"Say Sorry to My Mommy,"" the Maid's Heartbroken Toddler Told the Ruthless Mafia Boss — He Went Silent The gun was still shaking in his oldest friend's hand when the little girl's voice came through the phone — three words, barely a whisper, spoken from the backseat of a car speeding toward a warehouse no child should ever see.

Muzzle flashes strobed through the darkness like violent lightning. Damiano moved with lethal, practiced precision, using the massive marble pillars as cover. Two of Marco’s mercenaries dropped before they could even switch their night-vision optics on.

"Flank him!" Marco’s enraged roar cut through the gunfire. "Check the cellar! Get the girl!"

The word girl sent a surge of ice through Damiano's veins. He broke cover, firing two double-taps into the third guard's chest, charging toward the service corridor.

He didn't care about the port. He didn't care about the billions in offshore accounts. His entire focus narrowed to a singular point: the safe room behind the wine cellar.

He reached the heavy iron door of the cellar, panting, the smell of cordite thick in the air. He keyed in the biometric code. The heavy steel door slid back with a hiss of pressurized air.

The room was illuminated by red emergency backup lights.

The cot was empty.

On the concrete floor lay a single object: the one-eared stuffed rabbit, its fabric torn and stained with a fresh streak of engine grease.

Beside it lay a shattered radio transmitter.

"No," Damiano whispered, his heart slamming against his ribs with a violence he had never experienced in any gunfight.

He scrambled to the table and checked the internal security logs. Elena and Lucia hadn't been captured in the safe room—they had never made it inside. The service elevator had been overridden from the main breaker panel ten minutes ago, diverted to the underground garage.

Damiano's satellite phone buzzed violently in his pocket. He ripped it out and pressed it to his ear.

"Looking for your family, Don Conti?" Marco’s voice sneered through the speaker, accompanied by the loud roar of a supercharged V8 engine and the whistling of high-speed wind.

"If you touch a hair on either of them, Marco," Damiano said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it didn't sound human, "I will burn every city you ever set foot in."

"Save the poetry, brother," Marco chuckled darkly. "We're heading to Pier 44. You have twenty minutes to bring the physical master drives from your office safe. If you're one minute late, I introduce the little girl to the Hudson River."