I installed hidden cameras to protect my disabled three-year-old daughter, but instead, they captured a young maid doing what the best doctors in America had failed to do—getting my little girl to walk. As I watched from thirty miles away, I realized Hannah wasn’t just changing my daughter’s life. She was about to force me to confront something no rival, bullet, or betrayal ever had.

The main hallway of Thorne Manor looked like a war zone. Smoke billowed from the shattered mahogany front doors as thermal charges detonated against the stone pillars. My elite security team, dressed in dark tactical gear, traded heavy fire with dozens of heavily armed mercenaries wearing black tactical masks—Viktor Rostov’s elite Bratva enforcement unit.

I moved through the shadows of the mezzanine floor like a ghost, taking out two Russian gunmen with precise, silencer-suppressed shots before they could reach the grand staircase.

“Frank! Report!” I barked into my radio, dropping to one knee behind a marble balustrade as bullets shredded the plaster above my head.

“We’ve pushed them back at the west wing, boss!” Frank shouted over the deafening chatter of assault rifles. “But Rostov’s chief enforcer, Nikolai, breached the eastern corridor! He’s got five men with him! They’re heading straight for the library!”

My heart slammed against my ribs. The library was where the entrance to the panic room was hidden.

“Hold the courtyard!” I ordered. “I’m taking care of the library!”

I sprinted down the private service hallway, pulling a tactical combat knife from my vest. I reached the double doors of the library just as three Bratva mercenaries prepared to stack up outside the entrance.

I didn't hesitate. I came up behind them like a whirlwind of lethal violence.

I drove my blade into the first man’s neck before he could turn around, seized his fallen assault rifle, and swept the hallway with a brutal burst of fire that dropped the other two instantly.

I kicked open the library doors and stepped inside.

The grand room was silent, lit only by the flickering red emergency lights. Bookshelves stretched two stories high, casting long, menacing shadows across the Persian rugs.

In the center of the room stood Nikolai—a six-foot-four Russian giant covered in scars, holding a heavy shotgun in his massive hands. Beside him stood Viktor Rostov’s top technician, holding a portable electronic bypass rig plugged into the bookshelf that concealed the panic room keypad.

“Julian Thorne,” Nikolai growled in a thick, raspy accent, raising his shotgun. “The great lion of Manhattan. You are too late. The boss wants his daughter back, and he wants your little girls dead as a message to the city.”

Before Nikolai could pull the trigger, a sharp click-clack echoed from the top balcony of the library.

Nikolai looked up.

Standing on the high railing of the second-story bookshelf, holding a heavy bronze statue of an eagle, was Sarah. She wasn't hiding in the panic room. She had secured Claire and Chloe inside, locked the door, and stayed outside to defend the entrance.

“Hey, Nikolai,” Sarah called out, her voice echoing with ice-cold fury. “Say hello to my mother.”

She hurled the heavy twenty-pound bronze statue straight down.

It struck Nikolai squarely in the chest, sending his massive frame crashing backward into the technician and knocking his shotgun across the floor.

I seized the split-second distraction. I lunged forward, closing the distance, and fired two rounds into the technician, then wrestled Nikolai to the floor. The giant snarled, reaching for his combat knife, but I was faster. I locked my hand around his throat, drove my knee into his ribs, and pressed my pistol against his temple.

“Where is Viktor?” I demanded, my breath ragged, my eyes burning with lethal intent.

Nikolai spit blood onto my cheek, grinning wildly. “He... he isn't in Brooklyn, Thorne... he’s outside in the armored convoy... waiting for the delivery...”

I pulled the trigger, ending his breath instantly.

I stood up, panting heavy breaths, wiping the blood from my face.

Sarah dropped down from the spiral staircase, running toward me. She checked my coat for injuries, her hands shaking slightly as she touched my chest. “Are you hit?”

“I’m fine,” I said, looking at her with a new, profound sense of awe. “I told you to stay inside the panic room.”

“And I told you I don't follow orders blindly,” she retorted, a small, breathless smile breaking through her exhaustion. “The girls are safe. The door is reinforced. They think it’s a game of hide-and-seek.”

I looked at this incredible woman—a woman who had faced her father’s deadliest killers to protect my children. The last walls around my heart crumbled completely into dust.

“Frank,” I spoke into my comms. “Status on the courtyard?”

“The perimeter is secure, boss! We eliminated their breach team. But Viktor Rostov’s heavy vehicle is retreating down the main driveway!”

“He’s fleeing,” I gritted my teeth.

“No,” Sarah said, grabbing my arm, her blue eyes blazing with a fierce, absolute resolve. “He’s going to go into hiding, and he’ll come back again and again until we’re all dead. We end this tonight, Julian. Together.”

I looked down at her hand on my arm. For three years, I had fought my battles alone, carrying the crushing weight of my empire on my shoulders.

I reached down and covered her fingers with mine.