“Listen, kid. Heal my twins and I’ll adopt you.” I said it to the barefoot homeless boy as a cruel joke in front of three hundred wealthy guests. I was Richard Vale, the most powerful Mafia boss in America, a man who could make almost anything happen with one phone call, but when Noah calmly placed his hands on my children’s knees, my daughter suddenly whispered, “Daddy… I can feel it.”

The night exploded into pure chaos.

Convoy after convoy of dark SUVs smashed through the destroyed front gates, their tires tearing up the manicured lawns. Over a hundred of Morello’s hired mercenaries poured out of the vehicles, firing heavy automatic weapons into the facade of the mansion. The sound of shattered glass and splintering stone echoed across the valley like endless thunder.

"Fire!" I roared into my radio.

My men on the roof and upper terraces opened fire with devastating precision. The darkness of the lawn was lit up by crisscrossing streams of bright tracer rounds. Explosions rocked the driveway as Morello’s men tried to push toward the grand entrance, only to be cut down by our automated defense systems.

I stood behind the thick oak doors of the main foyer, firing my sidearm through the reinforced viewport, dropping two approaching attackers with clean shots.

For thirty minutes, the grounds of Vale Manor turned into a war zone. Smoke filled the cool night air, smelling of burnt cordite, melted rubber, and copper. My men held the line with brutal efficiency, pushing back three separate waves of Morello’s offensive.

However, Morello hadn't just brought foot soldiers.

A heavy armored personnel carrier—a stolen military vehicle equipped with a battering ram—roared up the main driveway, ignoring the rifle fire bouncing off its thick steel plates. It smashed directly through the grand oak doors of the foyer, collapsing the archway in a shower of marble dust and splintered wood.

The impact threw me back across the floor. I crashed into the base of the grand staircase, my vision flashing white, my breath knocked completely out of my lungs.

Through the cloud of white plaster dust, the rear doors of the armored vehicle hissed open. Out stepped Don Morello, wearing a long trench coat, flanked by four towering bodyguards holding heavy shotguns.

Morello stepped over the rubble, a cruel, triumph smile spreading across his aged, scarred face. He held a custom gold-plated revolver in his right hand.

"Richard!" Morello shouted, his voice echoing through the ruined, smoke-filled hall. "You fought well, old friend! But you made a fatal mistake! You let your heart get soft over a beggar child!"

I pushed myself up off the floor, coughing out dust, my left arm bleeding from a flying stone fragment. I reached for my dropped pistol, but one of Morello's bodyguards stepped on my wrist, kicking the weapon away across the ruined marble.

Morello stepped up to me, pressing the cold steel barrel of his gold revolver directly against my forehead.

"Where is the boy, Richard?" Morello sneered, his breath smelling of stale cigars and cheap liquor. "Tell me where his cell is, and I might let your wife and biological kids live as my servants."

I looked up into the eyes of the man who had tortured Noah, who had kept an eight-year-old child in a cage and tried to cut him open. Despite the gun against my head, despite the blood dripping down my arm, a slow, terrifying laugh began to rumble deep in my chest.

Morello frowned, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger. "What's so funny, Vale?"

"You came into my house, Morello," I whispered, wiping the blood from my mouth with my free hand. "You brought a hundred men. You blew up my gates. You ruined my foyer..."