She Kissed the Mafia King Before His Car Exploded

At eleven fifty-seven that night, Roman Vale entered the church where his mother had once held his funeral.

Saint Augustine had been abandoned for twenty years. Rain leaked through broken stained-glass windows, and moonlight fell across rows of rotting pews. At the front of the sanctuary stood two empty chairs, a white rose, and a coffin bearing Roman’s name.

Ava saw the coffin first.

Roman saw the woman beside it.

Mallory Vale looked almost exactly as she did in the photograph taken eleven years earlier. Her silver-blonde hair was arranged neatly above a black dress, and a diamond brooch glittered at her throat. Time had sharpened her beauty rather than diminished it.

“Hello, Roman,” she said.

His pistol remained pointed at her heart.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Mallory smiled. “You were always too intelligent to believe everything you were told.”

“Where are Thomas and Noah?”

“Safe, for the moment.”

Ava stepped forward. “Let us see them.”

Mallory’s gaze moved to her.

“So this is Thomas Hart’s daughter. You have his eyes. Unfortunately, you also inherited his habit of interfering in matters he doesn’t understand.”

“You poisoned him.”

“I gave him an opportunity to forget.”

“You destroyed his life.”

“I preserved yours.”

Roman’s voice cut through the room.

“Where are they?”

A door opened behind the altar.

Noah was pushed into the sanctuary by two armed men. His hands were bound, but he appeared uninjured.

Thomas followed in a wheelchair, connected to a portable oxygen tank.

Ava moved toward them.

A laser sight appeared on her chest.

Roman caught her wrist.

“Don’t.”

Mallory looked pleased. “Protective already. I wondered whether the kiss in the garage was merely strategy.”

Ava felt Roman’s hand tighten.

“You arranged the bomb,” Roman said.

“No. Adrian did.”

“Why warn Ava?”

“To keep you alive.”

Roman laughed once, bitterly. “You planted an explosive under my car to keep me alive?”

“Adrian wanted you dead. I needed Ava close enough to prevent it.”

“Then why frame her?”

“To force you to investigate the larger conspiracy.”

“You could have contacted me.”

Mallory’s expression cooled. “Would you have listened?”

Roman’s silence answered.

Mallory walked toward the coffin.

“Adrian Cross has become uncontrollable. He intends to win the election, seize your legitimate holdings through federal investigations, and eliminate every member of the Circle who can expose him.”

“Including you.”

“Especially me.”

Ava looked toward her father. Thomas shook his head slightly, warning her not to believe Mallory.

“You helped Cross build the Meridian Circle,” Ava said.

Mallory did not deny it.

“Your father and Roman’s father believed laws protected good people. Adrian and I understood that laws were merely tools held by whoever possessed enough power.”

“You murdered Roman’s father.”

Mallory’s smile vanished.

“Careful.”

“Thomas uncovered evidence connecting Cross to the murder. But Cross wasn’t working alone.”

Roman looked at his mother.

“Did you kill him?”

For the first time, Mallory appeared wounded.

“I loved your father.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Rain struck the windows harder.

Mallory approached Roman until the barrel of his pistol nearly touched her dress.

“Your father intended to dismantle everything our family had built. He wanted to testify before a federal grand jury. Adrian ordered his death.”

“And you allowed it.”

“I couldn’t stop it without destroying you.”

“You chose the empire.”

“I chose my son.”

Roman’s hand trembled once.

Ava understood then that Mallory’s power over him came not from fear but from the child inside him who had waited eleven years for his mother to return.

Mallory extended her hand.

“Come with me. Together we can remove Adrian and restore what belongs to us.”

Roman lowered the gun slightly.

Ava’s pulse quickened.

“Roman,” she whispered.

Mallory’s eyes remained on her son.

“Ava will publish her story. She will turn you into a headline, a monster, and a target. She cannot love what you truly are.”

Roman looked at Ava.

She remembered his admission in the library.

I became what I needed to become.

She had not promised to forgive everything he had done. She was not even certain she could.

But Mallory was trying to turn truth into a weapon.

Ava stepped beside him.

“Maybe I don’t understand everything Roman has done,” she said. “But at least he didn’t hide behind his own funeral.”

Mallory’s expression hardened.

“You think saving him once makes you important?”

“No. But I think he has spent his entire life surrounded by people who confuse control with love.”

Roman’s gaze moved to Ava.

Mallory raised one hand.

The armed men tightened their formation.

“You came alone as instructed,” she said. “That was wise.”

Roman’s mouth curved faintly.

“I’ve never been wise.”

An explosion shattered the rear doors.

Roman’s security team entered through smoke and splintered wood. Gunfire erupted from both sides of the sanctuary.

Roman pulled Ava behind a stone column. Noah overturned Thomas’s wheelchair and shielded him behind the altar. Mallory disappeared through a side passage while her men returned fire.

Ava covered her ears as bullets struck the stone.

Roman leaned around the column and fired twice.

“Stay down.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“That would be a first.”

Despite the danger, Ava heard the hint of amusement in his voice.

Roman’s men advanced.

Then a shot came from the balcony.

Roman jerked backward.

Blood spread across his shoulder.

Ava caught him before he fell.

“You’re hit.”

“Not badly.”

“That is a lot of blood for not badly.”

The shooter fired again.

Ava dragged Roman behind the coffin bearing his name. The dark humor of it would have been impossible to miss under different circumstances.

Roman removed his jacket and pressed it against the wound.

“My gun.”

Ava picked it up.

“I’ve never fired one.”

“Point toward anyone trying to kill us.”

“That seems like an incomplete lesson.”

A shadow moved near the balcony stairs.

Ava raised the pistol.

“Drop it!” she shouted.

The man ignored her.

Ava fired.

The bullet struck the railing beside his head. He retreated.

Roman looked impressed. “You missed.”

“I warned him.”

“He wasn’t planning to warn you.”

“I’m still adjusting to your workplace culture.”

Gabriel appeared through the smoke.

“Boss, we have the east side secured.”

Roman’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know about the east passage?”

Gabriel froze for half a second.

It was enough.

Roman raised a second weapon from his ankle holster.

Gabriel fired first.

Ava threw herself against Roman. The bullet struck the coffin. Roman returned fire, hitting Gabriel’s leg.

The security chief collapsed.

Roman approached him with the pistol raised.

“Fifteen years,” Roman said. “You stood beside me for fifteen years.”

Gabriel clutched his bleeding leg.

“Your mother gave me everything.”

“I gave you my trust.”

“That was your mistake.”

Roman’s finger tightened against the trigger.

Ava touched his arm.

“Don’t.”

“He betrayed us.”

“We need him alive.”

Roman looked down at Gabriel.

Then lowered the gun.

“Bind him.”

Two guards dragged Gabriel away.

Ava exhaled in relief.

Roman stared at her. “One day, your mercy will put you in danger.”

“Tonight, it gave us a witness.”

A crash came from behind the altar.

Ava ran toward her family.

Thomas was conscious, but Noah had blood along his forehead.

“I’m okay,” Noah insisted. “One of them hit me.”

Ava cut the restraints around his wrists.

Roman crouched beside Thomas.

“Where will she go?”

Thomas’s voice was weak.

“Cross… campaign headquarters.”

“Why?”

“Evidence.”

Mallory had spent years collecting records on every member of the Meridian Circle. If Cross obtained those files, he could erase his enemies and secure control of the city.

Ava helped her father sit upright.

“What evidence did you hide?”

Thomas looked toward the church ceiling.

“Confession.”

“Whose confession?”

“Roman’s father.”

Roman became motionless.

Thomas explained that before his murder, Victor Vale recorded a video naming the people involved in the Circle and describing Mallory’s role. Thomas had hidden the recording inside a safe-deposit vault under another name.

“Cross wants it destroyed,” Thomas said.

“Where is the key?” Ava asked.

Thomas looked at her.

“In your apartment.”

Ava remembered the brass key her father had given her before his stroke. He said it opened an old family box, but Ava had never found the box.

Roman issued orders to secure Thomas and Noah.

“We go to your apartment now.”

They exited the church through the shattered entrance.

Rain poured across the steps.

Roman’s shoulder wound had been bandaged, but his skin was pale.

Ava touched his arm. “You need a hospital.”

“I need that key.”

“You could bleed to death.”

“Then yell at me in the car.”

They reached Ava’s apartment building forty minutes later. Roman’s guards cleared the hallway before allowing them upstairs.

Her front door stood open.

Inside, drawers had been emptied and furniture overturned. Someone had searched everything.

Ava ran to the bookshelf.

The brass key had been taped beneath an old framed photograph of her mother.

The frame was gone.

“No,” Ava whispered.

Roman examined the floor.

A small piece of broken glass reflected near the wall.

Then Ava noticed something else.

Her father had taught her never to hide anything in the place people expected. The photograph had been a distraction.

She pulled out a worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, her father’s favorite novel. Inside the hollowed pages lay the key.

Roman smiled faintly.

“Your father enjoys games.”

“He enjoys surviving.”

A noise came from the bedroom.

Roman pushed Ava behind him.

A woman stepped into the hallway holding a gun.

She had Ava’s face.

Same dark hair. Same height. Same scar above her eyebrow.

Ava stared at the living woman from the garage photograph.

The stranger smiled.

“Hello, sister.”

Ava’s world stopped.

“I don’t have a sister.”

The woman’s smile widened.

“That’s what Thomas wanted you to believe.”

She fired.

Roman dragged Ava down as the bullet shattered the wall behind them. His guards rushed forward, but the woman escaped through the bedroom window onto the fire escape.

Roman reached the window in time to see her enter a waiting motorcycle.

Ava stood frozen.

On the floor where the woman had been standing lay an envelope.

Inside was a birth certificate.

Two girls had been born to Thomas and Elizabeth Hart on the same night.

Ava Hart.

And Evelyn Hart.

Ava’s twin sister had been declared dead twelve minutes after birth.

Roman read the document beside her.

Ava looked toward the empty fire escape.

“My sister is alive.”