I was paralyzed by the absolute excitement during my luxurious engagement party on Fifth Avenue when my consenting bride attacked a soft-voiced employee; However, I was instantly collapsing against the ground, revealing a dangerous truth about my family's past.

Glass rained down like deadly hail across the hardwood floors of the penthouse suite. Alarms wailed in the distance, but inside our high-altitude fortress, the only sound was the sickening thump-thump-thump of suppressed gunfire tearing through the reinforced walls.

"Sniper team on the adjacent building!" Elena shouted over the din, her body pressed low against the floor as she dragged me further behind the structural concrete pillar of the bar. "They bypassed the rooftop security grid. They knew the access codes!"

"That's impossible!" I yelled back, ducking as another cluster of bullets chewed into the leather sofa inches from my head. "Only three people have the master override codes to this building: me, the head of IT, and..." My voice trailed off as the bitter realization hit my tongue.

"Arthur Reyes," Elena finished for me, her eyes sharp and completely devoid of panic. She was in her element. The scared chambermaid was gone; the apex predator was wide awake. "Your soon-to-be ex-father-in-law didn't just want your company, Daniel. He wanted loose ends tied up permanently tonight. When Bianca failed to humiliate me—and when you canceled the engagement—their contingency plan activated immediately."

"They're going to kill everyone in this building to cover their tracks," I said, my jaw tightening as adrenaline surged through my veins, replacing shock with a cold, burning rage.

"Not if we don't let them," Elena replied, sliding the magazine of her Glock out to check her rounds with practiced efficiency. "Listen to me, Daniel. Your penthouse is wired with a panic room, isn't it? A safe room built by your father's old black-ops engineers?"

I blinked, memory flashing to a childhood game of hide-and-seek where my father had locked me inside a reinforced titanium vault behind the oak study shelves. "Yes. Behind the library wall. Biometric lock tied to Witmore DNA."

"Good," Elena said, grabbing my arm and hauling me up into a crouch. "Because the front elevators are compromised, and the stairwells are certainly mined or covered by crossfire. We fight our way to the study."

"Wait—you have a gun, but what about me?" I asked, looking around the devastated room.

Elena smirked faintly, her eyes flashing with a dangerous light. She reached behind her back, unclipped a combat knife with a ceramic non-reflective blade, and pressed it firmly into my hand. "Time to learn how to survive, heir to Witmore Real Estate."

Before another bullet could pierce the drywall, Elena vaulted over the bar, firing two rapid, precision shots through the blown-out window frame across the alleyway. A muffled cry of pain echoed from the opposite rooftop, followed by the clatter of a heavy rifle dropping onto concrete.

"Suppressing fire confirmed. Move, move, move!" she ordered.

We broke cover, sprinting through the shattered remnants of the living room toward the dim, shadowy corridor leading to the private library. Behind us, the heavy oak double doors of the penthouse burst open. Heavy boots thudded against the floorboards. Professional hitmen, dressed in tactical gear and wearing balaclavas, poured into the apartment.