The Mafia Boss’s Baby Had Been Crying for Hours—Then He Saw Me, Reached Out His Tiny Arms, and His Father Went Pale at My Name Tag

The sound of Claire’s voice cut through the chaos of alarms and shrieking metal.

Lucian blinked. The violent violet hue in his eyes wavered, then softened into a warm, human hazel. The boy let out a tiny sigh, his head falling limp against Claire’s collarbone as the overload subsided.

Immediately, the submarine’s displays returned to green.

"Manual control restored!" the helm officer yelled. "Depth passing two hundred feet! Torpedoes lost tracking in the baffle wake!"

"Dante," Claire gasped, her knees nearly giving out as the adrenaline drained from her system. "The lullaby... it suppresses the neural link. But it’s temporary. As long as that carrier is transmitting the carrier wave from the surface, his brain will keep trying to sync with it."

Dante stood motionless for three agonizing seconds. He looked at Claire, holding both of his sons against her chest—the woman who had walked into his mansion as an undercover agent and had ended up becoming the only human being on earth who held his black soul in her hands.

He reached up, unclipped his platinum watch, and set it gently on top of the navigation console. Next to it, he laid his heavy gold signet ring—the seal of the Moretti patriarch.

"Dante... what are you doing?" Claire asked, ice spreading through her chest.

"The carrier group won't stop following this sub as long as they believe the twins are aboard," Dante said quietly, his voice steady, devoid of fear. "They have an acoustic lock on this hull. But they don't know we have an auxiliary deep-submergence escape vehicle docked to the keel."

"No," Claire said, stepping toward him, her eyes wide with terror. "No, Dante! You are not leaving us!"

"I'm not leaving you, Claire," Dante said, his hand reaching out to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing away a smear of soot and tears. "I’m going up to the conning tower with the secondary uplink transponder. I’m going to broadcast my personal biometric signature directly to the Admiral’s flagship. I’ll make them believe I executed a mutiny, killed the assets, and am ready to trade the Leviathan core for immunity."

"He will blow this submarine out of the water the second you transmit!"

"He won't," Dante said, a deadly, beautiful smile touching his lips. "Because I hold the bank account numbers that fund his entire ghost fleet. Without my thumbprint, his officers don't get paid tomorrow morning, and his war falls apart before sunset. I'll buy you thirty minutes. You take the escape pod, get the boys to the safehouse in Montauk, and wait for me."

"And if you don't come back?" Claire choked, her fingers digging into his tactical vest.

Dante leaned down, his lips pressing hard and desperate against hers, a kiss that tasted of iron, salt, and an eternity of unspoken promises.