the bartender fed the silent girl every night until her crime boss father walked in. but the child had chosen josie for a reason no one in boston could survive.

For twenty minutes, the heavy steel walls of the safe room kept the chaos of the outside world at bay.

Josie sat on the floor, holding Mila tight against her chest, listening to the muffled thuds of gunfire slowly dying down on the lower floors of the mansion.

Suddenly, a loud, heavy metallic thud echoed against the outer lock of the safe room door.

Josie instantly grabbed a heavy iron poker resting beside the vault’s emergency fireplace, standing in front of Mila with her knees bent, her arms raised.

The digital key panel on the vault door beeped three times. The heavy locking bolts disengaged with a loud hiss of hydraulic pressure.

The door slid open.

Standing in the doorway was Constantine. His bulletproof vest was shredded, covered in plaster dust and blood. His left arm hung loosely at his side, blood dripping from his sleeve onto the floorboards, but his rifle was still held firmly in his right hand.

Behind him, two loyal guards stood watch over a smoke-filled hallway lined with defeated mercenaries.

“Constantine!” Josie gasped, dropping the poker and running toward him.

“Are you hurt?” Constantine asked immediately, ignoring his own dripping wound as his eyes swept over her and Mila.

“We’re fine,” Josie said, taking his uninjured arm to support him. “You’re bleeding!”

“It’s a flesh wound,” Constantine growled, stepping into the safe room and dropping to one knee before his daughter. “Mila... are you okay?”

Mila didn't speak. She reached out with her tiny hand and pulled the silver key from beneath her sweater, holding it out to her father.

Constantine stared at the key. His eyes widened in shock. “Elena’s key... where did you get this?”

“Under the garden house,” Josie explained quickly. “She told me Mila said her mother hid a box there before she died.”

Constantine took the key with trembling fingers. His eyes met Josie’s with sudden, piercing clarity.

“The garden house,” Constantine murmured. “It was Elena’s greenhouse. Nikolai tried to have it torn down three years ago, but I refused.”

He turned to his remaining guards. “Secure the perimeter. The attackers were mercenaries from Montreal. Damian Vance didn't send them... Nikolai did.”