THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME HIDE MY SWOLLEN FINGERS UNDER MY APRON WHILE SERVING HIS VEAL—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE CAUGHT THEM IN THE ICE CHEST LATCH,” BEFORE HE COULD EVEN SPEAK.

Dante didn’t pull his arm away from my grip. He looked down at my right hand holding his wool sleeve, then slowly lifted his eyes to mine.

The rage inside him wasn’t an explosion; it was an absolute freeze, a subterranean glacier sliding into place.

“How many men did she mention, Maya?”

His voice was quiet enough that the ticking of the antique grandfather clock seemed louder.

“I... I didn’t hear an exact number, sir,” I stammered, my mouth parched, the painkillers from the clinic barely blunting the deep, throbbing fire in my fractured hand. “She just said the tactical sweep would initiate from the marina slipway as soon as the midnight tide turned. She told Vance that once you were dead, her father would present the forged syndicate merger document before sunrise.”

Dante reached into the drawer beneath his blotter with a slow, deliberate movement.

He didn’t pull out a folder.

He brought out a black Heckler & Koch semi-automatic pistol, checked the loaded chamber with a smooth slide of his thumb, and laid it flat against the dark wood.

“Marco.”

The door opened instantly. Marco didn’t knock. He stood in the frame with his tailored jacket unbuttoned, his own sidearm already visible in its shoulder rig.

“The fiber-optic cables along the perimeter wall have been severed, boss,” Marco reported in a flat, clipped whisper. “Landlines are dead. External radio repeaters are throwing white noise. The Delacroix detail isn't waiting in their guest wing. They slipped out through the cellar pantry twelve minutes ago.”

Dante didn’t blink.

“Where is Giselle?”

“Still in the second-floor master suite. Her door is deadbolted from the inside. She thinks her extraction team is coming through the balcony.”

Dante picked up the firearm from the desk.

“Take three men to the southern gate. Cut the fuel lines on the four transport vans the Delacroix crew brought onto the property. Leave no vehicle operable except the armored Suburbans in bay one.”

“And the guests on the terrace, sir?”

“They are drinking eighty-year-old port,” Dante murmured, his eyes locking onto mine with an unreadable, piercing focus. “Let them finish their cigars. The commission doesn't need to know our domestic affairs until the bodies are accounted for.”

Marco nodded once, turned on his heel, and melted back into the shadowed corridor.

Dante stepped around the desk. He stopped two feet in front of my chair.

The velvet cushion beneath my splinted hand was spotless, but my maid’s uniform was wrinkled, dusted with the chalky plaster residue from the clinic, and stained with the single drop of truffle glaze from dinner.

“Stand up, Maya.”

I struggled to push myself up using only my right arm. The room tilted for half a second as vertigo rushed through my temples.

Before I could stumble, Dante’s left arm slid around my waist.

His grip was solid, unyielding as iron, yet he took care not to brush against my injured left arm. His chest was a wall of muscle beneath his silk shirt, smelling faintly of tobacco, rain, and clean sandalwood.

“You are shivering,” he said, his breath warm against my cheek.

“I’m just... I’m frightened, Mr. Caruso.”

“You should be,” he whispered. “War has reached my house. But you didn't run when she threatened you. You didn't take her hush money.”

“She didn't offer money,” I said, looking up into the gray steel of his eyes. “She offered my sister’s funeral.”

A tendon jumped along Dante’s jawline.

He reached down, took my uninjured right hand, and placed it directly over the cold steel slide of the pistol in his grip.

“Hold this.”

My fingers closed around the textured grip. The weapon was heavy, foreign, and terrifying.

“I don't know how to shoot, Mr. Caruso.”

“You don't need to shoot,” Dante said softly, guiding my fingers off the frame while tucking the weapon into his waistband. “You need to stay directly behind my back. Whatever happens in the next forty minutes, you do not step away from me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”