In front of seventy employees, my mafia boss's jealous fiancée grabbed my hair and cut off the braid I'd grown for years to honor my dead grandmother.

The two Cole guards flanking me didn't even have time to raise their weapons.

*Pfft-pfft. Pfft-pfft.*

Two suppressed rounds punched through their chests from the darkness of the dining hall corridor. They dropped to the polished parquet floor without a cry, their blood pooling beneath the antique rugs I had vacuumed a hundred times.

I didn't run. I stood my ground, leveling the .45 pistol directly at Julian’s chest on the balcony above.

"You're out of your jurisdiction, Julian," I said, my voice steady, though every nerve in my body screamed with adrenaline. "Adrian broke your blockade at the Navy Yard. He’s ten minutes behind me with twenty men. You won't leave this valley alive."

Julian slowly walked down the curved mahogany staircase, one deliberate step at a time. He wasn't wearing body armor. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit, stained at the cuffs with dark arterial spatters. He held a custom 9mm casually at his side, as if we were meeting for afternoon tea.

"Adrian is busy," Julian said smoothly, stopping five paces away from me. "He thinks he's fighting mercenaries. He doesn't know that my real target was never his territory. It was the illusion he built around you."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded, keeping the front sight aligned with the bridge of his broken nose.

Julian smiled—a hideous, stretching grin that revealed gold-capped molars. "You think you're here because of fate? You think Bianca picked you out of seventy maids by accident to cut your braid? You think Adrian found you scrubbing floors and fell in love with your tragic eyes?"

My fingers tightened on the trigger. "Shut up."

"Silvio didn't hire me, Elena," Julian said softly, gesturing toward the shadows behind the towering marble fireplace. "Silvio was a pawn. A loud, pompous pig meant to draw Adrian's attention away from the real architect."

From the darkened library doors, the sound of high heels clicked against the marble.

A woman stepped into the sliver of moonlight.

She was dressed in a tailored velvet coat, her face pale, bruised, but her lips curled into a victorious, sickening sneer.

*Bianca Valenti.*

Behind her walked Marcus.

Adrian's right-hand man. The man who had guarded the Cole family for fifteen years. Marcus held a tactical shotgun, but the barrel wasn't pointed at Julian.

It was aimed directly at the center of my back.

"Marcus...?" The word choked in my throat as ice flooded my veins.

"I'm sorry, Elena," Marcus muttered, his face completely devoid of emotion. "The Cole family died with the old man. Adrian got weak the moment he put a ring on a maid. Julian offers what Adrian never could—absolute supremacy."

"You see, Elena," Bianca purred, stepping beside Julian and resting a manicured hand on his shoulder, "cutting your hair wasn't just jealousy. It was the signal. It showed Marcus that Adrian would compromise the entire syndicate's security protocols just to defend a pathetic servant girl. You destroyed his kingdom the day he looked at you."

Julian took a slow step forward, extending his hand toward my weapon. "Lower the gun, Elena. Or Marcus puts a slug through your spine before you pull the trigger."

Outside, the distant, roaring thunder of an engine tore through the storm.

High-beam headlights cut through the frosted windows of the front foyer—Adrian’s heavily armored truck had arrived, ramming through the front barricade at ninety miles an hour.

Julian’s grin turned feral. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black remote with an illuminated digital display showing a three-second countdown.