HIS RIVAL CALLED THE MAID “HOT” AT DINNER—THE MAFIA BOSS SAID “SHE’S MINE” BEFORE HE COULD STOP HIMSELF

The rain fell in sheets over the Bay Ridge Marina, turning the asphalt black and slick beneath the dim amber glow of the industrial sodium lights.

At 10:45 PM, a convoy of three sleek black SUVs slipped silently through the rusted iron gates, their headlights turned completely off.

Inside the central armored vehicle, Nicholas sat beside me, checking the chamber of an automatic rifle. His face was painted in shadows, cold and utterly devoid of mercy.

“Stay inside the vehicle with the doors locked until Marco gives the all-clear,” Nicholas told me, his large hand cupping the back of my head, pulling me in for a hard, fierce kiss that tasted of rain and adrenaline. “Ten minutes, Gabriella. That’s all I need.”

“Be careful,” I whispered against his lips.

“Always.”

He kicked the door open and stepped out into the pouring rain, leading six heavily armed operatives into the mist.

Down on the private dock, Roberto Ferraro was directing four men loading heavy steel flight cases onto the stern of a ninety-foot luxury yacht. The engine of the vessel rumbled with a low, throbbing growl against the wooden pilings.

“Faster, you idiots!” Roberto barked, wiping rain from his slicked-back hair. “DeLuca’s men will be choking on smoke at Pier 14 within twenty minutes. We need to be past the harbor mouth before the Coast Guard wakes up.”

“Looking for someone, Roberto?”

Nicholas’s voice cut through the sound of the rain like a razor blade.

Roberto froze. He spun around, his hand frantically reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster.

Gunfire erupted.

The muzzle flashes illuminated the dark pier in staccato bursts of blinding white light. Nicholas moved with lethal, terrifying precision—firing from cover, advancing step by step, taking down Roberto’s guards with brutal efficiency.

From the reinforced window of the SUV, my heart was in my throat. I watched Nicholas take out two men with pinpoint accuracy, ducking behind a steel shipping crate as bullets ricocheted off the metal in showers of orange sparks.

Within four minutes, Roberto’s men were neutralised, their bodies sprawled on the wet deck.

Roberto, clutching a bleeding shoulder, scrambled up the gangplank of the yacht, desperate to untie the mooring lines.

Nicholas walked onto the dock, his rifle lowered, moving like an inescapable reaper. He stepped onto the yacht’s deck, kicking Roberto’s dropped weapon into the black water below.

Roberto collapsed against the fiberglass railing, coughing, looking up at Nicholas with wild, terrified eyes.

“Nicholas... wait,” Roberto wheezed, raising a trembling, bloody hand. “Take the bonds. Twenty million. Take the territory. Let me leave the country. We don't have to end it like this.”

Nicholas towered over him, rain streaming down his sharp jaw, his eyes colder than the Atlantic Ocean.

“You broke the sacred law, Roberto,” Nicholas said, his voice carrying over the sound of the falling rain. “You threatened my home. And worse... you dared to put your eyes on what is mine.”