Seven bullets were still inside my body when Dominic Rossi married me, and I didn’t even know it was happening. While surgeons questioned whether my heart could survive another operation, New York’s most feared crime boss slipped a gold ring onto my swollen finger and told my unconscious body, “Anybody who comes for you comes through me.”

The sky over Brooklyn was the color of bruised iron when our convoy of eight blacked-out suburban SUVs pulled up to the perimeter fence of the Red Hook Shipping Terminal.

The fog rolling off the East River was thick, wrapping the rusting shipping containers and crane towers in a ghostly white shroud.

Dominic sat beside me in the lead vehicle, checking the action on his custom silver Colt .45 pistol. He was wearing a dark wool overcoat over a Kevlar vest, looking like a grim reaper rising out of the sea mist.

"You stay in the second armored vehicle with Marco until the main building is clear," Dominic ordered, reaching over to adjust the bulletproof vest he had insisted I wear under my dark jacket. "Do you understand me, Clara? You don't step foot onto that tarmac until I give the clear signal."

I reached out, grabbing the lapels of his heavy coat, pulling him down until his eyes were inches from mine.

"Don't die out there, Dominic," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I haven't even decided if I like being married to you yet."

Dominic grinned—a fierce, wild expression—and pressed his lips hard against mine in a hot, fierce kiss that tasted of mint, leather, and gunpowder.

"I’ll survive," he murmured against my mouth. "I have a wife to take care of."

He kicked open the SUV door, stepping out into the cold morning air as twelve of his men surged forward behind him, cutting the chain-link perimeter fence with heavy steel shears.

Within ten seconds, the quiet morning air exploded into violent, deafening chaos.

Heavy automatic gunfire ripped through the fog. Tracers carved bright orange lines through the gray light as Costa’s guards on the shipping container towers opened fire.

Dominic moving like a force of nature, firing his heavy pistol with lethal, mechanical accuracy, advancing through the maze of steel containers while his men flanked the perimeter with suppressive fire.

I sat in the back of the armored SUV, my fingers clutching the dashboard, watching through the reinforced glass as flashes of gunfire lit up the dark windows of the main administrative building at the end of the pier.

Twenty minutes of relentless, terrifying battle raged across the dock.

Finally, the radio on Marco’s shoulder crackled to life with Dominic’s heavy, breathing voice.

“Building is secure. Bring her up.”

Marco nodded, opening my door. "Time to go, Mrs. Rossi."

I stepped out onto the slick, rain-soaked asphalt, walking through the haze of gunsmoke and shattered glass toward the main office building. Bodies lay scattered across the tarmac, but every single man standing bore the Rossi family crest on their lapels.

I walked up the concrete stairs to the third-floor executive office.

The heavy steel doors had been blown off their hinges by explosive charges. Inside, the room was destroyed—bookshelves turned over, windows shattered, bullet holes riddling the mahogany paneling.

Sitting in a leather chair in the center of the room, his hands zip-tied behind his back, his face bruised and bleeding, was Victor Costa.

Dominic stood beside him, holding his silver pistol at his side, looking like an emperor standing over a fallen rival.

"Clara Vance," Costa spat, looking up at me with yellowed, bloodshot eyes, coughing up dark blood onto his silk tie. "The accountant’s little bastard child. You think this changes anything? My family owns half the judges in this state! You'll both be in federal prison by nightfall!"

I walked right up to Costa, stopping two feet from his chair. I didn't feel fear anymore. I didn't feel small.

I reached down, pulling out the silver vault drive my father had left behind, and slotted it into the terminal wall behind his desk.

The screen flashed blue, displaying a biometric thumbprint scanner.

I placed my thumb on the glass.

CLICK.

A green light flashed, and a heavy iron wall panel slid open, revealing a steel safe crammed with ledger books, bonds, and stacks of banded cash—the fifteen million dollars my father had stolen to protect my mother and me.

I turned back to look at Victor Costa.

"My father wasn't a mobster, Mr. Costa," I said, my voice cold and clear as crystal ice. "He was a man who tried to protect his family from monsters like you. And today, the debt is settled."

I turned to look at Dominic.

Dominic didn't say a word. He slowly raised his pistol, aiming it directly between Victor Costa’s eyes.