The heavy night air of Queens pressed against the threshold, smelling of asphalt and rain. Adrian stayed on his knee, his tailored coat dragging in the damp concrete, but he didn't care. His gaze remained locked on Emma, mapping every contour of her face as if memorizing a blueprint long denied to him.

The air inside the abandoned catfish warehouse was thick with the smell of rust, stagnant water, and rotting wood. We had abandoned the bullet-riddled sedan half a mile back down the logging road, trekking through the humid cypress swamp on foot with the children bundled safely in our arms.

Now, sitting on overturned wooden crates in the corner of the dry warehouse floor, Oliver and Emma were finally fast asleep again, exhausted by the terror of the ambush.

Adrian stood near the loading bay doors, peering out into the moonlit swamp through a pair of tactical binoculars, while I cleaned a superficial graze on his left forearm with an antiseptic wipe from my medical kit.

“Marcus Vance?” I repeated, my hands shaking slightly as I pressed a sterile bandage over his skin. “My father trusted Marcus with his life. He was his closest colleague at the Department of Justice.”

“Your father trusted the wrong man, Sophia,” Adrian said softly, lowering the binoculars. He turned to face me, his gray-green eyes reflecting the pale moonlight streaming through the broken roof panels. “When your father started digging into the offshore accounts of the Moretti-Vasiliev cartel ten years ago, he thought he was fighting organized crime. He didn't realize that Vance was the architect of the entire pipeline—using federal jurisdiction to eliminate rival syndicates while funneling millions into his own Swiss bank accounts.”

“And when my father found out?”

“Your father didn't die of a heart attack six years ago, Sophia,” Adrian said, the words heavy and brutal, stripping away the last illusion I had carried about my family’s past. “Vance had him silenced. And he would have done the same to you if you hadn't vanished with the financial ledger on the night of our anniversary.”

My breath hitched in my throat. The room seemed to tilt sideways. All these years, I had blamed Adrian’s world, Adrian’s enemies, Adrian’s violence for destroying my family. I had run away from the man I loved because I thought his shadow was lethal.

And all along, the monster wearing a suit had been sitting in a prosecutor’s office in Zurich.

“He’s here in Louisiana, isn’t he?” I whispered, tears blurring my vision.

“His private jet landed at New Orleans Lakefront Airport two hours ago,” Adrian replied, stepping closer and taking my face gently in his hands. His thumbs brushed away the tears spilling over my lashes. “He thinks he’s coming to collect the ledger and tie up the last loose end of the Laurent family.”