As housemaid Nell Bennett assisted six-year-old Archie in tying a ribbon around a gift in the grand drawing room, Celine Rowe turned beside the gilded mirror, admiring her emerald satin evening gown. The little boy looked at Celine with pride and declared, “Auntie, Mommy bought your princess dress!”

The heavy crystal inkwell shattered against the exterior pane with a loud, ringing crash, sending a spiderweb of cracks radiating across the reinforced glass. The tactical intruder cursed, instinctively ducking his head as shards of dark blue ink and glass rained down onto the snowy stone veranda.

Seizing the micro-second of hesitation, Nell didn’t run. Instead, she lunged forward, grabbed the heavy bronze letter opener from the desk, and sprinted back toward the nursery door, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Archie! Get under the bed! Now!”

The little boy, jolted fully awake by the sudden violence, scrambled out of his duvet and dove beneath the heavy wooden frame of the sleigh bed, pulling a spare pillow over his head just as a deafening burst of gunfire erupted outside the balcony.

*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*

Bullets chewed through the double-paned glass, sending a deadly shower of razor-sharp splinters flying across the nursery floor. Heavy combat boots hit the balcony tiles as the intruder kicked the cracked glass door open, shattering it completely inward. Freezing winter air rushed into the warm room like a howling ghost, carrying swirls of white snow.

The masked man stepped over the broken frame, his assault rifle raised, scanning the darkened room through night-vision goggles. “Found you, little bird,” he sneered, his voice distorted by a tactical comms unit.

He took two deliberate steps toward the bed where Archie was hiding.

Nell didn't hesitate. Emerging from the shadows behind the heavy velvet drapes, she launched herself forward like a striking panther. With a desperate, feral cry, she drove the heavy bronze letter opener downward, plunging it deep into the intruder’s exposed shoulder blade above his tactical vest.

The man let out a brutal, guttural roar of pain and surprise, stumbling sideways against the mahogany bookshelf. Books tumbled to the floor in a chaotic avalanche.

Spinning around, the intruder backhanded Nell across the face with the heavy steel butt of his rifle. The blow struck her cheekbone with sickening force, sending her crashing hard against the edge of the rocking chair, knocking the wind completely out of her lungs. Darkness danced at the edges of her vision as a metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

“Bitch!” the man snarled, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he leveled the barrel of his rifle directly at her chest. “Time to die.”

Nell squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact, her final thought a gut-wrenching agony that she hadn't saved Archie.

*BANG.*

The gunshot echoed through the room, but the bullet didn’t hit Nell.

Instead, the intruder’s head snapped violently backward in a sickening arc of crimson spray. His rifle clattered uselessly to the floor, and his body collapsed like a cut puppet, crashing heavily onto the Persian rug.

Standing in the shattered doorway of the nursery, holding a smoking custom SIG Sauer P226 pistol, was Dorian Westbrook.

His face was an absolute mask of pure, unadulterated death. His dark suit jacket was gone, his white shirt stained with soot and blood from a firefight downstairs. His eyes burned with a terrifying, demonic fury as he scanned the room, dropping the smoking weapon into a low ready stance.