“Look behind the painting, Mr. Whitmore,” the little girl whispered—and what the Mafia Boss found there made him question the woman he planned to marry.

Two days later. Brooklyn, New York.

The rain had not stopped. It poured over the spires of St. Jude Cathedral, washing down the dark granite walls and turning the surrounding alleyways into rivers of black water.

The cathedral was quiet, its grand stained-glass windows throwing long, crimson shadows across the empty pews.

Ethan stood in the center of the nave, wearing a heavy black trench coat. Beside him stood Vivian, her Glock holstered beneath her dark jacket, her eyes nervously scanning the high vaulted ceilings above.

Below their feet, in the ancient stone crypt beneath the main altar, lay the private vault of the Whitmore family—the location revealed by the silver key Vivian had provided.

“Knox’s men monitored the perimeter of your estate,” Vivian whispered, her voice echoing softly in the cavernous space. “How did you know he wouldn't follow us here?”

“Oh, he followed us,” Ethan said calmly, looking down at his watch. 2:15 AM. “I left a trail a blind man could follow. Knox thinks he’s hunting two fugitives desperate to retrieve blackmail documents.”

“Ethan...” Vivian said, her hand drifting toward her holster. “If Knox brought his full strike force, we are outnumbered ten to one.”

“In business, Vivian, numbers matter,” Ethan said, turning toward the massive oak entrance doors of the cathedral. “In war, positioning is everything.”

CRACK!

The heavy iron-reinforced doors of the cathedral were blown inward with a deafening explosion of wood splinters and stone dust.

Eight tactical operatives in heavy body armor flooded into the church, their weapons raised, setting up an impenetrable perimeter along the central aisle. Behind them walked Knox, his face illuminated by the flashing red lights of the emergency vehicles parked down the street.

“You should have taken the flight to Jersey, Ethan,” Knox called out, his voice echoing off the stone arches. “You always had your father’s pride, but you never had his foresight.”

Ethan did not move. He stood calmly by the altar, his hands resting casually inside his coat pockets.

“My father was a coward, Knox,” Ethan responded, his voice clear and ringing through the sanctuary. “He built an empire of glass and sat inside it waiting for the stones to fall. He let you run his life, he locked his wife away, and he raised me on a mountain of lies.”

Knox smiled—a cold, yellow-toothed expression. “Your father was a pragmatist. He understood that loyalty is an illusion kept alive by fear and cash. Your mother wanted to hand the syndicate over to the European Commission. She would have destroyed everything we built!”

“And what did you do with her, Knox?” Ethan asked, his eyes locking onto his former security chief. “Is she still in Zurich?”

Knox chuckled darkly, raising his suppressed pistol. “She’s wherever dead traitors go, Ethan. Just like you and Miss Hart are about to be.”

Knox raised his hand to signal his men to execute the hit.

“Now!” Knox ordered.

None of his men fired.

Knox frowned, looking left and right. The eight tactical operatives standing along the aisle remained completely motionless, their red laser sights dropping from Ethan’s chest down to the stone floor.

From the shadows of the side chapels, twenty heavily armed men in unmarked gray combat gear stepped out, quietly placing the muzzles of their weapons against the backs of Knox’s operatives’ heads.

Stepping out from behind the high altar was a tall man in his late fifties, with steel-gray hair and a flawless Italian suit—Don Carlo Vance, the supreme head of the European syndicate.