Raphael dropped the gun. He slid across the polished hardwood, pulling Clara into his arms.

"Milo!" Raphael's voice finally broke its own rule. He didn't just speak; he roared. It was the first time in fifteen years anyone had heard Raphael Duca shout. "Bring the car! Now!"

The drive to Massachusetts General Hospital was a blur of rain and shattered speed limits. Raphael sat in the back of the SUV, holding Clara against his chest, feeling her heartbeat stuttering like a dying bird beneath his hand.

"Stay with me," he whispered into her hair, realizing with a sudden, violent clarity that the thought of this woman dying terrified him more than any gun Lorenzo Moretti could point at him. "Do you hear me, Clara? You don't get to leave Noel. You don't get to leave me."

They crashed through the emergency room doors. Raphael’s men flooded the lobby, shoving aside anyone in their path.

"I want the cardiac wing cleared," Raphael told the chief administrator, slamming a black card onto the reception desk. "Every patient moved to private suites on my dime. No one gets onto the fourth floor without my men checking them. Move!"

For three hours, Raphael paced the sterile white waiting room. His hands were stained with Clara's makeup and the dust from his own floors.

Mrs. Dora arrived via a secure transport, bringing Noel. The little girl walked up to Raphael, pushing her pink glasses up her nose. She didn't look at the armed men. She looked at Raphael.

She reached into her small pocket and pulled out one of the smooth, washed pebbles. She held it up to him.

"For Mama's house," Noel said softly.

Raphael knelt down, ruining his Milan suit on the hospital linoleum. He took the pebble, his vision blurring with an emotion he had buried the night his father died. "We're going to build her a beautiful house, Noel. I promise."