THE MAFIA BOSS'S BETRAYAL: FIVE YEARS TO UNCOVER HIS DEADLY SACRIFICE

I was out of the chair before the last knock finished vibrating against the cheap hollow-core door.

My weapon cleared the holster, aimed dead-center at the peephole. "Maya, stay down," I commanded in a razor-sharp whisper. The little girl pulled the motel blanket over her head, obedient and silent.

"Issa," a voice called from the other side. It wasn't Dante. It was female, husky, and laced with an exhaustingly familiar arrogance. "Put the gun down before you shoot through the wood and blow my tactical vest apart. It's Celeste."

I didn't lower the barrel. I stepped to the side of the doorframe to eliminate their center-of-mass angle. "Step back three paces. Hands interlocked on top of your head. If I open this door and see iron, you die where you stand."

"Fair enough," came the dry response.

I slipped the chain latch off and pulled the door open an inch.

Celeste stood in the flickering green neon light of the motel corridor. She wore dark civilian clothes—a faded canvas jacket, combat boots, and jeans. Her left arm was supported by an orthopedic brace, and her face was lined with deep, gray exhaustion. But her hands were laced tightly behind her head.

I jerked the barrel, signaling her inside, then kicked the door shut, locking every deadbolt.

"Search me if it makes you feel better," Celeste muttered, turning around slowly.

I patted her down with brutal efficiency, stripping a Glock 19 from her lower back and a ceramic blade from her boot before tossing them onto the laminate counter. "You've got thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't put a bullet through your knee."

Celeste didn't flinch. Instead, her eyes drifted past me toward the bed. She caught sight of the small form trembling beneath the covers. A faint, genuine soften broke through her hardened expression.

"She has his curls," Celeste said quietly.

"Don't look at her," I snarled, stepping into her field of view, the pistol pressed firmly against the hollow beneath Celeste's jaw. "Talk."

"Dante didn't send the contractors to Portland, Issa. That was Director Vance—your old boss at Cerberus."

The name hit me like a physical blow. Vance had been the phantom architect of Cerberus. "Vance is dead. He went down in a helicopter crash in the Black Sea four years ago."

"Vance faked his death and took the Sovereign Council's payroll," Celeste hissed, her jaw tightening against my gun barrel. "He turned rogue. For five years, Dante has been hunting him across Europe and South America, dismantling Vance’s syndicate cell by cell. But Vance figured out Dante's fatal weakness."

"Dante has no weaknesses," I countered coldly. "He's a ghost."

"You, you idiot!" Celeste spat, her eyes flashing with sudden, fiery emotion. "You and that little girl! Dante spent five years believing you died in the tunnel fire. He found the blood on the stones. He went completely insane, Issa. He turned into an unkillable butcher because he thought he had nothing left to lose. But two weeks ago, a satellite intercept from Portland pinged a Cerberus decryption routine. Vance realized you were alive. And he realized that if he captured you, he could bring Dante Moretti to his knees without firing a single shot."

My pulse hammered against my ribs. "The dock in Long Island. I saw him with Rostov."

"Rostov was an ambush!" Celeste pressed forward, ignoring the steel digging into her skin. "Dante lured Rostov's remnants to that dock to execute them and seize Vance’s shipping manifests. We intercepted the strike team Vance dispatched to your house, but we were two hours too late. Dante thought they had already murdered you again."

"Where is he now?" I demanded, my voice cracking slightly.

"He went to the lion's den," Celeste said, her voice dropping into a desperate, grim register. "He offered himself as a trade to Vance at the old ironworks in Newark. He thinks Vance has you in a holding cell. He gave Vance a four-hour window to surrender his family before he detonates the entire facility with himself inside."

She pulled a cracked tactical stopwatch from her pocket. The digital display blinked in red LED numbers: