THE STOLEN COMPASS AND THE CARTEL’S HEIR

The sterile, rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the private hospital room.

I sat in a hard plastic chair beside the bed, my fingers tightly interlaced with Dominic’s pale, calloused hand. It had been forty-eight hours since the train. Forty-eight hours of surgeries, blood transfusions, and agonizing terror.

The doctors had extracted two bullets. One from his shoulder, and the one that had grazed his ribs, nearly clipping his lung. They said a millimeter deeper, and I would have been a widow for real this time.

I hadn’t left his side. I was wearing a borrowed set of scrubs, my dark hair tied back in a messy knot, completely exhausted but utterly incapable of sleep.

The heavy oak door to the private suite clicked open.

I turned, expecting Silvia or a nurse.

Instead, a small boy in a navy blue sweater marched into the room, holding the hand of his nanny, Rosa.

“Leo,” I breathed, standing up quickly.

Leo dropped Rosa’s hand and ran to me. I dropped to my knees and caught him in a fierce hug. He smelled like baby shampoo and safety.

“Is Daddy awake yet?” Leo whispered, his gray eyes wide as he looked at the massive man lying unconscious under the white sheets.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” I said softly, smoothing his dark curls. “But the doctors said he’s going to be okay. He just needs to rest.”

Leo nodded seriously. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, intricately carved wooden compass.

I recognized it instantly. It was the toy Dominic had spent weeks carving for Leo’s third birthday, right before the accident.

Leo walked to the edge of the bed. He stood on his tiptoes and placed the wooden compass gently on Dominic’s chest, right over his heart.

“So he can find his way back to waking up,” Leo whispered.

Tears pricked my eyes. I pulled Leo into my side, kissing the top of his head. “That’s beautiful, Leo. He’ll love it.”

“Can I see her now?” Leo asked, looking up at me with sudden, intense anticipation.

I smiled. The darkness of the past three years felt like a nightmare fading in the morning light.

“Rosa, can you bring her in?” I asked.

Rosa smiled warmly and stepped out into the hallway. A moment later, she returned, holding the hand of a little girl in a new, bright yellow dress.

Mia.

She looked nervous, her big gray eyes darting around the sterile room. She had spent the last three years locked away in a sprawling, cold estate in Vermont, told she was an orphan unwanted by the world.

Leo stepped forward. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t show an ounce of fear.

He walked right up to his twin sister.

“Hi,” Leo said. “I’m Leo. I’m your brother.”

Mia looked at him. They were identical in almost every way, right down to the shape of their eyes and the stubborn set of their chins.

Mia reached out tentatively and touched the sleeve of Leo’s sweater. “You look like me.”

“Daddy says we have the same face because we’re supposed to share everything,” Leo said matter-of-factly. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out a slightly crushed piece of candy. He offered it to her. “Do you want this? It’s cherry.”

Mia took it, a tiny, fragile smile breaking across her face. “Thank you.”

I watched my children—the twins Beatrice had violently ripped apart to protect a lie—standing together in the afternoon sunlight. The Varelli bloodline Beatrice had been so obsessed with didn't matter. What mattered was the fierce, unbreakable bond of love that no amount of money or violence could sever.

Suddenly, the rhythmic beeping of the monitor hitched.

The hand I had been holding twitched.

I spun around.

Dominic’s eyelids fluttered. A low, painful groan escaped his lips.

“Dominic?” I whispered, leaning over him, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Slowly, painfully, his gray eyes opened. They were hazy with pain medication, but the moment they locked onto my face, they cleared with sharp, desperate clarity.

“Clara,” he breathed, his voice raw as sandpaper.

“I’m here,” I choked out, a sob escaping my throat. “I’m right here.”

Dominic’s eyes drifted past me. He saw Leo standing at the foot of the bed.

And then, he saw Mia.

The tough, unyielding mafia boss, the man who had terrified half of Boston, completely broke down. Tears spilled from his eyes, soaking into the white hospital pillow.

He lifted his uninjured arm, reaching out toward the end of the bed.

“Come here,” Dominic wept.

Leo and Mia didn't need to be told twice. They scrambled onto the end of the hospital bed, mindful of the wires, and crawled up into their father’s good arm.

Dominic pulled them both tightly against his side, burying his face in their hair, kissing their heads repeatedly.

“My babies,” Dominic sobbed. “My perfect, beautiful babies.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping my arms around all three of them.

“We’re safe, Dominic,” I whispered against his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears. “Beatrice is gone. Silvia secured the port. The Romanovs backed off. It’s over.”

Dominic pulled back slightly, looking at me with absolute reverence.

“It’s not over,” Dominic said quietly, reaching up to cup my cheek. “The mafia is over. I handed the deeds to Silvia this morning before the surgery. The hotels, the ports, the syndicate... I walked away from all of it.”

I stared at him, stunned. “You gave away your empire?”

“I didn't give away my empire,” Dominic smiled, his gray eyes reflecting the sunlight streaming through the window. He looked at Leo, then at Mia, and finally rested his gaze on me. “I’m holding my empire right now.”

He reached his hand down to his chest and picked up the carved wooden compass Leo had left for him.