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.

“Safe room! Now!” Roman roared, grabbing Nora by the arm and shoving her toward the reinforced panic room off the master bedroom.

“No!” Nora yelled back, snatching Maisie into her arms. “I’m not hiding in a box while you fight an army!”

“Nora, this isn’t a debate!” Roman snarled, racking the slide of his pistol. “They have assault rifles and flashbangs!”

“Then give me a weapon!” Nora snapped back, her eyes blazing with pure, terrifying maternal fury. “I’m not sitting like a lamb in a slaughterhouse!”

Roman looked at her—this quiet, soft-spoken woman who had spent months folding his sheets and organizing his library—and saw a warrior standing in front of him.

Without a word, he pulled a compact submachine gun from a hidden compartment behind a painting, slid a fresh magazine in, racked it, and handed it to her.

“Safety is off,” Roman said, his voice flat and precise. “Point and pull. Anyone who comes through that door that isn’t me gets a full clip.”

“Understood.”

“Take Maisie inside the safe room, leave the door cracked, and cover the main hallway,” Roman ordered. “If I drop, you lock that steel door and don’t open it for anyone but the federal marshals.”

Nora nodded, grabbing Maisie and retreating into the reinforced bedroom corridor. She set Maisie behind a bulletproof steel desk in the safe room, handed her the stuffed rabbit, and knelt at the doorway, holding the heavy submachine gun with surprisingly steady hands.

Down the main private elevator shaft, an explosion rocked the apartment.

The heavy glass doors shattered inward in a shower of crystal.

Flashbangs detonated, filling the grand living room with blinding white light and deafening booms. Four black-clad mercenaries burst through the smoke, weapons raised, sweeping the room.

From behind the marble kitchen island, Roman rose like a phantom.

His handgun barked—three rapid, thunderous shots.

The lead mercenary dropped instantly. Roman ducked as a hail of automatic gunfire chewed up the marble counter, sending shards of stone flying like shrapnel.

Roman rolled to his left, firing three more rounds through the smoke, dropping a second attacker. But two more were advancing, laying down heavy suppression fire, pinning him behind the sofa.

One mercenary flanked around the right, aiming his rifle straight at Roman’s exposed position.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

A deafening burst of automatic fire erupted from the bedroom hallway.

The flanking mercenary gasped, his body jerking violently as a hail of bullets caught him in the side, dropping him instantly to the hardwood floor.

Roman looked up in shock.

Nora was standing at the end of the hallway, smoke curling from the barrel of her submachine gun, her feet planted wide, her mouth set in a grim, deadly line.

“I told you,” Nora shouted through the smoke, “I’m not a lamb!”

Roman grinned—a wild, fierce, terrifying grin. “Cover me!”

Nora laid down another controlled burst, forcing the final mercenary to duck behind a steel pillar. Roman leaped over the sofa, closed the distance in two giant strides, grabbed the mercenary’s rifle, twisted it out of his hands, and drove a brutal knee into his chest, knocking him cold.

Silence descended on the penthouse once more.

Smoke drifted lazily beneath the high ceilings. Four attackers lay motionless on the floor.

Roman stood in the middle of the destruction, breathing heavily, looking at Nora. She slowly lowered the submachine gun, her body shaking as the reality of what she had done set in.

Roman walked up to her, took the heavy weapon gently from her hands, and set it aside. Then he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest.

“You are incredible,” Roman whispered into her hair.