d57.NO ONE COULD APPROACH THE DYING, UNCONSCIOUS MAFIA BOSS — UNTIL HIS DESPERATE GUARD DOG PICKED A POOR NURSE...

By three in the morning, the mansion had settled into a sinister, watchful quiet.

Adrian lay in the private ICU room, hooked up to monitors, a ventilator assisting his breathing. Clara sat in a comfortable armchair near the foot of the bed, checking his IV lines every fifteen minutes. Titan lay sprawled across the floor near the door, acting as a living deadbolt.

Clara pulled the silver key out of her pocket.

It was an unusual key—heavy, intricate, made of antique silver with three distinct notches along its spine and an crest engraved on the bow depicting a rising phoenix over a crossed blade. It felt cold against her skin.

What did it open? A safe? A ledger? A room hidden somewhere within this sprawling fortress?

The door handle rattled softly.

Titan didn't growl, but his ears perked up instantly. Clara quickly slipped the key back into her uniform pocket just as Marco Rossi, the chief of security, stepped inside. He had bandaged his forearm where a piece of flying glass had cut him during the firefight, and he looked like a man who hadn't slept in three days.

"Nurse Vance," Marco said quietly, closing the door behind him. He looked at Titan cautiously, waiting until the dog gave a soft huff of approval before stepping closer to the bed. "How is he?"

"His heart rate is steady," Clara answered. "The sedation is keeping him under, but his body is fighting."

Marco let out a long breath, rubbing his face with his uninjured hand. "I've been with Adrian for twelve years. I built the security system for this estate myself. Every camera, every motion sensor, every reinforced door."

"You think someone hacked it?" Clara asked.

"No," Marco said grimly, looking down at his boss. "You can't hack a physical override switch built into the hardwired master panel in the basement. Someone had to stand in front of that panel, turn a physical key, and punch in an administrator code that only four people in the world know."

Clara felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. "Who are the four people?"

"Adrian," Marco counted off on his fingers. "Me. His head financial officer, Arthur Gable. And his brother, Julian."

Clara kept her expression blank, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "Did you turn the switch, Marco?"

Marco looked at her, his eyes dead earnest. "I was in the east guardhouse eating dinner when the lights went out. If I had turned that switch, I wouldn't be standing here trying to figure out how to save his life. I'd be running."

"What about Arthur Gable?"

"Gable is in London on a business trip," Marco said. "He landed three hours ago. His alibi is ironclad."

That left one person.

Before Clara could say anything, the monitor beside Adrian’s bed began to beep rapidly. The heart rate graph spiked from a steady sixty beats per minute up to ninety, then one hundred and ten.

"What's happening?" Marco asked, instantly reaching for his sidearm.

"He's coming out of sedation," Clara said, springing to her feet and checking the IV line. "The dosage must have metabolized faster than Dr. Harrison calculated!"

Adrian’s head thrashed against the pillow. His eyes snapped open, wild, bloodshot, and filled with instinctual panic. He struggled against the restraints holding his wrists to the bed rails, his breathing ragged and harsh against the ventilator mask.

Titan scrambled to his feet, letting out a worried, high-pitched whine, placing his front paws on the edge of the bed.

"Mr. Castellano!" Clara commanded gently, stepping into his line of sight. She placed both her hands over his face, framing his jaw, forcing him to look directly at her. "Adrian! Look at me! You are safe. You're in your house. The fire is out."

Adrian’s eyes locked onto Clara’s face. The wild terror in his gaze slowly gave way to recognition. His chest heaved as he fought the ventilator, his hands pulling weakly against the soft cloth restraints.

Clara leaned down, her voice a calm whisper right beside his ear. "Your dog is right here. He saved your life."

Titan nudged Adrian’s limply hanging fingers with his snout. Adrian’s fingers curled slightly, touching the dog’s fur. His heart rate on the monitor began to drop back down to safe levels.

Adrian looked up at Clara, his dark eyes fierce with an unspoken urgency. He gestured weakly with his chin toward the pocket of her scrub top.

He knew she had it.