Minutes later, I found the three-year-old son I had hidden in a hospital supply closet curled on the chest of a mafia boss who had stopped breathing

The phone trembled in my palm as David’s face filled the small screen. Two years of grief, anger, and sleepless nights compressed into a glowing four-inch display.

“You’re alive,” I choked out, the words tearing through my throat like broken glass. Tears streamed down my cheeks, hot and uncontrolled. “You bastard. You actually let me bury an empty casket? You let Logan grow up thinking his father was dead while you were hiding in some dark server room?”

“Cathy, please, you have to listen to me,” David pleaded, his eyes shining with unshed tears as he reached toward the camera as if he could touch us through the glass. “If I had stayed, if the Syndicate had known I had a wife and a newborn son, they wouldn’t have just killed me—they would have wiped out our entire family to send a message. Alessandro’s people staged the crash. It was the only way to keep you both safe.”

“Safe?” I yelled, the fury finally boiling over the edge of my sorrow. “We’ve been eating canned soup for days! I’ve been working three jobs while collection agencies harass me day and night! Logan asks about you every single time we pass a playground! That’s your definition of safe?”

Beside me, Alessandro stood quietly, leaning one heavy hand against the concrete wall to support his weight. He didn’t interrupt, watching us with a strange, heavy melancholy in his dark eyes. Viktor stood guard down the hall, periodically peering around the corner to check for pursuers.

“I know, I know, I’m a coward,” David whispered, breaking down as he covered his face with his hands. “Every single day in exile, I wanted to call, I wanted to come back. But Alessandro’s intelligence network intercepted chatter two days ago. The Syndicate found out I survived. They targeted Alessandro to draw me out, and now they’re coming for you, too. You’re not safe in Baltimore anymore. None of us are.”

“Where are you?” I demanded, wiping my face with the back of my hand while keeping a tight grip on Logan.

“An industrial safehouse in the suburbs, twenty miles north,” David said quickly. “Alessandro’s extraction team has an armored van parked in sub-level three right now. Get in the van, Cathy. Let them bring you to me. We’ll explain everything, I swear to God.”

The freight elevator chimed loudly, its heavy steel doors sliding open to reveal a pristine, empty interior.

Alessandro stepped forward, gently placing a hand on my shoulder. His grip was surprisingly firm, yet gentle enough not to alarm Logan.

“He speaks the truth, Mrs. Winters,” Alessandro said quietly. “My men have protected your husband for two years. Now, it’s time to protect all three of you. But we need to move. The Syndicate has breached the ground floor.”

A distant explosion echoed from somewhere above us, followed by the wail of emergency klaxons and the frantic barking of guard dogs. The ceiling dust drifted down like gray snow.

I looked at the phone screen, then up at the mob boss who had bled out and come back to life, and finally down at my son, who was blinking sleepily against my shoulder, entirely unaware of the war raging around us.

“If we get into that van,” I said to Alessandro, my voice hardening into steel, “this war ends tonight. Do you understand me? No more hiding. No more lies.”