Behind a locked mahogany door, the most feared man in the city woke with a gun in his hand and found me asleep on his chest. Men had disappeared for speaking to Victor Hayes the wrong way, yet somehow I had spent the night using him as a pillow—and when he realized who I was, everything changed.

The firefight lasted less than two minutes.

Victor moved through the darkness like a ghost born of iron and gunpowder. Every shot from his pistol was precise, methodical, and lethal. Backed by Paul and his elite security detail who had breached the front doors, the four masked attackers were systematically eliminated before they could reach the main guest exits.

When the emergency backup lights finally flickered on, casting an amber glow across the smoke-filled ballroom, Moretti’s primary hit squad lay neutralized on the shattered dance floor.

I scrambled out from behind the marble pillar, my heart in my throat, looking frantically through the haze.

Victor was standing near the center of the room, his tuxedo jacket torn, his weapon lowered. His left shoulder was bleeding again where his stitches had pulled apart, but his eyes were fixed on a man trying to crawl toward the side exit.

Marco Moretti.

Victor walked over, stepping heavily on Moretti’s hand, pinning him to the floor.

"You brought automatic weapons into a public ballroom, Marco," Victor said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "You broke the oldest rule in the city."

"Victor... please!" Moretti wheezed, his face covered in blood and sweat. "It wasn't me! It was... someone inside your house! They sold me your location! They told me you were weak!"

Victor froze. His icy eyes slowly shifted toward the doorway, where Paul and three senior lieutenants were securing the perimeter.

"Someone inside my house?" Victor asked softly.

"Yes!" Moretti screamed, desperate to trade information for his life. "The insider! The one who leaked your convoy route last week! He told me the maid was your distraction! He said if I struck tonight, your guards wouldn't be ready!"

Victor lifted his boot from Moretti’s hand and turned slowly to face his inner circle.

I stood near the marble pillar, my mind racing. An insider. Someone who knew Victor was wounded. Someone who sent me into the study that night...

My eyes locked onto Paul.

Paul, the senior enforcer who had ordered me into Victor's private room with instructions to clean the broken crystal... Paul, who had looked at me with absolute hatred when he found me lying on Victor's chest... Paul, who had access to every security code in the estate.

Paul saw me staring at him. His face went pale, his hand twitching toward his weapon.

"Paul," Victor said softly, walking slowly toward his lieutenant. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Boss, he's lying!" Paul shouted, backing away toward the service exit. "He's trying to turn us against each other! I've been loyal to the Hayes family for ten years!"

"Then why did you send a twenty-three-year-old maid into my study alone while I was bleeding from a gunshot wound?" Victor asked, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "Did you hope she would finish what Moretti’s sniper started? Did you hope a desperate girl paying off a gambling debt would panic and stick a piece of broken glass into my throat?"

Paul realized his cover was completely blown. His face twisted into a mask of bitter rage. He drew his sidearm, aiming it directly at Victor's chest.

"You soft bastard!" Paul screamed. "You spent ten years building an empire of iron, and then you let a pathetic floor-scrubber sit on your chest and turn you soft! You canceled her debt! You put her in silk! You ruined everything we built!"

Before Paul could pull the trigger, I didn't think. I acted.

I grabbed a heavy bronze decorative vase from the side table beside me and hurled it with every ounce of strength remaining in my body.

The heavy bronze struck Paul square in the side of his head with a loud, metallic CRACK.

Paul stumbled sideways, his shot firing wildly into the ceiling plaster.

In that single second of distraction, Victor closed the distance. He grabbed Paul’s wrist, twisted the weapon out of his grip with a sickening snap, and slammed his former lieutenant face-first onto the marble floor.

The room fell into absolute, heavy silence.

Victor stood over the traitor, breathing heavily, his dark hair falling across his forehead. He didn't look at Paul. He turned slowly, his grey eyes searching the smoke until they locked onto me.

I was standing near the shattered table, my green dress torn at the hem, my breathing ragged, holding a empty hands.

Victor walked across the ballroom, completely ignoring the bleeding men, the panicked politicians, and the sirens beginning to wail in the streets outside.

He stopped right in front of me, reached out, and pulled me violently into his arms, crushing me against his chest.

"You hit him with a vase," Victor muttered against my neck, his voice thick with a mixture of disbelief, shock, and fierce, unshakeable adoration.