The room exploded into movement. Four of my enforcers, including Frank Miller, instinctively unholstered their sidearms as Emily reached her bare hand directly toward Noah’s chest.

"They're inside!" Frank shouted, taking a defensive position by the stairwell door as high-powered rifle rounds began ripping through the drywall of the corridor outside. TAC-TAC-TAC-TAC!

"Emily, get the doctor into the inner vault!" I barked, grabbing a fallen guard’s tactical rifle from the floor and tossing it to Frank.

"I'm not leaving without that server drive!" Emily shouted back, running straight toward the main terminal on the lab counter. She plugged her USB drive into the console, her fingers moving across the keyboard at lightning speed. "I can pull the encrypted ledger from this terminal if I have three minutes!"

"You have two!" I yelled, stepping out into the hallway and opening fire on three masked hitmen advancing up the stairs.

The firefight was intense, the smell of cordite and shattered glass filling the sterile air. Tactical rounds shredded the glass partitions, showering the room in sparkling shards.

Anthony Moretti—Salvatore’s ruthless twenty-eight-year-old son—stepped into the hallway wearing a Kevlar vest, holding a suppressed assault rifle.

"Carter!" Anthony screamed over the gunfire. "You should have stayed home and buried your bastard baby! You're out of your depth!"

Rage—pure, unadulterated mafia rage—ignited in my veins. I stepped out from behind a concrete pillar, completely unconcerned with the bullets biting into the wall around me, and fired four precise shots into Anthony’s legs and shoulders.

Anthony collapsed onto the slick floor with a agonizing shriek, dropping his rifle.

I walked over to him, kicked his weapon down the stairwell, and grabbed him by his hair, dragging his bleeding body across the broken glass into the main lab room.

"Download complete!" Emily called out, snapping her USB drive out of the terminal.

I dumped Anthony onto the floor in front of Emily and Dr. Vance.

"Look at him, Anthony," I said, pressing my boot onto his shattered knee. "Look at the woman who saved the baby you tried to murder."

Anthony gasped for air, glaring up at Emily with bloody teeth. "You... you little maid bitch..."

Emily walked over, picked up a heavy stainless-steel tray from the counter, and slammed it across Anthony’s face with all her strength, knocking him instantly unconscious.