,” the gunman sneered in thick Sicilian dialect, racking the slide of the 12-gauge shotgun and aiming it between Luca’s eyes.

Luca looked up, his jaw set, his eyes burning with pure defiance. He didn't beg. He didn't flinch. “Burn in hell,” Luca rasped.

From fifteen feet above, Emily stood at the mezzanine railing.

She didn't scream. She didn't announce herself. She used every ounce of strength in her working-class body, leaned over the carved balustrade, and hurled the eight-pound brass eagle directly downward.

*CRACK.*

The solid brass eagle struck the enforcer squarely on the crown of his skull with the force of a falling anvil.

The man didn't even groan. His eyes rolled back into his head, his shotgun discharged harmlessly into the ceiling plaster, showering the foyer in white dust, and his massive body collapsed limp down the stairs, tumbling end over end until he hit the marble floor below.

Luca blinked through the plaster dust, stunned.

He slowly lifted his head, looking up toward the mezzanine.

There, leaning over the shattered marble balustrade, her uniform apron torn, her hair falling loose in dark curls around her flushed face, stood Emily Carter. Her hazel eyes were wide, fierce, and entirely lethal.

Luca stared at her. Amid the smoke, the blood, and the ruins of his ancestral home, the ruthless Don of Chicago looked at his twenty-five-year-old housekeeper as if he were looking at an archangel descended straight from the heavens.

A ghost of a bloody smile touched Luca’s lips.