781 A terrified maid hid her baby inside a mafia mansion—until the child crawled into the boss’s office and made him whisper the name of his dead son.

The gun battle in the grand foyer was deafening. Bullets chipped away at the marble pillars, sending showers of white dust and stone fragments raining down through the darkness.

Silana fired three quick rounds, dropping two of the shooters, but a fourth attacker appeared on the second-floor balcony above them, aiming down at their position.

"Silana! Above you!" Bella screamed.

Silana looked up, but he was out of position—his back pressed against the pillar protecting Bella and Leo. He wouldn't be able to turn and aim before the shooter cleared the railing.

Without thinking, Bella grabbed a heavy bronze vase resting on a pedestal beside her and threw it with all her strength up toward the balcony.

The heavy bronze struck the shooter’s arm just as he pulled the trigger. The burst of rifle fire strayed wildly into the ceiling plaster, shattering a massive crystal chandelier.

The distraction gave Silana the second he needed. He raised his sidearm and fired twice, sending the attacker over the balcony railing to the floor below.

Silence descended over the foyer, thick with the smell of cordite and burning drywall.

Silana panted heavily, reloading his weapon with a fresh magazine. He turned to Bella, looking at her with a mixture of shock and sheer admiration.

"Your aim is incredible," Silana rasped, a faint grin breaking through the blood on his face.

"I played softball in high school," Bella panted, leaning her head back against the stone pillar, her heart hammering wildly.

A pathetic, trembling voice suddenly whimpered from the far end of the darkened corridor.

"Please... don't shoot... please..."

Silana clicked on a tactical flashlight, shining the bright beam down the hallway.

Cowering behind a knocked-over sofa, holding a useless, unfired pistol with trembling hands, was David Miller.

He looked completely ruined. His face was bruised, his clothes torn, betrayed by the Castellanos the moment they used him to breach the estate gates.

Silana stepped out from behind the pillar, his heavy boots crunching on the shattered glass of the chandelier. He walked slowly toward David, his dark eyes cold, calm, and utterly devoid of mercy.

David scrambled backward on his hands and knees until his back hit the wall. "Silana! Please! They made me do it! Castellano said he’d skin me alive if I didn't show them the estate blueprints!"

Silana stood over him, looking down as if looking at a cockroach.

"You left a good woman," Silana said softly, his voice echoing in the ruined foyer. "You abandoned your own flesh and blood to bleed in the dark. And then you brought killers to the door of the child who carries your blood."

"I'm his father!" David shrieked desperately, looking toward Bella. "Bella! Tell him! Tell him to let me go! I'm Leo's father!"

Bella stepped forward into the flashlight beam, holding Leo securely against her chest. She looked down at David—the man she had once wept over, the man she had feared for months—and felt absolutely nothing but disgust.

"You were never his father, David," Bella said, her voice completely steady and cold. "You were just a donor. A real father protects his child. You sold him."

David looked at her, his eyes wide with pathetic shock.

Silana didn't raise his gun. He simply looked over his shoulder as Dominic and six heavily armed Moretti enforcers finally burst through the front doors, having secured the outer grounds.

"Dominic," Silana commanded quietly.

"Boss?"

"Take this trash out of my house," Silana said, turning his back on David. "Hand him over to the federal authorities along with the Castellano financial ledgers. Let him spend the next thirty years in a maximum-security cell thinking about what he threw away."