The maid’s three-year-old daughter knocked the cake from a mafia boss’s son’s hands just before he took a bite—then she revealed the man who had poisoned it was someone the family trusted most.

*CLANG!*

The heavy metal pole struck Julian across the temple, splitting his skin and sending him staggering sideways into a wooden rack of vintage vintage wine bottles. Dozens of bottles shattered on the stone floor, spraying expensive burgundy wine like arterial blood across the walkway.

Julian roared in pain, dropping his gun as glass shards sliced into his palms.

"Bitch!" Julian howled, swinging his heavy fist blindly in the dark.

The blow caught Sophia across the shoulder, sending her crashing to the wet floor. Lily flew from her grip, landing on an empty burlap sack a few feet away, crying loudly in sheer panic.

Julian lunged toward Sophia, his face contorted in murderous rage, blood dripping from his temple into his eye. He pulled a serrated tactical knife from his boot. "I'm going to carve you into pieces before I finish the boy!"

Sophia kicked out desperately with her heavy work boots, catching Julian square in the kneecap. Julian grunted, his knee buckling, but he lunged forward anyway, raising the blade to plunge it into Sophia’s chest.

"Leave my mother alone!" Ethan screamed.

The eight-year-old boy threw himself onto Julian’s back, wrapping his arms around his uncle’s neck and biting viciously into the traitor's ear.

Julian shrieked, flailing wildly against the stone wall to dislodge the boy. "Get off me, you little leech!"

Sophia didn't hesitate. Grabbing the jagged neck of a broken champagne bottle from the floor, she scrambled to her knees and drove the glass straight into Julian’s upper thigh.

"AGGGHHH!" Julian’s scream tore through the cellar rafters. He collapsed onto the shattered glass, kicking frantically as blood poured from the wound.

Ethan rolled free, scraping his elbows on the rough concrete, but he scrambled up immediately and snatched the dropped submachine gun from the floor. He lifted the heavy weapon with both hands, aiming it straight at Julian’s chest.

Julian lay on his back, panting, clutching his bleeding leg, staring down the barrel of the gun held by his eight-year-old nephew.

"Ethan..." Julian wheezed, holding out a trembling, bloodstained hand. "Ethan, don't... it's Uncle Julian. I was just... I was just testing you. You know I love you, boy..."

Ethan’s finger hovered over the trigger. His small hands shook violently. The boy’s eyes were wide, torn between the ghost of the uncle who used to buy him ice cream and the monster who had tried to put cyanide in his birthday cake.

"Ethan, don't!" Sophia cried out, crawling over to him and gently placing her trembling hand over the gun’s receiver, slowly lowering the barrel. "Don't do it. You don't have to carry this."

"He tried to kill you, Sophia," Ethan whispered, tears finally spilling down his cheeks. "He tried to kill Lily."