The fragile peace that had finally settled over the beautiful family was exactly what Vance had fought so desperately to protect.

Maddie had spent the last twelve months slowly learning how to truly trust the changed, deeply humbled man that Vance had become.

He had kept every single one of his impossible promises, remaining a quiet, highly respectful, and profoundly supportive presence in their lives.

He never once crossed the careful boundaries she had set, always arriving exactly on time for his weekend visits with the twins.

But deep in the dark, ruthless underbelly of New York's corporate world, a dangerous storm was quietly and viciously brewing.

Grant Ellison had absolutely not forgiven or forgotten the massive, humiliating defeat he had suffered at the hands of Maddie and Vance.

He sat alone in his completely darkened executive office, his cold, calculating eyes staring fixedly at a massive wall of glowing monitors.

His highly expensive, deeply unethical private investigators had been working around the clock to find a single, fatal weakness in Vance's new life.

Grant violently threw a heavy crystal whiskey glass against the wall, watching with grim satisfaction as it shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

He refused to accept that a woman he had graciously pulled from the gutter had dared to reject his massive wealth and his ring.

He was going to completely destroy Vance Callahan, and he was going to use the exact same fragile family to do it.

Grant picked up his encrypted phone and dialed the private number of a highly corrupt medical board official he had bribed for years.

He quietly ordered the man to completely fabricate a terrifying, highly contagious genetic anomaly in the premature birth records of Leo and Lily.

He knew exactly how to completely terrorize Maddie's fragile heart, and a sudden, terrifying medical crisis was the perfect, undeniable weapon.

Grant smiled a cold, utterly soulless smile in the darkness, knowing that the real, devastating war was only just beginning.