The cold steel of the Beretta pressing against my spine should have woken me instantly, but deep exhaustion has a way of blurring the line between survival and oblivion. I remained dead to the world, my cheek pillowed against the solid expanse of Victor Hayes’s chest, my breathing slow and even. For five endless seconds, the most dangerous man in Chicago stared down at me, his finger resting lightly on the trigger.

The heavy oak doors clicked shut, locking automatically from the outside. Silence crashed over the grand dining room, broken only by the distant, muffled pop of silenced gunfire echoing through the stone corridors of the estate.

My hands trembled as I stared at the silver pistol resting beside my wine glass. I had never fired a gun in my life. My entire existence had been defined by brooms, bleach, and balancing ledgers, not tactical combat and turf wars.

Stay in this room.

Victor’s command echoed in my mind. But as the sound of shattering glass echoed from the West Wing, followed by shouting and the unmistakable thud of a body hitting marble, I knew waiting to be rescued was a death sentence.

I picked up the pistol. It was shockingly heavy, cold metal biting into my palms. I flicked off the safety—a movement I had watched Victor do a hundred times from the shadows of the hallway—and crept toward the side service door.

The hallway was choked with a hazy, acrid fog of gunpowder smoke. Dim emergency lighting flickered overhead, casting long, eerie shadows across the portraits of Victor’s ancestors.

"Clear!" a harsh, unfamiliar voice shouted from around the corner.

I pressed my back flat against the mahogany wall, holding my breath, my finger resting nervously on the trigger. Two men in black tactical gear crept past my blind spot, speaking in low, clipped Italian. They were moving toward the dining room—toward where they thought I was trapped.

Adrenaline surged through my veins, washing away the exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours. I raised the heavy pistol with both hands, my arms shaking violently.

"Hey!" I yelled.

Both men whipped around, their assault rifles swinging toward me. But before they could squeeze their triggers, a dark, blur-like shadow dropped from the ceiling beam directly above them.

It was Victor.

Moving with terrifying, lethal speed, Victor slammed his elbow into the first man’s temple, sending him crashing unconscious to the marble floor. The second man tried to pivot, but Victor caught his wrist, twisted it with a sickening crunch of bone, and drove the butt of his Beretta straight into the intruder's jaw.

It was over in three seconds.

Victor stood over the two unconscious men, breathing heavily, blood dripping from a fresh gash across his cheekbone. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine, tracking the silver pistol shaking in my grip.

"I told you to stay in the dining room," Victor snarled, his voice laced with furious adrenaline as he stalked toward me.

"I wasn't going to sit there like a sitting duck!" I shot back, lowering the gun just an inch. "I know how to handle myself, Victor—"

Before I could finish, a third gunman rounded the corner at the end of the hall, leveling a shotgun straight at Victor’s unprotected back.

"Victor! Look out!"

I didn't think. I raised the silver pistol, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.

BANG.

The deafening roar echoed down the hallway like thunder. When I opened my eyes, the third man was stumbling backward, dropping his shotgun as he clutched a bleeding shoulder, before turning and sprinting frantically down the stairs.

Silence descended once more, save for the ringing in my ears.

Victor slowly turned around, staring at the fleeing gunman, then down at the smoking barrel of the gun in my hands, and finally up into my wide, terrified eyes.