By the time Stella Marlowe reached the glowing red sign above L’Aurora, she had stopped thinking about whether she was afraid.

The rain did not merely fall against the glass doors of L’Aurora; it hammered them like iron rivets thrown from a dark sky. Beyond the bevel-edged panes, Dean Calloway stood on the wet granite entryway, flanked by two thick-necked men in dripping leather jackets. His hair was plastered across his forehead, his designer coat ruined by the deluge, but the rage on his face burned through the storm with sickening clarity.

Inside the private office, the heavy mahogany door clicked shut, muffling the chaos outside.

Stella Marlowe sat on the edge of the leather couch, her hands tucked between her knees to hide their uncontrollable trembling. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, jagged gasps. The scent of polished wood, leather, and Elias Finch’s medicinal antiseptic lingered in the air, but all she could smell was the damp wool of Dean’s jacket, the sharp tang of his cologne, and the terrifying memory of his fingers bruising her throat.

Jonah Pierce stood near the desk, his gray waistcoat unbuttoned just enough to reveal the pulse pounding steadily at the base of his throat. He did not look like a man about to face a mob enforcer. He looked like a man deciding where to place a heavy piece of furniture.

“Stay here,” Jonah said. His voice was remarkably quiet, yet it carried an authority that seemed to settle the very dust in the room.

Stella looked up, her brown eyes wide with panic. “Mr. Pierce, you don’t understand. Dean won’t leave. He’ll break the glass. He’ll bring more men. He thinks... he thinks I belong to him.”

Jonah paused, his hand on the silver door handle. He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a stillness that was far more intimidating than Dean’s wild fury.

“Nobody belongs to anyone in this building, Stella,” Jonah said softly. “And nobody breaks my glass.”

He stepped out, closing the door firmly behind him.

In the private corridor, Lucas Hale was already waiting, his large frame blocking the light from the decorative wall sconces. Matteo Russo stood beside him, adjusting his silver cufflinks with methodical precision.

“He brought the Miller brothers,” Lucas said, nodding toward the security monitor on the wall. “They’re carrying under their coats.”

“In my restaurant?” Matteo asked, his aristocratic eyebrows arching upward. “How terribly uncouth.”

“Unlock the doors, Lucas,” Jonah ordered, stepping past them toward the grand dining room.

The restaurant was dead silent. The seventy-six guests who had been drinking hundred-dollar vintages and slicing into aged steaks five minutes ago were now pressed against the far walls, their eyes wide, their forks suspended in air. The pianist had stopped playing. The only sound was the muffled thudding of Dean’s boots against the exterior glass.

Lucas walked to the front entrance, unbolted the heavy brass latch, and pulled the double doors inward.

A gust of freezing rain blew into the foyer, bringing Dean Calloway with it.

Dean stormed across the threshold, his eyes sweeping the room until they landed on Jonah. He didn’t look at the waiters, he didn’t look at Matteo, and he certainly didn’t look at the dozen security guards slipping quietly out from behind the velvet curtains.

“Pierce!” Dean barked, wiping water from his eyes. “Where the hell is she?”

Jonah didn’t move from the center of the marble floor. He kept his hands resting loosely at his sides. “You’re dripping on my floor, Dean.”

“I don’t give a damn about your floor!” Dean snapped, taking two aggressive steps forward. His men moved with him, their hands drifting toward their coat pockets. “Stella came in here an hour ago. She’s got my money, and she’s got no business talking to you. Hand her over.”

Jonah didn’t flinch. He glanced at the wet envelope lying on the host’s podium, where Lucas had left it.

“She delivered the envelope,” Jonah said calmly. “Fifty thousand dollars.”

Dean’s expression hardened into something ugly and sly. “Seventy-five. The debt was seventy-five thousand, Pierce. If there’s only fifty in that bag, then your little charity case stole twenty-five thousand dollars from me before she walked through those doors.”

A soft, dangerous chuckle escaped Matteo Russo’s lips from the shadows near the bar.

Jonah didn’t laugh. He stepped closer to Dean, his tall, broad-shouldered frame blocking the ambient light of the chandeliers.

“The envelope was sealed with red wax, Dean,” Jonah said, his tone dropping an octave, becoming dangerously smooth. “The seal was intact when she handed it to me. The bills are sequential hundreds, straight from your safe at the docks. She didn’t open it. She didn’t steal from you. You sent her out into a thunderstorm, on foot, with an incomplete payment, hoping I’d accuse her of keeping the rest.”

Dean sneered, raising his chin. “So what if I did? It’s my money, my business, and my woman. You don’t get a say in how I run any of them.”

Jonah took another step. Now he was standing less than two feet from Dean. The sheer physical presence of the man seemed to press the air out of the foyer. Dean’s two bodyguards instinctively shifted their weight, but Lucas Hale stepped up behind them, placing a hand the size of a dinner plate on the shoulder of the nearest man.

“She isn’t your woman,” Jonah said softly.

“She lives in my house!” Dean shouted, his temper flaring through his controlled exterior. “She eats my food! Her father died owing my family a fortune, and she’s paying it off! You want to talk about debts, Pierce? She belongs to me until every dime is settled!”

“She has two cracked ribs,” Jonah said.

The foyer grew even colder.

Dean blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt shift. “What?”

“Two cracked ribs,” Jonah repeated, his dark eyes fixing on Dean’s face with a lethal, unwavering focus. “A deep contusion on her right side. Fingerprint-shaped hematomas on her upper arms in three distinct stages of discoloration. Some are weeks old. Some happened tonight.”

Dean let out a harsh, nervous laugh. “She’s clumsy. She falls down the stairs—”

“If you speak another lie in this room,” Jonah interrupted, his voice dropping so low it felt like a vibration in the marble floor beneath their feet, “I will consider it an insult to my intelligence. And I do not tolerate insults in L’Aurora.”

Dean’s eyes darted past Jonah toward the hallway leading to the private offices. He realized, with a sudden spike of cold sweat, that he had walked into a trap of his own making. He had expected Jonah Pierce to be a cold businessman—a man who cared only about ledgers, interest rates, and territorial boundaries. He had not expected Jonah Pierce to care about a bruised woman in a wet burgundy sweater.

“You’re interfering in syndicate business, Pierce,” Dean warned, trying to pull his posture together. “The Elders won’t like you taking my collateral.”

“You have five seconds to turn around and walk out those doors,” Jonah said, completely ignoring the threat.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then Lucas will put you through them,” Jonah replied cleanly. “And tomorrow morning, I will buy every deed, every loan note, and every scrap of paper your family owns in this city. By noon, you won’t own the shoes on your feet.”

Dean stared at him, his chest heaving with impotent rage. He looked at Lucas, whose expression was as blank as a stone wall. He looked at Matteo, who was watching him with cold amusement. Finally, he looked back at Jonah.

“This isn’t over, Pierce,” Dean spat, backing toward the rain-slicked threshold. “She’s coming back to me. One way or another.”

“Five,” Jonah said smoothly.

Dean turned and slammed his way back out into the pouring rain, his two men scurrying after him like beaten dogs.

Lucas closed the heavy brass doors and turned the lock with a sharp, decisive clack.

Jonah didn’t watch them leave. He turned on his heel and walked straight back toward his private office, his expression unreadable, his jaw set like iron.

Inside the office, Stella was standing near the window, her hand pressed tightly against her side. She had heard the shouting, though she couldn’t make out the words. When the door opened and Jonah walked in, she flinched, her body instinctively bracing for impact.

Jonah stopped three feet away from her. He saw the terror in her eyes, the way her small frame trembled beneath the oversized blanket Dr. Finch had left her.

“He’s gone,” Jonah said quietly.

Stella swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper. “He’ll come back.”

“He can try,” Jonah replied. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small set of silver keys, and tossed them onto the mahogany desk. “My car is in the underground bay. You’re not going home tonight, Stella. You’re coming to Chestnut Ridge.”