The Mafia King Left His Wife Dying Alone on Their Anniversary—Until He Found the Monitor Strapped to Her Heart

The rain came down in blinding sheets as Julian's SUV roared through the cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill. The tires screeched against the slick pavement, sliding around the tight corners of Mount Vernon Street. Julian’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

Through the Bluetooth speaker, the sound of muffled gunfire echoed from the penthouse.

""Mateo!"" Julian shouted over the engine's roar. ""Report!""

""They breached the lobby!"" Mateo yelled back, the crack of his heavy revolver booming through the line. ""Snipers on the church roof took out two of them, but four got through to the emergency stairwell! They cut the main power grid to the building! The backup generator just kicked in, but the private elevator is dead!""

""Elena?""

""She's with me in the master bedroom safe room! But Julian—the monitor! When the first shots went off, she went into panic. Her heart rate is at one hundred and forty-five! The alarm is screaming! If it hits one-sixty—""

""I'm pulling onto the street right now!"" Julian roared, slamming the accelerator to the floor.

The SUV careened onto the tree-lined street outside the penthouse tower. Julian saw the two black Suburbans parked haphazardly across the entrance, their hazard lights flashing in the downpour. A masked man dressed in black tactical gear stood by the lobby doors, carrying a short-barreled assault rifle.

Julian didn't hit the brakes.

He braced himself and drove the heavy, reinforced steel bumper of his SUV straight into the side of the lead Suburban, crushing the door inward and sending the vehicle spinning across the sidewalk. The guard by the door dove out of the way, landing hard on the wet concrete.

Julian kicked his door open before his truck had even stopped moving.

The Kimber .45 barked twice in the darkness. Two heavy rounds caught the guard in the chest plate, dropping him instantly. Julian didn't wait to see if the man was breathing; he vaulted over the hood of the crushed vehicle and sprinted into the lobby.

The grand marble foyer of the high-rise was a battlefield. Shattered glass from the chandeliers littered the floor, reflecting the red emergency lights that spun lazily on the ceiling. Two of Julian's building guards lay wounded behind the reception desk, returning fire toward the service stairwell.

""Boss! Behind you!"" one of the guards screamed.

Julian spun on his heel, dropping to one knee as automatic fire shredded the plaster wall above his head. He fired three rapid shots up the marble stairs. The muzzle flashes illuminated the face of an attacker—a mercenary with a skull tattoo across his throat. The rounds found their mark, and the man tumbled down the stairs, his weapon clattering across the floor.

Julian didn't take the stairs. He ran toward the private express lift. The control panel was dead, fried by the power surge.

Thinking fast, Julian grabbed a heavy crowbar from the maintenance locker behind the desk, jammed it between the elevator doors, and heaved with all his strength. With a screech of metal, the doors parted six inches. He wedged his fingers in and tore them open, revealing the empty shaft and the heavy steel cables hanging in the dark.

The penthouse was on the sixteenth floor.

Julian grabbed the emergency ladder built into the concrete wall of the shaft. He began to climb, his boots slipping against the wet iron rungs, his lungs burning with exertion. Every breath tasted like rust and adrenaline. In his mind, he could only hear the high-pitched, mocking scream of the cardiac monitor strapped to Elena’s chest.

One hundred and forty-five beats per minute.

One-sixty and she dies.

He climbed like a demon, his hands blistering against the cold metal. By the twelfth floor, his shoulder muscles were screaming in agony, but the thought of Elena curled on the cold floor, dying while waiting for him, drove him upward.

On the sixteenth floor, he kicked open the emergency service hatch and tumbled into the private hallway of the penthouse.

The heavy iron door to the apartment had been breached. Two men were setting a breaching charge against the reinforced steel door of the master bedroom.

""Clear!"" one of the men shouted in a rough, gravelly voice.

Julian didn't give them the chance. He raised the Kimber and emptied the remaining rounds in the magazine.

The first mercenary collapsed instantly as a bullet caught him beneath the ear. The second spun around, raising his submachine gun, but Julian was already upon him. Julian drove his entire weight into the man, tackling him through the shattered glass of the display cabinet in the hallway.

They crashed to the floor in a flurry of broken porcelain and blood. The mercenary slashed at Julian’s face with a combat knife, slicing Julian’s cheek open to the bone. Julian didn't even flinch. He grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it until the bone snapped with a sickening pop, and drove the heel of his boot into the man’s throat.

The hallway went completely silent, save for the hum of the backup generator and the frantic, rhythmic beeping coming from behind the reinforced bedroom door.

Julian dropped to his knees, his blood dripping onto the carpet. He reached up and tapped out the emergency code on the safe-room keypad.

The heavy steel door slid open.

Inside, Mateo sat on the floor, bleeding from a grazing gunshot wound to his shoulder, his gun pointed at the entrance. When he saw Julian, his arm dropped with relief.

In the corner of the room, curled on a velvet armchair, was Elena.

Her face was as white as chalk. Her lips were turning a faint, terrifying shade of blue. She was clutching her chest with both hands, gasping for air, her eyes wide with unadulterated panic.

Beneath her fingers, the cardiac monitor was flashing a blinding, violent crimson.