"He Knocked a Waitress Unconscious in Front of Everyone—Then the Mafia Boss Stood Up and Locked the Doors / Chapter 47 / 60

Chapter 47 - The Hall of Broken Kings

A deep, groaning shudder ripped through the keel of the *Leviathan*.

Below our feet, a sequence of secondary detonations ripped through the lower bulkheads. Red emergency klaxons began to scream overhead, bathing the luxury lounge in violent, spinning light.

"The scuttling charges," Silas realized, his face tightening. "You’re sinking the ship!"

"If I cannot have the sovereign heir to rebuild the dynasty, no one will," Arthur Marcone said calmly, rising from his chair. He pulled a customized silver revolver from his waistband, leveling it straight at Clara’s temple. "You think you’ve won, Silas? We all die in the dark together."

"No!" I screamed.

Time seemed to slow to an agonizing crawl.

Clara looked at her grandfather, then at me. Her little fingers reached out, and in a split-second flash of pure instinct, she clamped her tiny teeth down onto Arthur’s wrist with all the strength in her seven-year-old body!

Arthur hissed in pain, his aim jerking upward. The revolver discharged with a deafening crack, shattering the reinforced chandelier above our heads.

"Now!" Silas roared.

Silas lunged across the desk like a panther. His shoulder struck Arthur with devastating force, sending the old man crashing into the mahogany display cases.

I vaulted over the overturned chairs, sliding across the wet marble floor, wrapping my arms around Clara and pulling her against my chest. Glass shards rained down on my back as I shielded her with my body armor.

"Mama! Mama, you found me!" Clara sobbed into my neck, her little hands gripping my tactical vest with frantic strength.

"I’ve got you, baby," I choked through tears of relief and adrenaline. "I’ve got you, I’ll never let you go!"

Behind us, a brutal, bone-breaking brawl erupted.

Silas and Arthur Marcone were locked in a savage, primal struggle for dominance. Despite his age, Arthur fought with unnatural, vicious precision—a lifetime of black-ops training and cold-blooded murder. He drove an elbow into Silas’s jaw, spinning around with a combat blade slashing for Silas’s throat.

Silas caught the blade with his bare, armored forearm, the razor edge slicing deep into the Kevlar weave. With a roar of unadulterated fury, Silas slammed his forehead into his father’s nose, shattering bone and cartilage.

Arthur stumbled back, spitting blood, his back slamming against the panoramic glass window. Outside, the ocean was rising, the bow of the dreadnought dipping dangerously into the churning waves as thousands of tons of sea water flooded the lower compartments.

"You are weak, Silas!" Arthur wheezed, wiping blood from his shattered face. "You chose love over an empire! Love will destroy you!"