"When I burst into the forbidden room, my three-year-old daughter was sitting on the lap of Jude Mercer—the most feared mafia boss in Providence—tracing the scar on his face with her tiny finger. The gun on his desk terrified me, but the way his arm tightened protectively around her terrified everyone else.

The room erupted into absolute chaos.

The two Philadelphia mercenaries behind Tristan raised their submachine guns, but Jude didn't give them a single second.

PUMP-BANG!

The heavy tactical shotgun barked twice in rapid succession, the massive force throwing both mercenaries backward into the hallway, where they collapsed onto the marble floor!

Jude stepped over their bodies, his dark eyes burning with an apocalyptic fury that filled the entire suite. His left arm was wrapped in a bloody bandage, his dark shirt torn across his chest, but he moved with the terrifying speed of a phantom.

Tristan scrambled backward across the shattered glass on the floor, reaching frantically for his dropped pistol. "Mercer! How... how did you get back from Boston?!"

"You thought I didn't know your Boston safehouse was a decoy, Vance?" Jude said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl as he racked the shotgun with a sharp CLICK-CLACK. "I sent a decoy squad to South Boston. I remained six miles away in Pawtucket, waiting for you to take the bait."

Jude kicked Tristan’s gun across the room, sending it spinning under the canopy bed. He stepped onto Tristan’s chest, pinning him to the floorboards with crushing pressure.

"NO! MERCER, PLEASE!" Tristan shrieked, his hands clawing uselessly at Jude’s heavy boot. "I HAVE MONEY! I CAN GIVE YOU THE PHILADELPHIA ACCESS CODES!"

Jude didn't answer. He raised the barrel of the shotgun, pointing it directly between Tristan’s eyes.

"Jude!" I gasped, clutching Brinley tightly against my chest, taking a step forward. "Jude, stop!"

Jude’s eyes flicked to me. For a second, the lethal red haze in his gaze wavered. "He tried to take you, Nora. He tried to sell your daughter."

"I know," I wept, tears streaming down my face as I looked at the pathetic, cowardly man sobbing beneath Jude’s boot. "I know what he is now. But don't do this in front of Brinley. Don't let his blood stain the place where she sleeps."

Jude stared at me. Then, he looked down at Brinley, who was peeking out from behind my sweater, her small brown teddy bear clutched in her hand.

Slowly, Jude lowered the barrel of the shotgun.

"Victor Vance," Jude said coldly, addressing his own enforcers who were now flooding into the hallway behind him, led by a bandaged but conscious Reggie Shaw. "Take him down to the wine cellar. Hand him over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation along with the Philadelphia manifest logs. Let him spend the next forty years in a federal penitentiary."

"NO! NORA, HELP ME!" Tristan screamed as two large enforcers dragged him out of the room by his arms. "NORA! TELL THEM TO LET ME GO! BRINLEY! TELL HIM!"

Brinley didn't say a word. She buried her face into my neck, blocking out her father's pathetic screams as he was dragged down the stairs into the dark abyss of his own making.

The suite fell silent once more, save for the sound of the wind and rain outside.

Jude stood amidst the shattered glass and broken door frames, breathing heavily, his shotgun resting at his side. He looked suddenly exhausted, the blood on his arm seeping through his linen bandage.

I set Brinley down on the bed and walked over to him without hesitation.

"You're hurt," I whispered, reaching out to touch his arm gently.

Jude flinched slightly, but he didn't pull away. "It's just a graze, Nora. The storm is passing."

"You came back for us," I said, my voice trembling with an emotion I could no longer deny. "You knew it was a trap, and you came back."