Three shots struck me after I threw myself between an armed attacker and the six-year-old heir to one of New York’s most feared underworld families. Dominic Mercer watched me collapse protecting his son, but as consciousness slipped away, someone across the ballroom whispered the real name I had buried eight years earlier, and I realized Caleb might never have been the true target.

Screams ripped through the darkness before the emergency red backup lights sputtered to life, bathing the vast room in an eerie, bloody glow.

"Dominic!" I gasped.

Before I could move, Dominic's arm hooked around my waist, lifting me off my feet and shielding my entire body with his own as he slammed me behind a structural concrete pillar.

"Gabriel!" Dominic barked into his lapel microphone. "Status!"

Static hissed through the comms. *"Perimeter breached! EMP blast took out the local grid! We have hostiles on the mezzanine—"*

The sound of suppressed automatic gunfire drowned out Gabriel's voice. Glass shattered above us as the skylights blew inward, raining sharp shards onto the panicked crowd below.

"Cross didn't wait," I breathed, my ribs throbbing with agony from the sudden impact against the pillar. "He knew you'd squeeze Davies."

"He's reckless," Dominic growled, drawing a custom titanium-framed pistol from his tuxedo holster with terrifying speed. "He's throwing everything he has left."

Across the pavilion, three men in black tactical gear and ballistic masks moved through the red-lit smoke, weapons raised, scanning the panicked civilians. They weren't shooting blindly; they were executing a systematic search pattern.

They were hunting me.

"Stay behind me," Dominic ordered, his eyes tracking the targets with chilling, predatory focus.

"Dominic, there are too many," I said, my heart slamming against my ribs. "If they pin us against this pillar—"

"They won't," Dominic said.

He leaned out from behind the concrete, acquiring the first target in less than a second.

Two rounds barked from his weapon. The first mercenary collapsed instantly. Before the other two could pivot, Dominic fired twice more, dropping the second man with cold, mechanical efficiency.

The third shooter dove behind a catering bar, spraying a burst of 9mm rounds that chewed into the concrete just inches from Dominic's head.

"I need to flank him," Dominic muttered.

"No, your shoulder is exposed from the left terrace!" I yelled, my old instincts from surviving the syndicate purge kicking in. "Give me your backup piece!"

Dominic hesitated for half a heartbeat, looking down at me. Then, he reached down to his ankle, pulling a slim Glock 43 from a leather holster, and slapped it into my right hand.

"Double-action trigger," he warned. "Heavy pull."

"I was shooting clay pigeons at twelve, Dominic," I said through gritted teeth.

I rolled out from the base of the pillar on my good side, ignoring the white-hot scream of pain from my healing stitches. The mercenary behind the bar was raising his rifle toward Dominic's blind spot.

I didn't think. I squeezed the trigger twice.

The heavy pull kicked against my wrist, but the shots were true. The mercenary slumped forward over the mahogany bar, his weapon clattering to the floor.

Dominic stared at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fierce, dark admiration.

"Remind me never to make you angry," he said, extending a hand and pulling me back to my feet.

"Can we flirt when we aren't being shot at?" I panted, clutching my side as fresh, hot blood began to soak through the midnight-blue silk of my dress. A staple had definitely torn.

"Gabriel! Move the extraction team to the north loading bay now!" Dominic roared into his comms.

He scooped me into his arms, carrying me through the smoke and fleeing patrons, kicking open an emergency exit that led into the cold, rainy night of the industrial shipyard.

The armored Maybach was already idling by the loading bay, doors flung open, security operatives forming a perimeter with raised rifles.

Dominic deposited me into the back seat, sliding in right beside me and slamming the heavy ballistic door shut. "Drive!" he bellowed.

The Maybach surged forward, tires screaming against the wet asphalt, breaking through the shipyard gates and roaring onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Inside the cabin, Dominic tore off his bow tie and ripped open the silk bodice of my dress without asking, exposing the fresh scarlet bloom spreading across the white bandages on my ribs.

"Damn it," he hissed, his hands shaking slightly as he grabbed an emergency trauma kit from beneath the seat. "You popped three staples."

"I'm fine," I gasped, my head spinning from the adrenaline crash. "Dominic, look at me. I'm fine."

Dominic stopped. He looked down at his hands, which were covered in my blood for the second time in a week. His breathing was heavy, ragged, his jaw trembling with a raw, feral emotion I had never seen in him before.

"You're not fine," he whispered, his voice cracking. "You could have died tonight. I brought you into the open because I wanted to show the world you were mine, and I almost got you killed."

"I made the choice to pull that trigger, Dominic," I said, reaching up with a trembling, bloodstained hand to cup his jaw, forcing his storm-gray eyes to meet mine. "You didn't force me to do anything. You gave me my life back."

Dominic looked at me as if I were the only living thing in a universe of ghosts.

"Elena," he murmured.

He leaned down, and this time, there was no hesitation.

His mouth crashed into mine with a fierce, desperate hunger that stole what little breath I had left. The kiss tasted of rain, adrenaline, and copper, hot and consuming. My good arm wound around his neck, my fingers burying into his thick, dark hair, pulling him closer as if I could anchor myself to his sheer, unyielding strength.

Dominic groaned against my lips, his large hands cradling my face with infinite care, terrified of hurting my fractured ribs, yet holding me as if he would tear the world apart before letting me go.

When he finally pulled back, our foreheads rested together, our ragged breaths mingling in the confined luxury of the car.

"I am going to end this," Dominic swore against my lips, his voice a lethal promise. "Tomorrow, Julian Cross dies. And then, Elena... you and Caleb and I are going to live."

Then, Gabriel's voice crackled through the front intercom, shattering the moment with icy dread.

*"Sir... we have a code black at Blackthorne House."*

Dominic froze. "Repeat that, Gabriel."

*"The safehouse was breached twenty minutes ago while the power grid was down. The security team at the estate was ambushed with military-grade nerve gas."*

Gabriel swallowed hard over the speaker, his voice cracking with terror.