The maid’s little boy confessed to breaking the dead woman’s music box, and the mafia boss’s son suddenly burst into tears

The drainage tunnel was freezing.

Elena’s shoes filled with icy, mud-thick water within three steps. She carried Eli on her left hip, his arms clamped around her neck so tightly she could barely breathe, while her right hand gripped Noah’s wrist like an iron band.

Above and behind them, the muffled roar of Viktor’s shotgun echoed through the brick conduit—one, two, three, four blasts—followed by a frantic exchange of automatic fire, and then… silence.

Elena didn't look back. She couldn't.

“Keep moving, Noah,” she whispered through chattering teeth. “Watch your footing. Keep your eyes on the light.”

At the end of the conduit, a faint circle of silver moonlight indicated the outlet. They scrambled through the iron drainage flap, tumbling out into a thick tangle of wet brambles and overgrown rose bushes at the southern edge of the estate.

The night air hit them like a slap. Rain was falling in sheets now, a freezing autumn deluge that whipped through the bare branches of the oak trees.

Fifty yards away, across the manicured lawns of the sunken rose garden, the main mansion blazed with emergency floodlights. Gunfire still echoed from the upper balconies, sharp and sporadic.

“Mama,” Eli whimpered, shivering violently against her chest. “I lost my dinosaur.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Elena gasped, sinking to her knees in the mud behind an ornamental stone wall. “We’ll get another one. Stay down. Both of you, get down in the mulch.”

Noah dropped flat on his stomach, completely ignoring the mud soaking through his sweater. He crawled to the edge of the stone balustrade, peering toward the tree line.

“Elena,” Noah whispered, tugging her sleeve. “Look.”

Elena peered over the wet stone.

Circling the perimeter of the rose garden, moving stealthily through the rhododendrons toward their position, were three men. But they weren't the armored mercenaries who had attacked the house.

Leading them, holding an umbrella in one hand and a silver-plated pistol in the other, was Daniel Cross.

His expensive coat was splattered with mud, his hair disheveled, but his face twisted into a grotesque sneer of triumph. Behind him were two thuggish men in leather jackets, carrying heavy crowbars and sidearms.

“He got out,” Elena whispered in horror. “He broke out of the cellar.”

“He knows about the tunnel,” Noah whispered, his small voice shaking with pure dread. “He used to play hide-and-seek with me down here when I was little. He knew where the drain came out.”

Daniel paused twenty feet away, his loafers sinking into the lawn. He lowered the umbrella slightly, sniffing the damp air like a hunting dog.

“Noah!” Daniel’s voice drifted through the rain, sweet, mocking, and utterly deranged. “Come out, little boy! Your daddy is dead on the terrace! There’s nobody left to save you! Come out, and I promise I won't hurt the maid’s brat!”

Elena felt a surge of rage so intense it burned the cold out of her veins.

She looked around the shadow of the stone wall. Behind them was the rushing, swollen water of the mill creek—too deep, too fast for the children to cross without drowning. Ahead of them was Daniel and two armed killers.

There was no running.

Elena gently placed Eli beside Noah beneath the thick, thorny canopy of the overgrown rose bushes.

“Listen to me,” Elena whispered, her voice dropping into a fierce, absolute command. “Stay under these branches. Do not move. Do not make a sound, no matter what happens. If I run, you stay here. Noah, you are in charge of Eli. Cover his mouth if he cries. Understand?”

Noah looked at her, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears, and nodded slowly. “I will protect him, Elena.”

Elena leaned down and kissed Eli’s cold forehead, then Noah’s cheek.

Then she reached down into the mud and picked up a heavy, jagged piece of ornamental slate that had broken off the garden balustrade. It was eight inches long, heavy, with an edge sharp enough to split wood.

Elena stood up.

She stepped out from behind the stone wall, into the blinding glare of the estate floodlights.