“Congratulations, Miss Bennett. I hope he gives you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

The chaos inside the Plaza ballroom escalated into pandemonium as federal agents and police escorted Richard Bennett toward the lobby exits. Reporters swarmed the velvet ropes, their camera flashes creating an unending storm of white light.

Amidst the screaming and running guests, Elena felt a sudden, sharp tug at the back of her emerald gown.

Before she could call out to Dante, who had turned to give Marco tactical orders, a rough hand clamped over her mouth with a damp cloth smelling intensely of chloroform.

Elena’s eyes widened in terror. She thrashed against her attacker, digging her heels into the floor, but the chemical fumes hit her lungs instantly, turning her limbs heavy and numb.

A low, guttural voice hissed into her ear: “Make a sound and you die right here, little maid.”

It was Victor Romano—the younger brother of the Romano syndicate boss, who had slipped into the gala disguised as hotel security. With his family’s empire dismantled by Dante that morning, Victor had nothing left to lose except revenge.

Victor dragged Elena backward through the service curtains behind the stage, vanishing into the labyrinthine service corridors of the Plaza Hotel before the crowd noticed her disappearance.

Dante turned around thirty seconds later, holding two glasses of water for Elena.

She was gone.

On the floor where she had stood lay one of the antique platinum hairpins she had worn in her hair.

Dante’s entire world narrowed to a pinpoint of pure, apocalyptic rage. The crystal glasses shattered in his bare hands, blood dripping from his palms onto the parquet floor, but he didn't feel the glass.

“MARCO!” Dante’s roar shook the chandelier crystals above.

Marco sprinted over, his weapon already drawn beneath his coat. “Boss?”

“Lock down this hotel!” Dante snarled, his eyes turning entirely black with predatory madness. “Every exit! Every elevator! Every fire escape! If a single person leaves this building before I have Elena back, burn it to the ground!”

Upstairs, on the wind-swept rooftop helipad of the Plaza Hotel, the cold rain battered the asphalt.

Victor Romano dragged Elena out onto the open platform. Elena was struggling violently, fighting off the lingering fog of the chloroform. The wind whipped her emerald dress around her legs, the icy cold shocking her senses back to life.

“Sit down and shut up!” Victor barked, shoving her against the metal safety railing overlooking the dizzying drop of Fifth Avenue below. He held a heavy revolver in his gloved hand, pacing frantically, checking his watch for an extraction helicopter that would never arrive.

“He’s going to kill you,” Elena choked out, pushing her damp hair from her face, her eyes blazing with fierce defiance. “You think you can take me hostage and walk away from Dante Moretti? You’re already a dead man.”

Victor sneered, stepping toward her, aiming the barrel directly between her eyes. “Once Dante sees your brains on this helipad, he won't care about his docks anymore. He took my family’s pride. I’m taking his heart.”

The heavy steel fire door to the rooftop was suddenly blown off its hinges.

The door flew across the concrete with an explosive *bang*, skidding into the safety fence.

Dante stepped out into the rain.

He had stripped off his tuxedo jacket. His white shirt was soaked, clinging to his broad frame, his ink visible beneath the wet linen. He held no gun. His hands were empty, save for the blood dripping from his shattered knuckles.

Victor grabbed Elena, pulling her against his chest, pressing the muzzle of the revolver hard against her temple.

“Stop right there, Moretti!” Victor screamed over the howling storm. “Take one more step and I paint this roof with her blood!”

Dante didn’t stop. He walked forward with steady, measured, terrifying steps. His eyes were locked on Elena, checking her face, seeing the fierce courage in her green eyes.

“Dante, don’t!” Elena cried out. “He’ll shoot you!”

“Victor,” Dante said, his voice impossibly calm, cutting through the thunder like a scythe. “Look at me.”

Victor’s hands trembled against the gun. “I said stay back!”

“You have three seconds to take your hands off my future wife,” Dante said, continuing his slow, inexorable advance. “If you shoot her, you die in five seconds. If you drop the weapon, I will give you the courtesy of a quick bullet between your eyes.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?!” Victor shrieked, cocking the revolver’s hammer.

In that split second, Elena didn't wait to be rescued.

Remembering the brutality of the streets she grew up on, Elena threw her head backward with all the force she could muster, slamming the hard back of her skull directly into Victor’s nose.

Cartilage crunched sickeningly.

Victor roared in agony, his vision blurring with tears and blood as his grip loosened on the gun.

Before Victor could recover, Dante closed the remaining ten feet like a shadow.

Dante’s left hand seized Victor’s gun hand, twisting the wrist until the bones snapped like dry twigs. The revolver clattered harmlessly across the wet concrete. With his right hand, Dante gripped Victor by the throat, lifting the grown man completely off his feet and slamming him down onto the helipad with bone-shattering force.

Victor gasped for breath, pinned beneath Dante’s knee, staring up into the face of death itself.

“Nobody touches her,” Dante whispered.

With a single, brutal strike, Dante neutralized the threat permanently.

The storm seemed to die down in that instant. Dante rose to his feet, turning slowly toward Elena.

Elena was shaking, slumped against the railing, the cold rain soaking her emerald silk gown. She looked up at him, her chest heaving, tears washing the rain from her cheeks.

Dante rushed to her, falling to his knees on the wet concrete. He pulled her into his arms with a ferocity that drove the breath from her lungs. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his large body trembling with the aftershocks of a terror he had never experienced in all his years of war.

“I have you,” Dante whispered brokenly, kissing her wet hair, her temple, her lips. “I have you, Elena. You’re safe. I will never let you go again.”

Elena wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him with equal desperation, pressing her forehead against his chest where his heart pounded like a war drum.

“I knew you would come,” she sobbed against his skin. “I knew you’d find me.”