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

Ten minutes later, the escape pod dropped away from the submarine’s belly, descending silently into the pitch-black abyss of the continental trench.

Inside the tiny, five-man titanium sphere, Claire watched through the aft camera as the massive silhouette of Dante’s submarine turned hard to port, angling its bow toward the surface where the shadows of five warships waited like hungry wolves.

Valeria lay strapped to the secondary jump seat, an IV line taped to her arm, watching her sister with hollow, admiring eyes. "He loves you, Claire. A Moretti doesn't sacrifice himself for anyone. He would have burned the entire world to ash just to keep you safe."

"He's not sacrificing himself," Claire said, her voice dropping into a tone so cold, so terrifyingly calm that even Valeria shivered. "Because I'm not letting him die."

Claire moved to the pod’s auxiliary weapon console.

The escape pod was not merely a life raft; like everything Dante Moretti designed, it was a weapon disguised as a shield. Mounted beneath the pod’s nose was an experimental magnetic railgun designed for underwater harbor defense—a weapon powered by a high-output capacitor that could fire a tungsten penetrator through four feet of reinforced steel at a range of two nautical miles.

"Claire, what are you doing?" Valeria gasped, trying to sit up. "That pod isn't armored for a naval engagement!"

"I spent five years in naval intelligence analyzing the hull vulnerabilities of Vanguard carriers," Claire said, her hands flying across the targeting interface. She strapped Leo and Lucian securely into the center survival cell, double-checking their oxygen seals. She kissed both of their foreheads, her silver pendant resting against the matching jewel on Lucian's chest.

On the sonar monitor, the surface situation escalated violently.

Dante’s submarine had surfaced. The radio intercept crackled to life in the pod's speakers.

*"This is Dante Moretti,"* his voice rang out, steady as granite over the open military frequency. *"I have the cipher keys. Cease fire on my vessel, Admiral Vance, or I wipe the encrypted drives and send your five billion dollars in Swiss reserves to the Federal Reserve in three seconds."*

*"You're bluffing, nephew,"* Admiral Vance's voice sneered back over the waves. *"You love that woman too much to die alone in the cold. Where are the boys?"*

Claire didn't wait for Dante to answer.

"Targeting primary engine housing of the flagship," Claire muttered, her finger resting on the magnetic charge trigger. "Range twelve hundred yards. Solution locked."

She pressed the ignition.

The pod rocked back on its hydro-jets as the railgun fired. A trail of supercavitated steam tore through the ocean, rising from the depths like a bolt of underwater lightning.