His Wife Had Disappeared Four Years Earlier, and He Believed Everything She Owned Was Destroyed—Until His Fiancée Tried Desperately to Hide One Locked Suitcase.

Wood splinters and acrid black smoke rained over the pews as the explosion tore the sanctuary doors from their iron hinges.

Vincent reacted with blinding speed. He scooped Grace into his left arm, drawing his firearm with his right, shielding both me and the child behind the thick marble pulpit at the front of the altar.

"Gabriel! Take them into the vestry!" Vincent roared over the ringing in our ears.

Through the drifting haze of plaster dust, six men in heavy body armor advanced down the center aisle, their weapon lights cutting through the darkness.

And behind them walked Richard Sterling.

He was in his late fifties, his silver hair slicked back, wearing an immaculate charcoal cashmere overcoat that bore not a single drop of rain. His face was aristocratic, cruel, and completely devoid of human warmth. In his hand, he held a sleek gold-plated automatic pistol.

"Four years, Vincent," Richard said, his cultured voice carrying effortlessly through the ruined nave. "Four years I spent convincing you to be a sensible son-in-law. You had the syndicates, I had the political infrastructure. We could have owned the entire Midwest."

"You murdered Elena," Vincent's voice echoed from behind the marble altar, cold and vibrating with absolute death. "You murdered Daniel Vance. And you sent your daughter to die in my house."

Richard didn't flinch at the mention of Vanessa. A cold, disdainful smirk crossed his thin lips.

"Vanessa was an idiot," Richard said dismissively. "She lacked discipline. She panicked over an old suitcase because she knew that if you opened it, you would realize that Daniel was smarter than both of us."

Richard paused, his boots crunching over the splintered wood.

"Give me the girl, Vincent. And hand over my darling little half-sister, Clara."

"You will die in this chapel, Richard," Vincent said.

"I don't think so," Richard chuckled, raising his left hand.

A red laser dot appeared on the center of the marble pulpit, right above where Grace was trembling in my arms.

"I have four snipers stationed on the lighthouse tower," Richard said. "Your little strike team in the woods is currently pinned down by forty of my contractors. You have five bullets left in that magazine, Moretti. I have an army."

Richard stepped closer, his cold eyes locking onto me as I crouched beside the altar, holding Grace tight against my breast, my other hand shielding my unborn child.

"Hello, Clara," Richard sneered. "You look so much like your mother. Poor Evelyn. She thought my father loved her. She didn't realize that in our family, blood isn't thicker than water. Blood is currency."

"You're a monster," I hissed, my voice trembling with disgust.

"I am an pragmatist," Richard corrected smoothly. "Sign the relinquishment papers for the Sterling Trust, Clara. Hand over Grace so she can be raised in a boarding school in Switzerland under my name, and I will let you and that bastard in your belly walk away. Refuse... and I will bury all three of you beneath this altar, and tell the world that Vincent Moretti killed his family in a fit of manic despair."

Vincent stepped out from behind the pulpit.

He stood tall, broad-shouldered, completely exposed to the laser dots dancing across his chest. He lowered his weapon to his side.

"You want the empire, Richard?" Vincent asked quietly. "Take it. Let Clara and the children go."

"Vincent, no!" I screamed.

Richard laughed, a cruel, mocking sound that echoed off the high rafters. "You really do love them, don't you? The great Vincent Moretti, brought to his knees by an orphan and a dead woman's child. How poetic."

Richard leveled his gold gun directly at Vincent’s forehead.