"The thirty-eight-year-old mafia boss was leaving his date after twenty-six minutes of waiting—until three five-year-old triplet girls in identical red dresses walked into the restaurant, pulled out a pink notebook, and asked him four questions that changed his life forever."

Dominic Russo had finally found his leverage. One of his scouts had spotted Adrien’s town car parked behind the bakery three nights in a row, and a quick background check had revealed Maya Vance and her three daughters.

It was 9:00 PM on a Thursday. The bakery downstairs was closed, and Maya was upstairs in the kitchen baking a fresh batch of cinnamon rolls for the morning crowd while the girls drew pictures at the kitchen table.

Adrien was on his way to the bakery, his town car two minutes away, when his phone shattered the quiet interior of the vehicle.

It was Dante. His voice was frantic, drowned out by the sound of screeching tires.

“Adrien! Russo’s crew just ambushed our security detail outside the bakery! They used a delivery van to block the street—they’re breaching the back entrance right now!”

Adrien’s blood turned to liquid ice.

“Dante, get every unit we have to Park Slope right now!” Adrien roared into the phone, slamming his foot down on the accelerator, the black town car roaring through a red light at seventy miles per hour.

Inside the apartment above the bakery, the heavy iron lock on the back service door gave a loud, metallic CRACK.

Maya spun around from the counter, dropping her spatula, her face draining of color.

“Mommy?” Lily asked, standing up from the table, looking frightened. “What was that noise?”

“Girls, behind me! Right now!” Maya screamed, grabbing a heavy rolling pin from the counter and shoving the three children into the narrow pantry closet, slamming the wooden door shut. “Stay inside and do not open this door for anyone except Adrien! Do you understand me?!”

Before Lily could answer, the kitchen door was kicked violently off its hinges, splintering into pieces.

Three heavily armed men in black leather jackets burst into the room, led by Dominic Russo himself. Russo held a silenced pistol in his right hand, a cruel, triumphant grin plastered across his face.

“Well, well,” Russo sneered, stepping over the broken wood. “The Monk’s little secret. You’re even prettier than the photos, sweetheart.”

Maya stood her ground in front of the pantry door, clutching the wooden rolling pin in two hands, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated maternal fury.

“Get out of my house!” Maya shrieked.

Russo chuckled, stepping forward and raising his gun. “Where are the kids? I need the whole set if I’m going to make Adrien sign over his shipping docks tonight—”

Before Russo could finish his sentence, the front window of the living room exploded inward in a shower of glittering glass.

A high-powered flashbang grenade bounced across the hardwood floor, detonating with a blinding white light and a deafening, bone-shaking BANG!

Russo’s men screamed, clutching their eyes and ears, disoriented.

Through the shattered window and the lingering smoke, a dark shadow vaulted into the room with terrifying, lethal speed.

It was Adrien.

He didn't look like a real estate developer. He didn't look like a man who bought pink peonies. He was a force of nature—a dark, unrelenting storm of pure violence.

Before the first gunman could recover his vision, Adrien closed the distance, grabbed the man’s arm, snapped his wrist with a sickening CRACK, and drove a heavy right hook into his temple, sending him crashing unconscious through the dining table.

The second gunman raised his pistol, but Adrien caught his throat, slammed him backward against the exposed brick wall with catastrophic force, and disarmed him in a single fluid motion.

Russo, shaking off the blinding light, raised his silenced gun toward Maya.

“Adrien!” Maya screamed.

Adrien didn't hesitate. He lunged across the kitchen floor, throwing his own body directly between Russo’s gun and Maya.

Pfft. Pfft.

Two silenced gunshots echoed through the room.

A sharp, searing line of fire sliced across Adrien’s left shoulder, ripping through his dark jacket and staining his shirt crimson. But Adrien didn't stop. He tackled Russo hard to the floor, pinning the older mobster beneath his massive weight.

Adrien grabbed Russo by the collar, pulling his head up, and slammed his fist down into Russo’s jaw once, twice, three times, until the gun slipped from Russo’s limp fingers and clattered across the floor.

Adrien stood up over the unconscious mob boss, his breathing heavy, his dark eyes wild and feral, blood dripping down his arm onto the floorboards.

Behind him, Dante and six heavily armed Moretti enforcers poured into the apartment through the broken back door, weapons raised, securing the perimeter within seconds.

“Clear!” Dante shouted, securing Russo in heavy zip-ties. “Boss, you’re bleeding!”

Adrien ignored him entirely. He turned around, his eyes sweeping the destroyed kitchen until they found Maya, who was trembling violently near the counter.

Adrien took a step toward her, his dark face filled with a sudden, agonizing fear.

“Maya…” he choked out, his voice cracking. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”

Maya didn't run away. She didn't look at him with terror.

She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his uninjured shoulder, sobbing hysterically as she held onto him with all her strength.

“You came,” she sobbed. “You came for us.”

Adrien wrapped his right arm tightly around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, kissing her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, holding her so tightly he could feel her heartbeat pounding against his ribs.

“I will always come for you,” he whispered fiercely. “Always.”

Behind them, the pantry door opened softly.

Three small heads poked out from the dark closet.

Emma looked at the destroyed kitchen, at the unconscious bad guys being dragged away by Dante’s men, and then at Adrien, whose shirt was soaked in blood.

Emma walked over slowly, picked up her pink notebook from the fallen table, and looked up at Adrien with her large, serious brown eyes.

“Did you win the fight, Mr. Adrien?” Emma asked quietly.

Adrien dropped to one knee in front of the three girls, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder, and looked them straight in the eyes.

“I won,” Adrien said softly. “The bad men are gone. They will never come back.”