Part 2: A powerful mafia boss woke up to a little girl saving his life with his inhaler, completely unaware that her presence exposed a secret buried with his dead wife.

The rain struck the windshield of the armored SUV like gravel. Lucas stared out into the black New Jersey night, his fingers wrapped tight around his custom Kimber .45. Sitting in the passenger seat, Victor was working his phone, his face pale in the dashboard’s faint green glow.

“The docks are dark, boss,” Victor muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead despite the chill. “Our perimeter boys aren’t answering. The Santoro syndicate must’ve hired outside hitters.”

Lucas felt an icy spike in his gut. Over eight years of running the family’s legitimate fronts, his instincts had kept him alive. Something was deeply wrong. The Santoros were broke, broken, and running out of breath in South Philly. They didn’t have the muscle to raid a fortified Moretti hub.

“Turn the car around,” Lucas ordered coldly.

Victor froze, turning his head. “Lucas, there’s twelve million in payroll and tech blueprints in that warehouse—”

“Turn it around, Victor. Now.”

The driver swung the wheel hard, tires screaming across wet asphalt. Lucas grabbed his satellite phone and dialed the private line to the mansion in Westchester.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

No answer.

“Drive faster,” Lucas snarled, the blood roaring in his ears.

When they crested the long, winding hill that led to the iron gates of the Moretti estate forty minutes later, the rain had turned into a foul, sulfur-scented mist. The massive gates were torn off their hinges, crushed inward as if rammed by a truck.

Lucas didn’t wait for the vehicle to stop. He kicked the door open before the tires came to a halt on the gravel courtyard.

The estate—the sanctuary he had built with his bare hands to keep Isabella and Daniel safe from his father’s sins—was a roaring inferno. Orange flames violently licked the sky, consuming the cedar shingles, shattering the bay windows, devouring the grand sunroom where Isabella’s baby grand piano stood.

“Bella!” Lucas screamed, throwing himself toward the front entrance.

A blast of superheated air and heavy, caustic smoke knocked him off his feet. Behind him, two bodyguards tackled him to the damp grass.

“Boss, no! The roof is coming down!” Victor yelled, dragging him back by his tactical vest.

“Let go of me! My wife is in there! My son is in there!” Lucas roared, fighting them like a wounded beast. He broke one man’s nose with an elbow, scrambled back to his feet, and threw himself into the burning foyer.

The heat was suffocating. Thick, oily smoke filled his throat, burning his vocal cords. He fell to his knees on the charred marble floor, coughing violently, lungs seizing as the smoke triggered an acute, violent asthma attack he hadn't suffered since childhood.

Through the haze of fire, he saw it. The fallen ceiling beams crushed the grand piano. And beside the wreckage lay two scorched bodies, pinned under a sea of blazing timber. A small child's red sneaker stuck out from the ashes. Next to it, a slender wrist wearing the platinum bracelet he had engraved for Isabella on their wedding anniversary.

“No... no, God, no!”

Lucas crawled toward them, his vision swimming, his chest constricting until no air could reach his lungs. He reached out, his fingertips grazing the blackened silver of Isabella’s bracelet.

The ceiling above groaned, releasing a shower of flaming slate. Hands pulled him backward violently into the rain.