He Bled Out On My Operating Table—Until The Ruthless Syndicate Boss Looked In My Eyes And Whispered Our Daughter’s Name!

The ambulance skidded to a halt on the wet wooden planks of the Shilshole Bay marina. The sound of rain was drowned out by the thundering roar of twin marine diesel engines idling twenty yards away.

Through the rear tinted windows, Nora could see the sleek, eighty-foot black hull of the Vengeance—Adrian's private long-range yacht. The vessel looked like a warship disguised as a pleasure craft, its matte carbon-fiber lines cutting through the gray Pacific swell.

"Move! Move! Move!" Marcus bellowed, throwing the rear doors wide.

Two paramedics—men with the unmistakable posture of combat medics—hauled Adrian's gurney down the ramp. Adrian groaned, his face contorting in agony as the movement jarred his freshly sewn ribs, but his fingers never released their grip on the sleeve of Nora's jacket.

"Stay with me," he choked out, his eyes rolling toward the gray sky. "Nora... stay."

"I'm here," she said, her medical training moving her legs faster than her fear. "Keep the oxygen at six liters! Someone hold that chest tube level with his knees!"

They sprinted down the floating dock, the wood creaking beneath their boots. Lily was tucked securely against Nora’s side, her face buried in her mother’s coat, whimpering as the wind howled off Puget Sound.

Suddenly, a brilliant white spotlight ignited from the deck of an eighty-foot commercial tugboat anchored fifty yards out in the channel.

A loudspeaker boomed across the water: "Castello! You aren't leaving this sound alive! Throw the girl onto the dock and maybe we let the doctor keep breathing!"

Gunfire erupted from the tugboat.

Heavy rounds chewed into the wooden decking of the marina, sending geysers of yellow splinters into the air. One of the paramedics took a round to the thigh, collapsing onto his knees, but he kept one hand on the gurney, pushing it forward with sheer willpower.

"Get them on board!" Marcus roared, unholstering a pair of automatic pistols and firing across the open water with mechanical rhythm, driving the snipers on the tugboat back behind the steel wheelhouse.

Nora practically threw Lily into the open salon door of the yacht, where an interior steward in a Kevlar vest caught the child and pulled her into the reinforced engine hold below deck.

Nora turned back to help the wounded medic haul the gurney over the boarding ramp.

Adrian looked up at her through the rain. With a surge of unnatural strength that defied all medical logic, he unclipped his safety harness, grabbed the handrail of the yacht with his good right arm, and pulled himself to his feet.

His surgical incision split.

Crimson bloomed instantly through his black fleece sweater, soaking his hands, but he stood. He was six feet two inches of pure, unadulterated menace, swaying in the wind like an ancient pine in a hurricane.

He reached into the medic’s belt, drew a heavy flare gun loaded with phosphorus charges, and leveled it at the tugboat's open fuel hatch on the stern.

"Adrian, no!" Nora screamed. "Your heart!"

Adrian pulled the trigger.

The magnesium flare streaked across the dark water like a shooting star, punching directly into the exposed diesel transfer lines of the rival vessel.

A split second of dead silence hung over the bay.

Then, the tugboat detonated.

A wall of orange flame erupted into the sky, the concussive wave shattering the windows of the marina office and knocking Marcus to one knee on the dock. The fireball illuminated the entire harbor in daylight, casting long, dancing shadows across the surface of the sound.

Adrian dropped the flare gun.

His eyes glazed over. His massive frame tipped backward, collapsing onto the teak deck of the yacht like a felled oak.