The Mafia Boss's Baby Would Only Stop Crying in My Arms—Until He Looked at My Badge and Discovered My Brother's Fatal Secret

The darkness in the Drake Hotel ballroom lasted only five seconds before emergency back-up strobes bathed the chaos in flashing white light. Screams echoed off the high ceilings as high-society guests dove beneath banquet tables, shattering champagne flutes across the polished parquet.

Daniel reacted before the first shell casing hit the floor.

In one fluid motion, he wrapped his left arm around my waist, lifting me off my feet, while his right hand drew his concealed sidearm from beneath his tuxedo jacket. Three suppressed shots cracked from his weapon. Across the room, two masked gunmen attempting to breach the VIP mezzanine collapsed instantly.

"Luca! Rear service corridor—now!" Daniel roared into his lapel communicator.

"Daniel, Marcus is running!" I shouted, pointing toward the eastern fire exit where Marcus, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries in private tactical gear, was slipping through the panic.

"Let him run to his car," Daniel growled, shielding my body with his own as glass rained down from a shattered mirror behind us. "He thinks he has an escape route to the airfield. We take him on the road where no civilians get hurt."

We burst through the heavy steel kitchen exit into the subterranean loading dock. Luca was already waiting, tires screeching as the reinforced, armored black Cadillac Escalade slid to a halt beside us.

"Boss! Get in!" Luca yelled, holding the rear door open with an automatic rifle raised.

Daniel pushed me into the reinforced leather interior, diving in right behind me as bullets sparked off the ballistic door frame. Luca slammed the heavy door shut and the driver floored the accelerator, tearing out of the subterranean garage into the torrential downpour flooding Lake Shore Drive.

The Chicago skyline was blurred behind sheets of gray, wind-whipped rain. The black waters of Lake Michigan churned violently to our right.

"Where is the secondary team?" Daniel demanded, racking the slide of a fresh magazine.

"Ambushed at the south intersection, Boss," the driver shouted over the roar of the supercharged engine. "Two heavy rigs are boxing us in from the rear!"

I looked through the heavily tinted, bulletproof rear windshield. Two massive, blacked-out commercial trucks were accelerating aggressively through the rain, their high beams blinding in the rearview mirrors.

Suddenly, the lead truck slammed into our rear bumper with bone-jarring force.

The Escalade fishtailed across the slick asphalt, tires screaming as the driver fought the steering wheel. My head whipped sideways, but Daniel’s massive arm caught me, pulling me hard against his chest and pinning me securely against the reinforced leather seat.

"Hold onto me!" Daniel ordered, his voice steady despite the chaos.

The second truck pulled alongside our passenger side, the side door sliding open to reveal two mercenaries wielding heavy-caliber automatic shotguns.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Heavy lead slugs slammed into our passenger windows, spiderwebbing the ballistic glass into opaque white fractures. The impact sent violent shockwaves through the vehicle chassis.

"Return fire!" Daniel shouted.

Luca hit the window control, lowering the armored slit by two inches, and fired three precise bursts from his tactical carbine. The driver of the adjacent truck slumped over the wheel, and the massive vehicle veered wildly out of control, smashing through the concrete highway barrier and plunging into the icy, churning black waters of Lake Michigan in an explosion of spray.

"One down!" Luca yelled.

Suddenly, a blinding flash illuminated the rain ahead. A third vehicle—Marcus’s armored Mercedes sedan—had executed a sharp J-turn across the northbound lanes, blocking the exit ramp to Sheridan Road.

Marcus stood behind the open armored door of his sedan, raising a shoulder-mounted anti-materiel launcher aimed directly at our engine block.

"Hold on!" our driver screamed, slamming the brakes.

The projectile launched with a deafening whoosh, streaking through the rain and striking the front left wheel well of our Escalade.

The explosion was deafening. The front end of our vehicle lifted three feet into the air. The heavy SUV slammed back down, spinning violently three hundred and sixty degrees across the flooded highway before crashing hard against the retaining wall of the Sheridan Road overpass.

Smoke and deployed white airbag powder filled the cabin.

I coughed, my ears ringing with a high-pitched whine. My left shoulder throbbed with sharp pain where it had struck the door armrest, and my crimson dress was torn along the hem.

"Rachel!" Daniel’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears. His hands were all over me, checking my neck, my arms, my face with frantic, desperate precision. "Look at me. Are you hit? Are you bleeding?"

"I’m okay... I’m okay," I gasped, blinking through the smoke. "Daniel, your head—"

A streak of crimson was running down his left temple from a laceration near his hairline, but he didn't even blink. His gray eyes burned with a lethal, terrifying clarity.

Outside, the heavy rain hammered against the warped roof. Footsteps splashed rapidly through the puddles.

"Luca, driver—status," Daniel whispered, his voice dropping into a deadly, focused calm.

"Concussion, but mobile, Boss," Luca groaned from the front seat, blood dripping from his nose as he raised his carbine. "Driver is unconscious, but breathing."

"Stay down with Rachel," Daniel ordered, unholstering two handguns. "I’m ending this."

"Daniel, no!" I grabbed his sleeve, terrified. "There are too many of them!"

Daniel paused. He turned to me in the smoking interior of the wrecked SUV. He reached out, his bloody thumb wiping away a smudge of soot from my cheek, and leaned down to press a fierce, passionate, bruising kiss to my lips.