Barefoot except for one pink sock, clutching a stuffed rabbit beneath one arm, Maisie crossed the rain-dark grass behind the DeLuca estate and stopped in front of the old garden shed.

The smell of burning cedar was thick enough to choke on. Sparks rained from the ceiling like dying stars, landing on the soaked concrete floor with hissed warnings.

Nora didn’t hesitate. She dropped to her knees, keeping below the thickest blanket of black smoke, and crawled toward the fallen workbench. The floor was scorchingly hot, warming through the knees of her uniform pants, but her eyes never left the long, rusted pruning shears pinned under a heavy oak plank.

“Nora,” Roman’s voice was a rough rasp, barely carrying over the roar of the fire wall. “If that shelf goes, the whole roof comes down.”

“Then you’d better duck,” she snapped back.

She shoved her hands under the burning edge of the plank. Heat blistered the back of her fingers, but she ignored the pain, kicking the plank sideways with her foot. The heavy wood shifted. She grabbed the metal handles of the shears, hauled them back, and spun on her knees to face Roman.

He was watching her with an intensity that could cut glass. Even bound, bruised, and smelling of smoke, Roman DeLuca carried the weight of a man who owned every room he stepped into.

Nora slid the thick jaw of the shears between the post and the soaked marine cord binding his wrists.

“Hold still,” she breathed.

“I’m not the one trembling,” he muttered, though his dark eyes held a strange, sudden stillness.

Nora squeezed the handles with everything she had. Her muscles screamed. The rusted pivot pin groaned, but the heavy steel blades bit into the cord. One strand snapped. Then another.

Outside, a sharp metallic click echoed against the rain.

Nora froze. “What was that?”

“The latch,” Roman’s voice turned dangerously quiet. “He realized the water was running.”

The door rattled hard as someone outside tried to jam the exterior bar back into place. But Nora had thrown the heavy iron latch clear into the mud when she broke in.

“He’s coming around to the side window,” Roman said, his posture going tight as wire. “Cut it. Now.”

Nora threw her full body weight into the shear handles. The final thick knot of nylon gave way with a sharp pop.

Roman’s hands came free. In a split second, the dynamic shifted entirely. He didn’t fumble or nurse his bleeding wrists. He grabbed the nozzle from under his boot, aimed it at the weak side of the shed’s wooden wall where the timber had already turned to red-hot embers, and drove his shoulder straight into the charred frame.

The wall buckled with a deafening crack.

Structure, flame, and iron collapsed outward in a shower of sparks. Roman grabbed Nora by the waist with one massive arm, pulling her off her feet, and lunged out of the inferno just as the main roof beam caved in with a thunderous roar.

They tumbled onto the rain-soaked grass outside, rolling through the wet earth as flames devoured the remains of the shed behind them.

For three seconds, the only sound was the hiss of water against hot concrete and the heavy, ragged breathing of two people who had just cheated death.

Roman rolled to his feet instantly, dropping into a low, predatory stance. His shirt was torn, his skin smeared with soot, but his dark eyes swept the perimeter with lethal precision.

The rain washed the dirt from his jaw, exposing a grim, carved line.

“Where is she?” Roman demanded, his voice low and vibrating with a dark energy that made the hairs on Nora’s arms stand up.

“Behind the fountain,” Nora gasped, forcing herself up. “I told her to stay by the angel.”

Roman was already moving. He didn’t run like a man who was hurt; he moved like a hunter in the night. Nora sprinted behind him, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird.

They rounded the high boxwood hedges.

Beside the white marble angel, little Maisie was sitting on her heels in the mud, carefully putting her pink sock back on her foot. Her stuffed rabbit was tucked safely beneath her arm.

“Mr. Roman!” Maisie brightened, looking up. “You got unstuck.”

Roman stopped dead in his tracks. The lethal, cold killer expression vanished, replaced by something raw and unguarded. He dropped down on one knee in the mud, inches from the tiny girl.

“I got unstuck,” Roman agreed softly, his hand hovering near her cheek, careful not to touch her skin with his soot-covered fingers. “Because of you.”

“I turned the wheel,” she said proudly, holding up two dirty fingers. “With both hands.”

Nora dropped beside her daughter, pulling Maisie tightly against her chest. She buried her face in the child’s hair, shaking uncontrollably now that the initial burst of adrenaline was fading. “Oh God, Maisie. Oh God.”

“Mommy, you’re wet,” Maisie complained gently, patting Nora’s back.

Roman stood up slowly. The moment of softness was gone, locked away beneath an impenetrable wall of steel. He looked back toward the main mansion, a towering monolith of slate and glass sitting two hundred yards away in the gray fog.

The windows were dark. No security guards were running across the lawn. No flashlights illuminated the driveway. No sirens wailed.