A 7-Year-Old Girl Sat Frozen Outside The Mafia Boss's Tower — Then She Said Six Words That Made The Devil Stop His Car

Leo swung his pistol upward, aiming directly at Julian's chest. "Stay back! I'll put a hole in you! I swear to God I'll—"

Julian didn't flinch. He didn't duck. With a speed that seemed impossible for a man his age, his left hand shot out, wrapping around the slide of the pistol. He twisted his wrist with cold, mechanical force. There was a sickening crack of breaking bone, followed instantly by Leo's shriek of agony as the gun clattered to the floor, Julian holding the magazine in his palm.

Julian dropped the magazine, seized Leo by the throat, and slammed him backward against the steel pillar with enough force to rattle the roof beams.

"Seven years ago," Julian whispered, his face inches from Leo's pale, trembling snout, "your uncle broke the rule. He brought violence to my home. He brought death to my wife. Do you remember what I did to your uncle?"

Leo couldn't speak; his throat was crushed under Julian's iron grip. He could only nod frantically, tears of pain streaming down his face.

"I left him with nothing," Julian said softly. "I took his empire, I took his name, and I let him spend the rest of his miserable life in a maximum-security cell thinking about his mistake. You thought because I stopped killing people, I forgot how."

Julian squeezed tighter. Leo's legs began to kick air uselessly.

"Julian... please..." Naomi's voice came weak and trembling from the chair behind them. "Don't... don't kill him in front of me. Pearl... Pearl said you had rules."

Julian paused. The lethal intensity in his gray eyes flickered. He looked over his shoulder at Naomi, bloody and bruised, but standing tall in spirit. He remembered the little girl sitting on his leather couch sixty floors above the city, holding her brother's hand.

He's not a good man. But he has rules.

Julian let out a slow, heavy breath. He loosened his grip. Leo collapsed to the floor like a sack of wet flour, clutching his throat and gasping for oxygen.

Julian turned to Marcus. "Hand him over to the federal authorities. Attach the full dossier on the Syndicate's shipping routes. Make sure the U.S. Attorney gets it directly from my office tonight. Leo will spend the next forty years in a Federal prison."

Marcus nodded. "And the Iron Works?"

"Burn it," Julian said coldly. "Leave nothing."

Julian walked over to Naomi. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small pearl-handled pocket knife, and sliced through the heavy zip-ties securing her wrists.

Naomi collapsed forward, but Julian caught her before she hit the ground, supporting her weight just as he had done for her children an hour earlier.

"Are they..." Naomi gasped, grabbing his lapel with trembling fingers. "Pearl... Jonah..."

"They are warm," Julian said, his voice softening into something genuine and real. "They are fed. They are waiting for you at the top of the tower."