39 "I watched the only photo of my unborn baby turn to ashes because the man I loved had just announced his engagement to another woman. I believed I was erasing the last piece of a future that would never exist. But I had no idea those ashes would become the clue that sent the most feared mafia boss in America on a relentless hunt for me. What I didn't know was even more devastating—everything I thought I heard that day was a lie meant to save my life, and the child growing inside me belonged to a man who would burn down cities before letting anyone take what was his.

"Take the safe room passage under the closet," Dominic ordered Megan, his voice calm but dripping with lethal intent. He helped her out of bed, wrapping her in his heavy coat. "Do not come out until I come get you. No matter what you hear."

"Dominic, please, don't leave me," Megan pleaded, gripping his lapels. Despite her anger, the thought of losing him now terrified her.

He leaned down and kissed her deeply, a fierce, desperate kiss that tasted of promise and survival. "I will never leave you again. Now go!"

Megan slipped into the hidden safe room behind the master closet just as the bedroom doors were blown off their hinges.

Through the thick, reinforced glass of the safe room peephole, Megan watched in horror as three armed hitmen burst into the room. But Dominic was a ghost in the dark. He moved with terrifying, fluid grace. Two shots echoed, and two men fell instantly. He tackled the third, slamming him against the marble fireplace, his hands wrapping around the man's throat.

"Who sent you?" Dominic roared.

The hitman gasped for air, coughing up blood. "Moretti... he knows... about the brat. He wants the Russo bloodline... wiped out."

With a sickening crack, Dominic ended the man's life. He stood in the middle of the ruined room, covered in soot and blood, looking like the devil himself.

But suddenly, Megan felt a sharp, agonizing pain shoot through her lower abdomen. She gasped, falling to her knees inside the safe room. She reached down and felt wetness.

Her water had broken. She was only seven months pregnant.

"Dominic!" she screamed, her voice cracking with pure terror. "Dominic, the baby! Something is wrong!"

Dominic flung the safe room door open. Seeing her curled on the floor, holding her stomach in agony, his heart stopped. The fearsome mafia boss dropped his gun, rushing to her side and scooping her up in his arms.

"Viktor! Clear a path to the armored SUV!" Dominic roared into his radio. "We are going to the hospital! Now!"