BENEATH THE MARBLE AND BLOOD: THE DELIVERY DRIVER WHO BROUGHT A MAFIA EMPIRE TO ITS KNEES

"How did they find this clinic?!" I shouted, drawing the pistol from my belt as the glass monitors on the desk shattered from stray rifle fire raking the exterior siding of the building.

"Someone on the council talked," Dominic growled, pulling an automatic submachine gun from a recessed compartment beneath the desk and racking the slide with a sharp metallic clack. "Leo! Lock down the medical bay! Seal the titanium blast doors!"

Through the intercom, Dr. Leo’s frantic voice responded: "Doors sealed, boss! Your mother has thirty minutes of independent oxygen in there. But the structural perimeter won't hold against sustained C4!"

"They aren't here to blow the place," Dominic muttered, his jaw set like granite. "They know you're here, Avery. Vanessa saw how you fought. She ran straight to her father, and Marcus isn't stupid. He knew Thomas had a daughter who could have inherited the cipher."

Heavy gunfire erupted in the loading bay outside our office. Dominic’s loyal dock guards were fighting back, but they were vastly outgunned. Through the narrow slit of reinforced ballistic glass, I saw Marcus Whitmore. He was a silver-haired man in his late fifties, dressed in a cashmere overcoat, calmly watching the slaughter while smoking a cigar.

Beside him stood Vanessa. She wasn't wearing her cream evening gown anymore. She wore a sleek black tactical jacket, her face twisted into a mask of pure, sadistic triumph.

"Dominic!" Vanessa’s amplified voice echoed through the compound via a bullhorn. "Come out, darling! Deliver the little gutter rat to my father, and we might let you keep your title as head of the family! Refuse, and we burn this entire wharf into the lake!"

"She really hates me," I remarked, ducking low as a burst of 5.56 rounds tore through the drywall above our heads, raining plaster dust down on my shoulders.

Dominic glanced at me, a sudden, lethal grin playing on his lips. "She hates anyone who refuses to bow. Can you shoot as well as you throw a kick, Avery?"

"My dad was a sniper before he was a security chief," I said coldly, ejecting the magazine of my 9mm, checking the spring, and slamming it back home with the heel of my palm. "Give me a sightline."

"Follow my lead."

Dominic kicked open the reinforced side door, immediately firing three controlled bursts down the catwalk. Two of Whitmore's mercenaries dropped from the upper scaffolding, their weapons clattering against the concrete floor forty feet below.

I slipped out beneath his arm, dropping into a low combat crouch behind a row of heavy shipping crates.

Through the haze of gun smoke and rain drifting through the blown-out bay doors, I spotted a sniper setting up a bipod on top of a shipping container near the entrance. He had an angle that looked directly into the medical bay's reinforcement vents.

I didn't think. I raised the suppressed pistol with both hands, exhaled half a breath, aligned the glowing night sights between his shoulder blades, and squeezed the trigger twice.

The sniper jerked violently, tumbled over the edge of the container, and crashed into an empty flatbed truck.

"Nice shot," Dominic called out over the roar of gunfire.

"You're in my way, Moretti!" I yelled back, sprinting across the catwalk toward the crane controls. "I'm cutting off their exit!"

If they brought down the clinic, my mother was dead. That single thought burned away every ounce of fear, replacing it with cold, calculating venom. I leaped across an open gap between two platforms, grabbing the steel railing and pulling myself up into the crane cabin.

Below, Vanessa saw me through the glass. Her face contorted with rage. "Kill her! Focus fire on the crane!"

Dozens of red laser sights snapped toward my position.

I slammed my hand onto the emergency release lever of the overhead industrial crane.

A five-ton steel shipping container, suspended fifty feet in the air above the main bay entrance, dropped like a meteor.

It hit the concrete directly between Marcus Whitmore's main assault vehicle and the entrance, crushing the hood of an armored truck with a thunderous, earth-shaking roar. The shockwave blew the surrounding gunmen off their feet, throwing up a cloud of pulverized dust and sparks.

The primary assault corridor was completely blocked.

"Avery, down!" Dominic roared.

I dove out of the cabin just as a rocket-propelled grenade struck the crane tower behind me. The explosion was a blinding flash of orange heat, the concussive force throwing me over the catwalk railing.

I fell through empty air—

And slammed hard into a stack of heavy canvas tarps on the lower level, knocking the breath from my lungs in an agonizing gasp.

Pain spiked through my collarbone. I rolled onto my back, gasping for air, the world spinning in wild circles of smoke and fire.

Through the haze, a figure stepped over me.

Vanessa Whitmore.