88Their Marriage Was Never Supposed to Produce an Heir—Until the Mafia Boss Noticed His Wife’s Morning Sickness

Dawn broke over Lake Michigan in shades of bruised purple and grey.

At 6:15 AM, the first gunshot shattered the quiet of the Lake Forest estate.

It was not a pistol shot. It was the heavy, thundering crack of a high-caliber sniper rifle firing from the tree line two hundred yards away.

The bullet struck the thick granite pillar near the front portico, showering the cobblestone driveway with sharp stone splinters.

Inside the second-floor master suite, Adeline was thrown back onto the mahogany bed as Cassian tackled her, his heavy body completely covering hers as a second bullet shattered the outer pane of the bulletproof glass window, spider-webbing the thick glass into a dense white grid.

"Stay down!" Cassian roared.

Shouts, rapid automatic gunfire, and the heavy thud of boots exploded across the ground floor below.

Ezra Cain burst into the room, his white shirt stained with fresh blood across the left shoulder, an automatic carbine held tight in his right hand.

"Marcus’s men!" Ezra yelled over the deafening noise of gunfire echoing from the foyer. "Thirty men! They rammed the southern security gate with a garbage truck! They’re inside the courtyard!"

Cassian pulled himself off Adeline. He reached into his overcoat, pulled out two heavy black semi-automatic pistols, and racked the slides with a sharp, lethal clack.

He looked down at Adeline, who was sitting up on the bed, her face pale but her dark eyes completely clear and unblinking.

"Ezra," Cassian ordered, his voice smooth and cold as ice. "Take her through the secondary service tunnel beneath the wine cellar. Get her to the dock house. Thomas is waiting with the speed launch."

"No," Adeline said, stepping off the bed.

Cassian turned his head, glaring at her. "Adeline, this is not a negotiation!"

"You have six men downstairs and three on the terrace," Adeline said, her voice sharp, crisp, and authoritative as a chief nurse running a trauma bay. "Two of them are already wounded—I can hear the rhythm of their fire dropping. If Ezra takes me to the dock house now, you will be surrounded on the second floor within four minutes."

She walked over to Ezra, reached into his tactical vest, and pulled out a small emergency medical kit and a roll of heavy gauze.

"Ezra, your subclavian artery is intact, but your deltoid is torn," she said, wrapping the gauze around his shoulder with fierce, practiced speed, tying it off with a sharp knot. "Pressure applied. You have twenty minutes before motor control degrades."

Ezra blinked, staring at her in absolute shock.

Cassian stared at her for two long seconds. Then a faint, terrifying grin—the first real smile she had ever seen on his face—curled the edge of his thin lips.

"You are a terrifying woman, Mrs. Raldi," Cassian said.

"I am a nurse, Mr. Raldi," she replied, grabbing a heavy wool coat from the closet. "Now give me a weapon."

Cassian handed her a small, sleek silver pistol from his holster. "Do you know how to use it?"

"I spent three years working the night shift in Englewood," Adeline said, checking the magazine with a smooth, professional click. "I know where to aim so people stop moving."

They moved out into the second-floor hallway.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of cordite, drywall dust, and copper. Below, in the grand foyer, Marcus Raldi’s men were pushing through the heavy oak front doors, firing wildly up the marble staircase.

Marcus stood in the center of the courtyard, wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, a heavy revolver in his hand, screaming orders like a madman.

"Kill Cassian!" Marcus bellowed, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Find the woman! Bring me her head! Fifty thousand to the man who brings me the nurse!"

Cassian stepped to the top of the marble landing.

He did not hide behind the pillars. He did not duck.

He stood in full view of thirty armed men, immaculate in his charcoal suit, two black pistols raised in his gloved hands.

"Marcus!" Cassian’s voice boomed through the shattered house like the judgment of an angry god.

Marcus froze, looking up at the landing.

Cassian fired.

Two shots rang out in rapid succession. The two men standing on either side of Marcus collapsed onto the marble floor, shot precisely through the throat.

The remaining attackers wavered, terrified by the sheer, cold lethality of the man standing at the top of the stairs.

Then Adeline stepped beside Cassian.

She did not fire at the men. She raised her silver pistol, pointed it at the heavy crystal chandelier hanging directly above Marcus’s head, and pulled the trigger three times.

The heavy steel mounting bracket shattered.

The two-ton crystal chandelier detached from the ceiling, plunging down through fifty feet of empty space like a falling mountain of glass and iron.

It struck the marble floor directly in front of Marcus with a deafening, terrifying CRASH.

Tons of lead crystal, brass, and iron exploded outward, showering Marcus and his remaining men with thousands of razor-sharp glass shrapnel. Marcus screamed as a three-foot iron scrollwork arm pinned his legs to the floor, crushing his knees into blood and white bone powder.

The remaining attackers threw down their weapons and fled through the shattered southern gate, running into the foggy woods like terrified rats.

Silence descended over the ruined villa.

The acrid smell of gunpowder drifted through the air, slow and heavy.

Cassian walked down the wide marble staircase, his leather shoes crunching over broken crystal. He stopped beside Marcus, who lay groaning on the floor, his face covered in blood, his legs pinned beneath two tons of shattered iron.