The Mafia Baby Was Starving Until the Maid Did the One Thing His Father Had Been Too Broken to Understand

The peace of the third floor lasted exactly forty-eight hours.

At 3:00 a.m. on Thursday, the mansion’s secondary silent alarms were tripped. Not at the main gate, but from the water. Three black zodiac boats had slipped through the darkness of the Atlantic, grounding themselves on the rocky beach directly below the cliffs.

Hunter was awake before the first gunshot echoed from the terrace.

She scrambled out of bed, grabbing Leo from his crib and pulling him into her arms just as the heavy oak door of her suite was thrown open.

Mateo stood there, his face streaked with black greasepaint and blood from a shallow cut on his cheek. "We’ve got a massive breach, Hunter! It’s the Kensingtons and the last of the Moretti old guard. They’ve bypassed the perimeter sensors through a mole in the security team. We need to move now!"

"Where’s Lorenzo?" Hunter shrieked, holding Leo tight against her chest as the sound of automatic gunfire erupted from the grand staircase down the hall.

"He’s leading the defense at the main entryway," Mateo said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the hidden service elevator behind the linen closet. "He told me to get you and the boy to the harbor bunker. Move!"

They ran down the narrow, reinforced concrete corridor behind the walls, the sounds of the battle above them muffled but terrifying. The entire house seemed to vibrate with the force of explosions—grenades or flashbangs tearing through the marble halls she had spent weeks cleaning.

As they reached the heavy steel doors of the underground harbor bunker, a shadow stepped out from the darkness of the generator room.

It was one of the new security guards—the mole. He had a submachine gun leveled straight at Mateo’s chest.

Rat-tat-tat.

The gunfire was deafening in the confined space. Mateo took three rounds to the torso, his body crashing heavily against the concrete floor, his gun slipping from his fingers as he let out a ragged groan.

The mole turned the barrel toward Hunter, a cold, professional smile on his face. "Give me the kid, girl. The Kensingtons want the heir. You can walk out of here alive if you just hand him over."

Hunter backed up against the cold concrete wall, her body completely enveloping Leo, her teeth clenched. She looked down at Mateo’s bleeding body, then at the gun pointed at her face.

She didn't have a weapon. She didn't have a crew. But she had the spirit of a mother who had already lost one child to violence, and she would not let them take another.