THE HEIRS OF THE UNDERWORLD

The heavy mahogany doors of my estate slammed shut, sealing us inside a fortress that suddenly felt like a glass house. The rain continued to batter the reinforced windows, but the storm outside was nothing compared to the violent tempest brewing in my mind. A son. A niece. A legacy manufactured and manipulated without my consent. I pulled my sidearm, a custom-engraved 1911, from my holster and checked the chamber out of pure instinct. It was full, but right now, bullets couldn't shoot the ghosts haunting my bloodline.

“Carmen!” I barked, my voice echoing off the marble foyer. “Lock down the perimeter. Activate the titanium shutters. Nobody gets in or out without my explicit, direct command. Not even the stray dogs on the street.”

Carmen scurried to the control panels, her face pale. She had been with me for a decade, surviving the cartel wars that built my empire, but the sight of the helpless infant and the shivering seven-year-old girl had rattled her. Sofia was sitting on the velvet sofa, holding the baby—my son—with a fierce protectiveness that defied her fragile frame. The baby was finally asleep, exhausted from the cold and the trauma of his abandonment.

I turned back to Isabel. The brilliant, beautiful doctor who had broken my heart years ago now stood before me trembling, stripped of her clinical detachment.

"Ana Lucía Serrano," I said the name, testing its weight on my tongue. "She was a ghost. A civilian. How did a civilian get access to a private clinic guarded by my men and my money?"

Isabel crossed her arms, shivering despite the warmth of the house. "She didn't. She was brought to me. By your uncle, Gabriel. Arturo."

The name hit me like a physical blow to the chest. Arturo. My father’s brother. The man who had acted as my consigliere, my most trusted advisor since the old man died. "Arturo," I whispered, the betrayal burning a hole through my stomach. "Why?"

"Because you refused to marry within the syndicate," Isabel explained, her voice cracking. "You refused to produce an heir. Arturo believed your empire was vulnerable without a bloodline to anchor it. But when the baby was born, Ana Lucía realized what he intended to do. He didn't want you to have a son, Gabriel. He wanted an heir he could control. He planned to kill you, frame a rival cartel, and raise the boy as his puppet."

I looked over at Sofia. Her large, observant eyes were watching me. If Elena, the grandmother, was telling the truth, then Sofia was the daughter of my father’s illegitimate child. She was a rightful heir, too. Arturo must have found out about her existence. He wanted both of them dead to clean the slate.

"We need to move," I said, my tone deadly calm. "If Arturo knows the baby didn't die in the trash, he’ll send his hit squads. This house is a fortress, but it’s a stationary target."

As if on cue, the lights in the mansion flickered and died, plunging us into darkness. The backup generators hummed to life a second later, casting an eerie red glow through the emergency lighting. The security alarms began to shriek.