I paced back and forth across the Persian rug, my phone clutched in my sweating palm, while Mia sat cross-legged on the massive king-size bed, happily feeding crackers to her stuffed elephant.
“Mommy, are we playing hide-and-seek?” Mia asked, her voice entirely untroubled by the armed guards stationed outside our door or the fact that the most feared man in the city had just declared us under his protection.
“Yes, sweetie. Just... play quietly with Barnaby,” I murmured, my heart racing a mile a minute.
My mind was a hurricane of terror. The Ivanov syndicate. Viktor Ivanov. He was a ruthless, unhinged Russian arms dealer who controlled the docks and cared nothing for rules, honor, or collateral damage. If Viktor knew I worked in Adrian’s mansion—if he knew Adrian had even acknowledged my daughter—we were walking targets.
A sharp, double-knock echoed at the heavy oak door.
I froze.
“Open up. It’s Marcus.”
I rushed across the room and turned the brass handle. Marcus stood in the hallway, looking grim, his jacket bulging with extra ammunition clips.
“The boss needs you downstairs,” Marcus said bluntly.
“Downstairs? Marcus, are you insane? There’s a maniac looking for us, and you want me to leave the room?”
“The boss is downstairs,” Marcus repeated, his tone leaving no room for argument. “And he doesn't repeat his requests. Bring the girl. He wants her secure in the panic room behind his private study.”
Ten minutes later, I stood in the subterranean vault beneath Adrian’s study. The room was lined with reinforced steel, computer monitors displaying live security feeds of the entire estate, and racks of tactical gear.
Adrian stood by a massive oak desk, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal forearms corded with muscle and crisscrossed with faded scars. He was talking on an encrypted satellite phone in rapid, lethal Italian, his voice calm, cold, and entirely devoid of fear.
When he saw us enter, he barked a final command into the phone, snapped it shut, and tossed it onto the metal table.
“Sit,” Adrian commanded, gesturing toward a leather sofa against the reinforced wall.
“Mr. Kane, please,” I pleaded, stepping forward with Mia holding tightly to my fingers. “Just let us go. Call one of your drivers, take us to the bus station, and pretend we never existed. If Viktor Ivanov is targeting us because of you—”
“Viktor Ivanov is targeting you because he thinks you are my weakness,” Adrian interrupted, his voice cutting through my panic like a scalpel. He walked over, stopping a few feet away. His gray eyes were intense, burning with an internal fire that was both terrifying and hypnotic. “In my world, Elena, showing affection is a death sentence. The moment my enemies realize a maid and her little girl matter to me, they become targets.”
“Then why bring us down here? Why not just send us away?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. He looked down at Mia, who was humming softly while examining a tactical flashlight she had picked up from the desk.
“Because,” Adrian said quietly, stepping closer until I could feel the heat radiating off his broad chest, “your daughter looked into the face of a man every criminal in New York trembles at, and told him he was handsome. She told me I should be her daddy.”
A faint, self-deprecating smirk touched the corner of his mouth.
“For six months, I have watched you clean my floors, hiding your tears, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders while refusing to ask anyone for help. And for six years, I have lived in a tomb of my own making, surrounded by blood and ledgers.” Adrian reached out, his fingers gently grazing the back of my hand. “Nobody walks away from my protection, Elena. And nobody touches what is mine.”
Before I could process the staggering weight of his words, the overhead lights in the bunker flickered and died.
The computer monitors went black for a split second, then snapped back on, flashing a bright, pulsing red warning across the screen:
PERIMETER BREACH. SECTOR FOUR. EAST GATE COMPROMISED.
Adrian’s demeanor shifted in a microsecond. The gentle, vulnerable man vanished, replaced by the Butcher of Manhattan.
He drew his Sig Nexter P226 with blinding speed, checked the magazine, and shoved a smaller backup Glock into my trembling hands, wrapping my fingers around the grip.
“Can you shoot?” Adrian demanded, his eyes locking onto mine with fierce intensity.
“I... my father was a cop before he passed away,” I stammered, gripping the cold steel. “I know how to handle a firearm.”
“Good,” Adrian said, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “Because Viktor’s men just stepped into my courtyard. And they are about to find out what happens when you wake a sleeping beast.”