"New York's most feared mafia boss followed me home to kill me for stealing $20,000—then he watched me split a single can of soup with my disabled brother, and handed me a photograph that froze my blood."

“Tess, move!” Leo yelled, his hands gripping the joystick of his new motorized wheelchair, wheeling himself rapidly toward the inner trauma suite as the first distant, muffled pop of a silenced gunshot echoed up through the ventilation shafts.

Panic seized my chest, but survival instinct took over. I grabbed the heavy rolling supply cart, shoved it across the doorway to block the main entrance of the physical therapy room, and ran to help Leo. Together, we barricaded ourselves inside the windowless medical room, dragging a heavy medical table across the reinforced door just as heavy footsteps began thundering down the carpeted hallway outside.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

The unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire shredded the outer walls, chewing through drywall and shattering glass panels with terrifying violence. Screams echoed from the nurses' station down the hall, followed by shouted orders in military-grade tactical jargon.

Marcus Vance’s men.

They weren't common street thugs. They were professional mercenaries, trained to kill, and they had come here specifically to finish whatever frame-up they had started in Roman’s office. If they found us, they wouldn't just take us hostage—they would execute us to tie up every loose end.

“Tess... my bag,” Leo whispered, his face pale as chalk as he pointed toward his duffel bag sitting near the cot. “In the side pocket. My pocketknife. Take it.”

“I’m not stabbing a professional assassin with a pocketknife, Leo,” I hissed, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I looked around the sterile room for anything heavier—an IV pole, an oxygen tank, anything.

“Not for them,” Leo said, his eyes swimming with desperate tears. “For us. If they get through that door, Tess... I won't let them use me to hurt you. I won't be your anchor anymore.”

“Stop talking like that!” I snapped, tears finally spilling over my lashes as I knelt beside his chair, grabbing his face in my hands. “We are going to get out of here. Roman is out there. He’s going to stop them!”

“You trust a mafia boss with our lives?” Leo asked, his voice breaking.

“Yes,” I answered without a single second of hesitation, realizing with a jolt of absolute terror that it was true. Somewhere between the single can of soup, the stolen photographs, and the titanium wheelchair, Roman Caldwell had stopped being just an employer, and had become our protector.

Outside the door, the gunfire suddenly stopped.

Dead silence fell over the hallway.

It was an eerie, suffocating quiet—the kind of silence that precedes an explosion.

Then, a heavy boot slammed against our reinforced door.

Bang!

The wood splintered around the electronic lock.

Bang! Bang!

The door frame cracked, bowing inward under the sheer weight of whoever was trying to smash their way inside. I grabbed a heavy steel oxygen canister, lifting it with both arms above my head, positioning myself directly beside the splintering doorframe, ready to swing it with all the strength I possessed the second it gave way.

Crash!

The door burst inward, splintering into a dozen jagged pieces.

A man in tactical black gear, wearing a heavy ballistic helmet and holding a submachine gun, stepped through the wreckage. His eyes scanned the room, locking instantly onto Leo sitting frozen by the cot.

The mercenary raised his weapon.

With a ferocious scream born of pure maternal and sisterly terror, I swung the heavy steel oxygen cylinder downward with every ounce of adrenaline in my body.

CLANG!

The heavy metal connected squarely with the side of the mercenary’s helmet. The man dropped like a stone, collapsing onto the linoleum floor in an unmoving heap, his weapon clattering harmlessly away from his fingers.

I stood there, panting heavily, my arms trembling from the impact, staring down at the unconscious gunman.

“Remind me never to make you mad,” Leo whispered, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Before I could answer, a calm, deeply familiar voice echoed from the shattered doorway.

“Good swing, Tessa.”

I whipped around.

Leaning against the ruined doorframe, looking entirely unbothered by the fact that a firefight had just taken place, stood Roman Caldwell. His charcoal suit jacket was gone, his crisp white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and his forearms were smeared with a smudge of black carbon soot. In his right hand, his Sig Sauer was lowered, the barrel still warm and smoking slightly in the cool air of the room.

He didn't have a single scratch on him.

“Roman!” I gasped, dropping the oxygen tank and launching myself forward without thinking, throwing my arms around his broad, solid chest.

For a fraction of a second, Roman stiffened in sheer surprise—nobody hugged the head of the Caldwell syndicate unless they had a death wish. But then, his powerful arms came around me, pulling me tight against him, burying his face in my hair as he held me as if I were the only real thing in a world of violence.

“Are you hurt?” he murmured against my ear, his voice rough and uneven.

“No,” I whispered into his shirt. “No, we’re okay.”

Roman pulled back just enough to look down at me, his grey eyes sweeping over my face to verify my safety for himself. Then, his gaze shifted past me to the unconscious mercenary on the floor, and finally to Leo.

“The stairwells are clear,” Roman reported smoothly, as if we had just finished a routine business meeting instead of surviving an assassination attempt. “My extraction team is waiting in the basement. We’re moving to the safehouse in Westchester.”

Leo raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “Westchester? Boss, do you just have a collection of secret mansions lying around?”