The first picture of my unborn baby burned in a freezing Chicago kitchen while the child’s father—a mafia boss feared across the city—stood on television with another woman and announced their engagement. Two hours earlier, a doctor had told me our baby had a strong heartbeat; now I watched the ultrasound turn to ash as Declan Voss smiled beside the daughter of another crime family.

Declan looked like an apparition dragged straight up from hell.

His white shirt was torn to shreds, drenched in dark, slick blood that wasn't all his own. A deep, jagged graze cut across his left temple, blood streaming down the side of his face and into his beard. But his eyes—his pale, glacial blue eyes—were fully dilated, burning with a lethal, unadulterated savagery that made Savannah Calloway let out a high-pitched, animal squeal of terror.

Savannah scrambled backward onto the iron fire escape, her designer heels slipping on the bloody grating. “Declan! No! Wait! It was my father! My father ordered the hit!”

Declan didn't speak.

He stepped over the dead shooter on the floor without looking down. He didn't even raise his firearm. He simply reached out with his left hand, seized Savannah by the throat, and slammed her against the brick exterior of the building with enough force to crack the mortar.

Savannah’s feet dangled six inches above the iron stairs. Her hands clawed desperately at Declan’s wrist, her face turning a deep, suffocating purple as her airway collapsed beneath his grip.

“Declan...” she choked out, her manicured fingers scratching bloody furrows into his forearm. “Please...”

“I told your father,” Declan said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of all human emotion, “that if anyone touched Amelia, I would erase your bloodline from this earth.”

“Declan, stop!”

The scream came from behind him.

Declan froze.

Slowly, without releasing his grip on Savannah’s throat, he turned his head back toward the kitchen.

I stood by the oak table, the smoking Glock still clutched in my hands, trembling violently from head to foot. Tears streamed down my face, cutting pale tracks through the soot and gunpowder residue on my cheeks.

“Don't do it in front of me,” I sobbed, wrapping one arm protectively over the heavy curve of our child. “Declan... please. Not like this. Not in front of our baby.”

Declan stared at me.

His chest heaved, his bloody shirt rising and falling in ragged, violent gasps. The wild, feral madness in his eyes flickered, colliding with the image of me standing in our daughter’s nursery, terrified not of the assassins, but of *him*.

For three agonizing seconds, the fate of the Calloway family hung on a razor’s edge.

Then, Declan exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

He dropped his arm.

Savannah hit the metal grating of the fire escape in a pathetic, wheezing heap, clutching her bruised throat, coughing violently as she sucked in the freezing mountain air.

Before she could speak—before she could crawl toward the stairs—a heavy boot pinned her shoulder to the deck.

Gavin Roarke stepped onto the landing, his tactical vest scorched with buckshot, an assault rifle held at the low ready. Behind him, two local police cruisers—their red and blue lights flashing silently against the pine trees—rolled into the driveway below.

“Sheriff’s department is holding the perimeter,” Gavin said, his breathing heavy, his granite face streaked with sweat. “The Detroit crew is neutralized. Marcus Calloway was arrested forty minutes ago at O'Hare trying to board a private jet to Belize. The feds have him, Declan.”

Declan didn't look at Savannah. He didn't look at Gavin.

He dropped the Kimber onto the floorboards with a dull, heavy clatter.

He turned toward me, taking a single, staggering step into the kitchen.

“Amelia,” he whispered.

Then his knees gave out.

The king of Chicago collapsed onto the linoleum, clutching his right side where a dark, spreading stain of crimson had soaked entirely through his denim waistband.

“Declan!”

I dropped the Glock. The terror, the anger, the four months of running—all of it dissolved into nothingness as I scrambled across the floor, falling to my knees in the blood and broken glass beside him.

“Declan! Look at me! Look at my face!”

I ripped my apron off, pressing the heavy cotton against the puncture wound in his side. A hot, thick wave of blood welled through the fabric instantly, covering my hands in warm red.

Declan’s face was gray, the skin around his lips turning a terrifying shade of blue. Yet his bloody, trembling fingers reached up, finding my face, cupping my jaw with the last ounce of strength left in his massive body.

“Are you... hurt?” he choked out, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “The baby... did they touch her?”

“We’re fine! We’re safe, Declan!” I sobbed, tears splashing onto his forehead. “You saved us! Now keep your eyes open! Gavin! Call an ambulance! Gavin!”

“Medic is already downstairs,” Gavin barked from the doorway, shouting down into the yard.

Declan let out a ragged, whistling breath, his fingers sliding weakly against my cheek.

“I kept them away,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering, fighting desperately to stay focused on mine. “Amelia... I kept the war... away from you.”

“You did,” I wept, leaning down until my forehead pressed against his, my hands pressing furiously against his wound. “You kept us safe. Now don't you dare leave me, Declan Voss. Do you hear me? I didn't spend four months hiding in these mountains just to watch you die on my kitchen floor!”

A faint, broken smile touched his pale lips.

“Yes, boss,” he murmured.

Then his eyes rolled back, his hand slipped from my cheek, and his head lolled back against the linoleum.