I never imagined the most feared crime boss in Chicago would show up at my bedroom door drunk, begging me for help. Hours later, I was hiding him beneath the servants’ staircase while powerful men searched the mansion for him, and one whispered confession shattered everything I thought I knew about him.

The cramped space beneath the stairs smelled of aged cedar, dried lavender, and the metallic tang of fresh blood. Outside the wooden slats, heavy footsteps rattled the ceiling dust down onto our hair.

I pressed my spine flush against the wall, barely daring to draw air. Raphael sat inches away on a overturned crate, his long legs folded awkwardly. His hand shot out through the dark and wrapped around my wrist. His grip was cold and trembling, but firm—anchoring us both in the terrifying silence.

"Search the south wing!" a rough, gravelly voice barked from the main corridor above us. "Check the private office! Don't leave a single latch thrown!"

My pulse spiked. That wasn't the voice of Raphael's loyal personal security team. It was Victor Vance—Raphael's senior enforcer, a brutal man whose name made the kitchen staff flinch.

One hundred seven nights. His whispered confession vibrated through my head, louder than the rain hammering the roof. For two whole years, while I had wiped down his desk and stayed late to study anatomy charts, he had been counting the days.

I looked down at Raphael in the sliver of faint light. The untouchable king of Chicago was bleeding. The right side of his soaked wool coat was stained a deep, horrifying crimson.

"Victor turned," Raphael murmured, his voice so faint it was barely a vibration against my collarbone.

"Don't speak," I pleaded in a barely audible thread of sound, leaning down until my forehead almost brushed his. "They're right outside."

"He spiked my drink at the club," Raphael whispered, ignoring my warning, his eyes wide and burning with feverish intensity. "He thinks I'm lying in a ditch by the river. He doesn't know I kicked out the car door and crawled three miles back through the estate forest."

My breath caught. He hadn't just been drinking—he was in shock from blood loss.

Directly over our heads, three pairs of iron-toed boots stomped down the hall. A beam of light from a high-powered flashlight flickered through the cracks of the wooden paneling, sweeping across Raphael's pale face. I instinctively shifted my body, blocking the light with my frame.

"He's not down here, Victor!" a man yelled from the pantry. "The back doors are deadbolted!"

"Keep looking!" Victor roared back from the landing. "If he survives until sunrise and calls the family council, we're all dead men! Tear the staff quarters apart!"

The footsteps receded toward the eastern wing.

The moment the hallway quieted, Raphael’s posture broke. His head slumped forward, resting heavily against my shoulder. His breathing was shallow, rapid, and raspy.

"Raphael!" I gasped under my breath, catching his shoulders before he slipped onto the floorboards. I pressed my palm against his side, and my fingers came away slick with warm blood.

"Elena..." he rasped, his eyelids fluttering shut. "Micah's medical trust... account four-zero-two... if I don't make it... Julian has instructions... your brother is taken care of..."

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, hot and angry. "Be quiet," I whispered fiercely, wiping my bloody fingers on my apron. "You are not dying in a dusty broom closet. I didn't spend two years studying late nights just to watch my employer bleed to death on my floor."

I reached into my apron pocket, pulling out my trauma shears and a roll of heavy cotton gauze I kept for practice dressings.