At 11:47 on the coldest night Chicago had seen in twelve years, Emily Parker found two little girls dying behind a dumpster—and twenty minutes later, she was on her knees with a gun pointed at her face.

"He’s coming here," Emily whispered, her blood running cold.

"Who?" Grace asked, her small voice trembling.

"Stay back, girls. Stay in the back room behind the sofa!" Emily ordered, her nursing voice taking over with absolute authority.

The girls ran to the inner sleeping quarters of the bunker, pulling the heavy soundproof curtain shut behind them.

Emily looked around the panic room frantically. There were no guns stored inside—Dominic kept the armory outside to prevent children from accessing weapons.

All she found was a high-powered medical defibrillator sitting on the crash cart, a heavy steel oxygen tank, and a bottle of high-concentration isopropyl alcohol.

Her mind raced at a thousand miles an hour. She remembered her trauma training, her chemistry courses, and the physical layout of the doorway.

On the surveillance monitor, Marcus Reed reached the steel door outside. He placed the heavy thermal charge directly against the lock mechanism and flipped the ignition switch.

WHZZZZZZ!

A blinding shower of white-hot sparks erupted against the steel door! The temperature inside the lock casing began to soar! The electronic keypad melted into a pile of slag!

The metal began to glow cherry-red.

Emily picked up the heavy steel oxygen tank, propped it against the inner table, and grabbed the defibrillator paddles. She set the charge to three hundred and sixty joules—the maximum setting used to restart a human heart.

The steel door began to warp inward. With a deafening CRACK, the locking bolts snapped!

The door swung open, sending thick white smoke pouring into the room!

Marcus Reed stepped through the doorway, his pistol raised, a cruel, bloody smile on his face. "Where are the little brat—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Emily stepped out from behind the entry wall!

She splashed the bottle of pure isopropyl alcohol directly into Reed’s face and eyes!

"Argh! My eyes!" Reed screamed, dropping his gun and clutching his face in agony as the chemical burned his raw skin!

Emily didn't hesitate. She slammed the high-voltage defibrillator paddles directly against Reed’s wet tactical vest!

ZAAAAAP!

A blinding arc of blue electricity exploded through the air! Three hundred and sixty joules of electrical voltage surged straight into Reed’s chest cavity!

Reed let out a strangled, breathless gasp, his body seizing violently as his heart went into instantaneous ventricular fibrillation! His eyes rolled back into his head, and his massive frame collapsed backward onto the hard concrete floor like a felled oak tree!

His pistol clattered across the floor.

Emily stood over him, panting heavily, the smoking defibrillator paddles still shaking in her hands.

Before she could process what she had just done, heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway outside.

Dominic burst through the smoke, his black shirt torn, blood dripping from a cut on his cheek, his eyes wide with frantic, apocalyptic terror.

"Emily!" Dominic roared.

He stopped dead in his tracks at the threshold.

He looked at the melted steel door. He looked at Marcus Reed lying unconscious and seizing on the floor, his chest smoking. Then he looked at Emily Parker, standing in her silk robe, holding a defibrillator like a battle ax.

Dominic blinked.

"Is he... dead?" Dominic asked, his voice stunned.

"No," Emily panted, dropping the paddles onto the cart. "He’s in cardiac arrest. His heart is quivering. If you want him alive to question him about Vance, you have thirty seconds to start CPR."

Dominic stared at her for two long seconds. Then a low, deep, rumbling laugh escaped his throat—a sound so rich, genuine, and filled with utter amazement that it shook his broad chest.

He walked over, stepped right over Reed’s twitching body, grabbed Emily around the waist, and lifted her completely off her feet, pulling her into a fierce, breathless crush.

"You are incredible," Dominic whispered against her neck, his voice trembling with pride. "You absolute storm of a woman."

"Daddy!" Lily and Grace came running out from behind the curtain, throwing their arms around Dominic’s legs.