A Little Girl Noticed Something Nobody Else Did About My Medication—Then One Silver Cap Revealed Who Had Been Poisoning Me.

Damian moved faster than thought.

Before the woman could press the button on the detonator, Damian closed the distance, his large hand wrapping around her wrist like a vise and twisting it upward. The black device flew out of her hand, skittering across the smooth concrete floor.

Marco lunged, pinning the woman’s other arm behind her back.

"Get off me!" she hissed, struggling against Marco’s massive grip.

Damian reached out, his thumb catching the edge of her jawline near her ear. He pulled back firmly. A thin, flesh-colored silicon strip peeled away from her skin, revealing a faint, jagged scar running down her cheek.

Mara gasped.

The woman standing before them wasn't Elena Volkov.

She was Nadia Moretti—Elena’s younger cousin and a senior lieutenant in the rival Moretti crime family.

"Where is my wife, Nadia?" Damian growled, his face inches from hers, his voice holding enough menace to freeze blood.

Nadia spat at his feet, laughing weakly despite the pain in her wrist. "She's right where you left her, Damian! Deep under the water at the bottom of the cliffs!"

"Liar," Damian said coldly. "Elena’s body was never found because she survived that night. And you've been using her name to dismantle my business from the inside."

"You think I did this alone?" Nadia sneered, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Who do you think gave me the biometric thumbprint to unlock your library, Damian? Who do you think gave me the poison for your medicine?"

Nadia slowly turned her eyes toward Julian Vance, who was still sitting bound in the chair behind them.

Julian’s face went completely ghost-white. He scrambled backward in his chair, his boots scraping wildly against the concrete. "Damian! She's lying! I didn't give her anything! I was forced—"

Before Julian could finish his sentence, the heavy steel vault door behind them suddenly slammed shut with a deafening hydraulic boom.

The emergency red lights flashed to life, bathing the sub-basement in a blood-red glow. An automated electronic voice echoed from the security panel:

"CONTAINMENT BREACH DETECTED. VAULT LOCKDOWN INITIATED. OXYGEN PURGE IN TEN MINUTES."

Damian rushed to the control panel, punching in his master override code.

ACCESS DENIED.

"Someone changed the security codes from the surface," Marco said, hammering his fist against the reinforced steel door.

Across the room, Julian let out a frantic, sobbing sound. He reached into his jacket pocket with his tied hands, pulling out a small, old-fashioned brass key tied to a black ribbon.

"The manual ventilation override..." Julian stammered, holding up the key with trembling fingers. "It's in the sub-vault beneath the floor... but it only unlocks from the outside!"

Mara looked down at Lila, then looked at the narrow, twelve-inch ventilation duct near the ceiling—the only opening leading out of the sealed vault.

"Lila can fit," Mara said, her voice shaking with terror and determination. "She can climb through the duct and unlock it from the other side."

Damian looked at the tiny four-year-old child in the pink dress, then looked at the red timer counting down on the wall: 09:24... 09:23...

He knelt in front of Lila, looking straight into her soft brown eyes. For the first time, the feared mafia boss spoke to her not as a ruler, but as a father.

"Lila," Damian said softly, taking the small brass key from Julian and placing it into her tiny hand. "Can you do this for us?"