THE BUTTERFLY AND THE GHOST AT ST. CATHERINE’S

The damp air of the wine cellar turned ice cold.

Gabriel’s finger hovered over the trigger of his gun, trembling with a fury so profound it radiated off him like heat waves.

“If you harmed a single hair on my daughter’s head,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a register of pure, lethal terror, “I won’t just kill you, Marco. I will take apart every single inch of your body before I let you die.”

Marco didn’t flinch. He kept his weapon loosely pointed at the ground, showing an eerie, disturbing calm.

“My father didn’t hurt her,” Marco said smoothly. “She’s valuable leverage. As long as Richard has Ella, you’ll hand over the shipping empire, the offshore accounts, and the greenhouse journal without a single fight.”

“You think my father will bargain with child killers?” Gabriel roared, taking a threatening step forward.

“Your father is dead, Gabriel,” Marco smiled. “And you’re about to be, too.”

Before Gabriel could pull the trigger, Marco dropped his pistol, reached into his tactical vest, and threw a heavy, thick ceramic smoke grenade onto the stone floor between us.

Hiss.

A thick, blinding cloud of dense grey smoke instantly flooded the cellar, choking the air and obscuring our vision.

“Get down!” Gabriel shouted, grabbing my waist and shoving me behind a massive oak wine cask as the sound of rapid, heavy boots echoed up the stone steps.

“Marco!” Gabriel yelled through the smoke, coughing as he fired three warning shots toward the exit.

By the time the smoke cleared and we reached the cellar stairs, the heavy oak door at the top was bolted shut from the outside.

Gabriel slammed his fist against the reinforced wood with a violent curse, then spun around.

“The tunnel,” Gabriel said, grabbing my arm. “It has a secondary exit leading directly to the west garage. We can cut them off before they reach the main gates.”

We sprinted back through the wine cellar, diving into the concealed brick transit tube.

We didn’t run—we flew. Gabriel’s face was a mask of pure terror and rage. The thought of his nine-year-old daughter in the hands of the man who had murdered his uncle twelve years ago drove him past human limits.

We burst out of the tunnel’s garage exit into the chilly night air.

Parked in the center of the massive, dimly lit garage was Gabriel’s custom armored black SUV, the engine idling, left running by one of the loyal guards who must have been ambushed moments earlier.

Gabriel hauled open the driver’s side door, shoving me into the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel.

He slammed the gearshift into drive and floored the accelerator.

The heavy vehicle shrieked, burning rubber against the concrete floor as it blew through the reinforced side garage doors, splintering wood and metal in an explosion of debris.

We launched onto the gravel driveway of the estate.

“Hold on!” Gabriel roared, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

He didn’t take the main paved road. Instead, he veered the SUV sharply across the sprawling lawn, cutting straight through the wet grass and flower beds to intercept the private access road that led directly to the estate’s secondary helicopter pad and the private airstrip beyond.

Rain lashed against the armored windshield in blinding sheets. The wipers swept back and forth furiously, barely keeping up.

Through the gloom ahead, the red warning lights of the airstrip tower began to blink in the distance.

And cutting across the tarmac, heading toward a sleek, twin-engine private jet with its boarding stairs already lowered, was a black sedan.

“There!” I screamed, pointing through the glass.

Gabriel didn’t slow down. He mashed the gas pedal to the floor, the SUV’s twin-turbo engine roaring like a wounded animal as it rocketed off the grass and onto the paved runway.

The black sedan slammed on its brakes, sliding sideways across the wet tarmac in an attempt to block us, but Gabriel was too fast.

He rammed the heavy armored nose of the SUV directly into the side panel of the sedan with a deafening crash of grinding metal and shattering glass.

The sedan spun out, careening off the runway into the muddy ditch beside the tarmac.

Gabriel slammed on the brakes, throwing us forward against our seatbelts.

Before the SUV had even completely stopped, Gabriel flung his door open and leaped out into the freezing rain, drawing his weapon.

I scrambled out after him, shivering as the wind whipped my clothes around my body.

From the passenger side of the wrecked black sedan, an elderly man in a heavy wool coat stumbled out into the open.

It was Richard.

His face was bruised from the crash, and in his arms, crying and terrified, was Ella.

Richard pressed the cold barrel of a small revolver against the side of the little girl’s head.

“Stay back, Gabriel!” Richard screamed over the howling wind, spittle flying from his lips. “Take one more step, and I put a bullet through your daughter’s skull right now!”

Gabriel froze instantly.

The gun in his hand trembled. The ruthless mafia boss was completely disarmed by the tiny, trembling child pressed against his enemy’s chest.

“Let her go, Richard,” Gabriel begged, his voice cracking with an agony that tore straight through my heart. “Take me. Kill me instead. Just let my daughter go.”

Richard laughed maniacally, the rain plastering his white hair to his forehead.

“It’s too late for bargains, Gabriel! You found the safe, you found the photo—you ruined everything I spent thirty years building!”