1.The crystal chandelier at Il Destino vibrated. Not from an earthquake. Not from the subway rumbling beneath the Manhattan pavement. It was from the lungs of three-year-old Leo Moretti.

The helicopter began to hover two feet off the concrete pad, its skids slowly lifting into the stormy night sky.

“Rico, don't let them take him!” Clara cried out, her heart shattering as she heard Leo’s desperate screams.

Rico knew he couldn't take the shot. The risk of hitting Leo was too high. The helicopter was three feet up… four feet… drifting toward the edge of the sixty-story skyscraper.

“Sal!” Rico screamed, dropping his gun onto the wet roof in a desperate bid to buy time. “Take me! Take me instead of him! I am the capo! I am the one you want!”

Salvatore sneered from the helicopter door. “You’re nothing anymore, Rico! You’re dead!”

As Salvatore turned his back to pull the helicopter door shut, Leo did what he had done six months ago at Il Destino when he was terrified and trapped.

He didn't freeze. He went wild.

Leo bit down with all his small teeth directly into Salvatore’s ear.

Sal screamed in pain, dropping his grip on the boy as his hands flew up to his bleeding head.

Leo slipped through Sal’s arms, falling backward out of the hovering helicopter, tumbling toward the wet roof pad five feet below!

“LEO!” Clara screamed.

Without a single second of hesitation, Clara sprinted across the slippery roof, threw her body forward in a desperate dive, and caught Leo in her arms mid-air, rolling violently across the wet concrete just as the helicopter swerved away into the dark, stormy sky.

Rico sprinted toward them, sliding on his knees, throwing his arms around Clara and Leo, covering them with his own body as the backwash of the helicopter's rotors whipped rain and debris over them.

Above them, the helicopter banked hard to escape. But two miles away, three black military gunships belonging to Rico’s private security network swarmed out of the clouds, surrounding Sal’s chopper, forcing it down onto a naval dock where federal marshals were waiting.

On the roof of the Plaza Hotel, the storm raged, but beneath Rico’s coat, it was completely quiet.

Clara lay on her back, gasping for air, bruised and soaked to the skin, but holding Leo tightly against her chest. The boy was crying softly, his little arms wrapped like iron bands around Clara’s neck.

Rico pulled both of them up into his lap, burying his face into Clara’s wet neck, his powerful body shaking with deep, unstoppable sobs of relief.

“I have you,” Clara whispered, her hands stroking Rico’s wet hair while holding Leo close. “I have you both. You’re safe.”

Rico pulled back, his face streaked with rain and tears. He looked at Clara—the woman who had sprinted into danger, who had thrown herself onto concrete without a thought for her own life, just to save his son.

He kissed her.

It wasn't a tentative kiss. It was a fierce, breathtaking, desperate kiss that declared total devotion, promising a lifetime of love, protection, and peace.

When he finally pulled back, Leo squeezed between them, placing his tiny wet hand over both of their linked hands.