"My husband threw me and our twin daughters out for not having a son—unaware New York's top mob lord took us in."

I sat propped up against three plush pillows, my body wrapped in an ivory cashmere sweater. My back burned beneath heavy sterile gauze bandages where my ex-husband’s men had struck me with heavy leather belts three days earlier, but the physical pain was completely overshadowed by the cold, paralyzing terror gripping my throat.

Elias Vance stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the glittering skyline of Manhattan. He had unbuttoned his dark wool vest, his white silk dress shirt rolled up to his forearms, revealing broad, corded muscles and a faded dragon tattoo winding around his left wrist.

In his hand, his encrypted satellite phone illuminated his severe, chiseled jawline and storm-gray eyes.

"Say it again, Marco," Elias spoke into the phone. His deep baritone voice was flat, low, and laced with a quiet, apocalyptic freezing register that made the air in the room drop below zero.

From the phone’s speaker, his chief lieutenant, Marco, reported with crisp, controlled alarm: "Boss, Julian Miller just contacted the secondary council in Brooklyn. He’s claiming you kidnapped his legal wife and his newborn heirs from his private residence. He’s gathered twenty armed men from the Moretti syndicate, and they’re moving toward the private security gates of the penthouse complex right now."

My stomach twisted into a knot of pure, unadulterated agony. I clutched the heavy wool blanket against my chest, my hazel eyes wide with panic as I looked at Elias.

"Julian..." I choked out, my voice breaking into pathetic, raspy fragments. "He... he doesn't want the girls, Elias. He called them curses! He wants to destroy them so no one knows he couldn't produce a male heir... and he wants to kill me so I can't testify about the secondary business records I hid!"

Elias slowly ended the call, sliding the phone into his trousers pocket. He didn't rush. He walked across the plush Persian rug with the fluid, terrifying grace of an apex predator, stopping two inches from the side of my bed.

He reached out his broad, calloused hand, his long fingers gently, reverently touching my pale cheek, wiping away a single tear before it could drop onto my sweater.

"Julian Miller is an arrogant parasite who believes a marriage certificate gives him the right to discard human lives in the snow," Elias spoke, his storm-gray eyes burning with an intense, unyielding fire. "He thinks because he borrowed twenty men from the Morettis, he can command a room in Manhattan."

He leaned down slightly, bringing his handsome, carved face inches from mine, his warm breath fanning across my lips.

"Listen to me, Ava," Elias commanded softly. "You and your daughters belong to the Vance family now. And in this city... no one takes what belongs to Elias Vance."

He turned toward the door, clicking his tactical earpiece once.

"Marco," Elias ordered deadpan into the comms. "Execute Protocol Black. Tell the front gate guards to let Julian Miller into the private courtyard..."