“Keep her.” Those were the two words I heard my mafia husband say about another woman on our fifth wedding anniversary,

At fifteen thousand feet, the air was minus twenty degrees Celsius. The rear ramp of the Black Hawk hissed as it unsealed, letting in the ferocious bite of the Balkan winter. Snow flurries whipped into the cargo bay like needles.

Elena stood at the precipice, strapped into an all-black stealth wingsuit, oxygen mask secured over her face. Through the visor, she looked down at the vast, jagged teeth of the Montenegrin mountains cloaked in shadow and moonlight.

Adrien stepped up beside her, his towering frame silhouetted against the abyss. He checked the seal on her parachute harness with practiced, possessive care. His fingers lingered on the nape of her neck, pulling her close so their helmet comms synced directly.

"The wind shear is brutal," he said through the radio link. "Stay locked on my tail beacon. If you drift off-course, the updrafts will smash you into the cliffs."

"I’m not drifting anywhere except toward our daughter," Elena answered, her breathing rhythmic, hyper-focused. "Adrien... why Vanessa? Why this level of obsession? You told me you ended it years before you married me. Why take Aurelia?"

Adrien fell silent for a heartbeat, the engines humming beneath their boots.

"Because of my father," Adrien finally admitted, the truth bitter on his tongue. "Before Vanessa’s father was killed in the syndicate purge, our fathers signed a blood pact. Aurelia was supposed to be Vanessa’s child. By blood law of the Old Syndicate, the firstborn heir belonged to the Cole line to merge the empires. When I chose you, I didn't just break Vanessa’s heart. I broke an ancient underworld covenant. Vanessa doesn't just want vengeance. In her sick, twisted mind, she believes Aurelia legally belongs to her."

Elena’s blood turned to liquid fury. "She can take the covenant and choke on it in hell."

"That’s the plan," Adrien said darkly. "Jump on three. One... two..."

They dove into the void.

The sensation of falling was instantaneous, terrifying, and exhilarating. Gravity seized Elena, dragging her down into the freezing blackness at over a hundred and twenty miles per hour. The wind roared deafeningly in her ears, threatening to tear her limbs from their sockets, but she locked her core, spreading the aerodynamic wings of the suit.

Ahead of her, Adrien’s infrared tail beacon blinked—a tiny, pulsating ruby in the dark.

Below, the jagged peaks rushed up to meet them like spears. The snow-covered ridges appeared suddenly through the clouds. Elena tracked Adrien’s descent, banking hard to the left as they skimmed barely fifty feet above a canopy of frosted pines, slipping beneath the radar waves of the Soviet-era listening post on the summit.

"Pull cords in three, two, one—deploy," Adrien’s voice crackled.

Elena yanked the rip cord. The sudden jolt of the parachute snapped her upward, the black canopy blooming silently in the night sky. She swung once, twice, steering the toggles toward a narrow clearing hidden between two colossal granite boulders.

Her boots hit the snow hard. She rolled, absorbing the impact, immediately popping the quick-release buckles.

Adrien landed five yards away, smoothly discarding his chute with weapon already drawn. Two seconds later, four of their elite operators landed in near-silent unison behind them.

Elena unslung her suppressed assault rifle, checking the optic. The thermal scope flared to life, illuminating the snow-draped ridge above.

Two hundred yards up the slope, masked by false rock outcroppings, the steel blast doors of the underground bunker hummed with the faint vibration of industrial generators.

Elena touched the golden locket beneath her armor—the locket containing the ultrasound photo of Aurelia.

"She’s in there," Elena whispered, her maternal instinct pulling at her soul like a magnetic anchor. "I can feel her."