“Choose one.” Barrett Hayes’s voice sliced through the ballroom on the eighty-eighth floor of the Ashford Tower. I stood against the far wall with an empty silver tray pressed tightly against my ribs,

Inside the vault, Penny trembled in my lap, her small hands clutching the collar of my torn emerald dress. Titan lay across both of our legs, his ears twitching at every muffled explosion vibrating through the reinforced steel.

“Is Daddy going to heaven like Mama?” Penny whispered, tears carving clean lines through the soot on her cheeks.

“No, sweetheart,” I said, kissing her hair, my own tears falling freely. “Your daddy is a lion. And lions don't lose their kingdom.”

It took forty-five minutes before the gunfire stopped completely.

Then came the silence. A suffocating, terrifying silence.

Minutes stretched into eternity. I gripped a steel crowbar from the emergency kit, my heart pounding so violently I could barely breathe.

Suddenly, three distinct knocks tapped against the vault keypad.

*One. Two. Pause. Three.*

The heavy locking bolts hissed open. The steel door swung outward.

I raised the crowbar, ready to strike.

Kendrick stood in the opening.

He looked like he had crawled out of hell. His shirt was soaked in blood, his knuckles split, and a jagged cut ran down his left cheekbone. Behind him, Lucian and a dozen heavily armed Ashford loyalists stood guard over a ruined, bullet-riddled hallway.

Kendrick’s Kimber hung loosely in his hand. When his eyes found mine, the crowbar slipped from my fingers, clattering uselessly to the floor.

“Daddy!” Penny wailed, leaping from my lap.

Kendrick dropped his weapon, dropped to his knees, and caught his daughter in a crushing embrace. He buried his face in her neck, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, ragged breaths.

Titan padded out, licking the blood from Kendrick’s cheek with a soft, comforting whine.

Finally, Kendrick lifted his head and looked at me. He held out his other arm.

I didn't hesitate. I threw myself forward, collapsing into his embrace. His strong arms locked around both Penny and me, holding us against his chest as if we were the only solid things in a crumbling universe.

“It’s over,” Kendrick whispered, his voice hoarse, pressing his lips against my forehead. “Barrett is dead. His men have surrendered. The council has yielded to me.”

“Barrett... is gone?” I breathed.

“I executed him on the steps of this tower,” Kendrick said coldly, without a shred of remorse. “He will never hunt you again. He will never touch my family again.”

He pulled back, his intense gray eyes searching mine. In the middle of the ruined penthouse, surrounded by the ashes of his empire’s greatest battle, his gaze was completely tender.

“You saved my daughter three years ago,” he murmured, his thumb wiping away a tear from my cheek. “You saved her again tonight. And you saved me from becoming a monster with nothing left to live for.”

Penny wiped her nose and grabbed my hand, then grabbed Kendrick’s hand, lacing our fingers together.

“Does Maya stay forever now, Daddy?” the little girl asked.

Kendrick looked down at our joined hands, then up into my eyes. A faint, breathtaking smile touched his lips.