She Was Forced to Marry the Mafia Boss’s Seventh Wife—Then He Asked Who Threatened Her

We never made it to the north manor.

Arthur Aldridge was a coward, but a cornered rat does not look for an exit when the water rises; it attacks the pipes.

At five-fifteen in the morning, while the snow was still falling thick and heavy over the Hudson, the power cut out across the entire promontory.

The lights in the kitchen didn't flicker; they died instantly.

A second later, the heavy thrum of the basement generators failed to kick on—sabotaged from the outside through the main fuel line that ran along the north perimeter fence.

Emergency red lamps flickered to life along the baseboards, casting long, bloody shadows across the stone floor.

Then came the sound.

Not gunfire.

A dull, concussive *thump* from the south gate—the sound of an armored snowplow hitting the wrought-iron barrier at fifty miles an hour.

“Breach!” Vance’s voice crackled through the wall intercom, running on battery backup. “South perimeter is compromised! Two vehicles through the gate! They’re using night vision—they cut the floodlight feeds!”

Cassian didn't swear.

He didn't hesitate.

He reached into the kitchen island drawer, pulled out a tactical radio, and clicked the channel.

“All teams, this is Vale. Rules of engagement are red. No prisoners until the house is secure. Vance, pull the exterior guards into the stone courtyard. Do not fight them in the open.”

He grabbed my arm.

His grip was hard, iron-strong, pulling me out of the kitchen and into the central gallery.

“The basement tunnels,” I said, my voice fast, the memory of the floorplans I had studied twenty-four hours ago burning behind my eyes. “The Prohibition stairs. If they have the ground floor blueprints, they know about the front doors and the terrace. But the coal chute behind the pantry leads to the lower tunnel under the boathouse.”

Cassian stopped at the base of the grand staircase, looking down at me through the crimson glow of the emergency lights.

“They didn't come to negotiate, Lydia,” he said, his voice flat and hard. “Arthur sold the rest of his debt to an Albanian crew from Queens. They don't care about the trusts anymore. They’re here to burn the house with us inside.”

The high, arched windows of the ballroom shattered.

A hail of automatic fire ripped through the heavy velvet drapes, chewing through the mahogany wainscoting, sending splinters of centuries-old oak showering across the Persian rugs.

Shouts in Albanian echoed from the front terrace.

“Upstairs,” Cassian ordered, pushing me toward the narrow service door behind the clock. “The third-floor armory has reinforced doors. You lock yourself in. You do not open it for anyone except my voice.”

“No,” I said.

Cassian froze, his hand on the brass latch of the service door. “Lydia, this is not a negotiation.”

“They cut the main fuel line, right?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs, but my thoughts moving with terrifying clarity. “The generators didn't start because the secondary intake valve is shut. It’s a manual valve in the old laundry room—the one behind the drying racks!”

Cassian stared at me. “How do you know that?”

“Because I spent eight years fixing the boiler in Margaret Aldridge’s house when the heat failed!” I yelled over the deafening roar of a shotgun blast from the front hall. “The systems are the same—they were installed by the same company in nineteen-eighty! If I open that valve, the auxiliary generator starts! The floodlights come back on! Your men outside can see what they’re shooting at!”

Another volley of fire tore through the gallery.

A portrait of Cassian’s great-grandfather exploded off the wall, the heavy gilt frame crashing to the slate floor three feet from my boots.

Cassian looked at the darkness of the service stairs, then down at my face.

He didn't waste time arguing.

He pulled the Glock from his belt and slammed an extra magazine into my palm.

“Two minutes,” he said, his amber eyes burning through the red gloom. “I’ll cover the basement landing. If the valve doesn't turn, you run straight through the coal tunnel to the boathouse. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

We moved.

We dropped down the iron spiral stairs into the darkness of the cellars.

The air down here was freezing, smelling of damp limestone, ancient wine barrels, and the bitter sulfur of cordite drifting down through the floorboards above.

Above us, the house was a war zone.

The heavy, rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* of Vance’s men firing from the upper landing answered the frantic bursts of the attackers’ submachine guns. Glass was raining onto the floors; plaster was falling like dry snow.

We reached the laundry room.

The room was vast, filled with rusted iron tubs, drying frames, and the massive, spider-like network of pipes that fed the boilers.

At the far end, near the concrete foundation wall, sat the auxiliary fuel valve—a red iron wheel covered in grease and dust.

I ran toward it.

Behind me, the door to the wine cellar blew off its hinges.

Two men in black tactical gear and balaclavas stepped through the smoke, their weapons up.

Cassian was already moving.

He didn't fire from behind cover. He stepped directly into the center of the room, his weapon coming up with the lethal, unhurried speed of an executioner. *Crack. Crack.* The first man went down before his boots cleared the threshold. The second lunged behind a concrete pillar, his submachine gun chattering, rounds chewing through the wooden drying racks, showering us with wet linen and splinters.

Cassian took a round to the right shoulder.

The impact spun him back against a cast-iron tub, his breath leaving him in a ragged gasp, but his weapon never wavered. He fired three rounds through the wooden partition, the heavy slugs punching through the pine until a scream cut off into a wet rattle behind the pillar.

“Lydia!” Cassian shouted, his left hand coming up to brace his right wrist, his face gray with agony. “The wheel!”

I grabbed the red iron wheel.

It was frozen.

Years of rust and dried grease had locked the teeth of the gear into the iron casing. I threw my entire weight against it—eighty pounds of fury and eight years of scrubbing floors until my knuckles bled.

It didn't budge.

“Come on,” I sobbed, my palms slipping against the cold metal. “Come on, you bastard!”

Through the broken cellar door, three more men appeared.

They weren't using tactics now; they were swarming, desperate to finish the contract before the state police arrived.

Cassian fired until the slide of his weapon locked back empty.

He dropped the gun, his right arm hanging limp at his side, his left hand reaching for the combat knife sheathed at his belt as the lead attacker raised an assault rifle, aiming directly at Cassian’s chest.

*No.*

I let go of the wheel.

I raised the Glock with both hands, planting my boots into the wet concrete, and squeezed the trigger three times.

The shots were deafening in the low-ceilinged cellar.

The man with the rifle jerked, his chest caving inward, his weapon discharging into the floorboards above before he collapsed across the threshold.

The other two hesitated, their eyes darting from Cassian’s knife to the small, dark-haired woman in the torn cashmere sweater holding a smoking automatic with both hands.

That half-second was all Cassian needed.

He crossed the room like a shadow, his left hand driving the combat knife up under the chin of the second man before the third could even turn his barrel. The third man backed away, his eyes wild with terror, turned, and sprinted back through the cellar corridor toward the river.

Cassian fell against the foundation wall, sliding down until his knees hit the concrete.

Blood—bright, arterial red—was pooling through his shirt from his shoulder.

I dropped the gun.

I didn't run to him. Not yet.

I grabbed the heavy iron wrench lying on the workbench beside the boiler, jammed the teeth into the spokes of the red fuel wheel, and threw my entire body against the lever.

The metal groaned.

A sharp *crack* of breaking rust echoed through the pipes.

The wheel spun.

One turn. Two turns. Three.

Ten seconds later, the earth shook beneath our feet.

The massive twelve-cylinder marine diesel generator in the sub-cellar roared to life with a deep, bone-rattling vibration that surged through the stone walls.

Upstairs, the world turned white.

Through the high basement windows, five thousand watts of high-intensity halogen floodlights blazed into existence, turning the snow-covered grounds of Blackwood Hall from a slaughterhouse into an open stage.

The sirens began to wail—the estate’s automated alarm systems screaming out across the Hudson, alerting every coast guard cutter and state trooper barracks within twenty miles.

The gunfire above began to falter.

The attackers, stripped of their darkness, were being systematically eliminated by Vance’s men from the parapets.

I dropped the wrench.

I fell to my knees in the dirt beside Cassian.

His head was leaning back against the cold stone, his eyes half-closed, his breath coming in shallow, wheezing gasps. But when my cold hands touched his face, his amber eyes opened, focusing on me through the haze of shock.

“Did you… did you turn the wheel?” he whispered, a faint, bloody smile touching the corner of his lips.

“I turned it,” I cried, the tears finally breaking through, hot and clean down my soot-stained cheeks. “I turned the wheel, Cassian.”

His left hand came up, heavy and clumsy, his fingers tangling into the front of my sweater, pulling me down until my forehead rested against his good shoulder.

“You’re… you’re very expensive for fourteen dollars an hour, Lydia,” he murmured.