An hour later, the greenhouse had been secured, the forensic clean-up crews were gone, and the estate was locked down under a double-perimeter security grid.

Noa sat on the edge of her bathtub, running warm water over her grazed knuckles while applying antiseptic to a nasty scrape on her forearm. The sting was sharp, but it grounded her, keeping the lingering shock of the attack at bay.

A soft knock sounded at her open suite door.

Gideon stood in the doorway. He had changed into a clean black shirt, but the tension in his jawline was as rigid as iron. In his hands, he held a first-aid kit and a clean white towel.

“May I?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant.

Noa looked up, surprised, and nodded slowly.

Gideon walked in, sat down on the edge of the velvet bench opposite her, and opened the medical kit. Without a word, he took her bleeding hand in his—his grip surprisingly gentle for a man whose hands had shaped empires through violence—and began carefully cleaning the dirt and glass fragments from her skin with a sterile gauze pad.

“You should have let them take her,” Gideon said quietly, his eyes fixed on her hands as he worked.

Noa pulled her hand back slightly, her eyes flashing with sudden heat. “Excuse me?”

“If they had taken her, I would have tracked them to the ends of the earth and burned their entire organization to ash,” Gideon said, looking up, his dark eyes burning with terrifying intensity. “You put yourself between a loaded gun and my daughter. You could have been killed in ten seconds.”

“And if I had stepped back, an eight-year-old girl would have been dragged out of her home by men who treat human beings like currency,” Noa snapped, her voice trembling with leftover adrenaline. “I didn't sign up to be a martyr, Mr. Cole, but I also didn't sign up to watch a child get kidnapped while everyone stands around calculating tactical odds!”

Gideon stared at her, stunned into absolute silence. For a long, breathless moment, the air between them crackled with an electric, undeniable tension—not fear, not anger, but a profound, mutual recognition of two souls forged in fire.

Slowly, Gideon reached out, his warm thumb gently brushing against a scratch on her cheekbone. His touch lingered longer than professional boundaries allowed.

“You are entirely, recklessly fearless, Noa Bennett,” Gideon murmured, his voice dropping into a low, intimate register that made her breath hitch. “And God help me... I think that is the only thing keeping this house from tearing apart.”