My husband had just snapped my arm inside our apartment, and while I hid in the bathroom bleeding, I made one desperate phone call to the most feared Mafia boss in New York. He laughed outside the door, convinced no one would ever risk their life for a broken waitress like me. What he didn't know was that the man on the other end had already answered—and he was already coming.

By morning, the evidence of the midnight assault had been meticulously erased.

The broken glass at the southern gate had been swept away, the tire tracks on the frozen lawn smoothed over, and the bodies of the four Valenti soldiers who had attempted to breach the compound had vanished into the same void that consumed Greg.

Dr. Keller arrived at nine to examine me. Aside from an elevated heart rate and a few sore muscles from swinging the fireplace poker, my arm remained completely intact.

"The bone is setting beautifully, young lady," Keller remarked, adjusting the sling holding my cast. "Though I’d advise against hand-to-hand combat until the titanium plates have fully integrated with the cortex."

"I was defending myself," I said, a slight edge of defiance in my voice.

Keller chuckled softly as he packed his instruments. "I know. Vincent told me. He was quite proud, actually. Said you almost took his ear off."

A faint heat rose to my cheeks. "Where is he?"

"The library on the ground floor. He’s been on the phone with the commission since dawn." Keller closed his medical bag and looked at me over his wire rims, his expression turning solemn. "Be gentle with him today, Miss Lena. The boss doesn't sleep when the family is at war. But he took the brunt of this fight specifically so you wouldn't have to look over your shoulder ever again."

After the doctor left, I couldn't stay confined to the four walls of the bedroom any longer. I needed to see Vincent with my own eyes to confirm that he was truly whole.

I made my way down to the ground floor, my bare feet silent on the cold marble, until I found the double mahogany doors of the library standing ajar.

Inside, the room was lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of leather-bound books, smelling richly of aged paper, polished wood, and pipe tobacco. Vincent stood behind an enormous desk of carved black oak, his back to me, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the frosted gardens.

His shirt was off. A clean white bandage wrapped tightly around his left ribs, stained with a faint circle of fresh pink seepage where a bullet or shrapnel had grazed him the night before.

I gasped softly.

Vincent spun around instantly, his right hand instinctively dropping toward the desk where a customized Colt .45 lay within arm's reach. The moment he recognized me, his posture relaxed, though the tension never fully drained from his broad, scarred shoulders.

"Lena," he said, reaching for a charcoal dressing gown draped over the leather chair. "You shouldn't be wandering the halls barefoot. The floors are cold."

"You're hurt," I said, ignoring his warning and stepping further into the room.

"It's a scratch. Keller stitched it hours ago." He slipped the gown over his arms, but before he could tie the belt, I closed the distance between us.

I stopped right in front of him. For a moment, neither of us breathed. Slowly, deliberately, I raised my right hand and touched the edge of the white gauze taped across his ribs.

Vincent’s breath hitched. His jaw clenched as my fingers lightly traced the perimeter of the wound. Beneath my palm, his skin was scorching hot, his heart thumping in a heavy, rhythmic cadence that reverberated straight through my hand.

"You took a bullet for me," I whispered.

"I took a bullet because the Valentis are sloppy," he corrected gruffly, though his voice lacked any real conviction. "They were aiming for my head."

"Vincent." I looked up into his hazel eyes, refusing to let him deflect. "Stop hiding behind the mafia boss. Stop pretending this was just business. You brought a war to your front door because you pulled me out of that bathroom."

Vincent stared down at me. The icy, controlled mask he wore like armor began to crack, piece by piece, until the raw, ferocious man beneath stood completely exposed.

He raised both hands, cupping my face in his large, warm palms. His thumbs gently stroked the high curve of my cheekbones, where the yellow bruises had almost completely vanished.

"You spent five years being told you were worthless, Lena," he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate rumble that vibrated through the quiet room. "You were made to believe that your life was something to be stepped on, discarded, and broken at a drunk's convenience."

His fingers slid into the hair at the base of my neck, tilting my face upward.

"I didn't save you because you were a victim," Vincent whispered, his eyes blazing with an intoxicating mixture of fury and reverence. "I saved you because the night you looked at me in that diner, with bruises on your face and fire in your eyes, I saw the only woman in this miserable city who didn't fear the dark. I saw a queen who had been forced to live in the dirt. And I swore to myself that if you ever gave me the chance, I would build an empire just to keep you safe."

My breath hitched. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, but they weren't tears of sorrow. They were the tears of a woman who had spent an eternity in an icy grave, suddenly dragged into the blazing warmth of the sun.

"Vincent," I breathed, sliding my hand up the smooth skin of his chest to rest over his collarbone.

He didn't wait. He closed the distance between us, capturing my lips in a kiss that was neither gentle nor hesitant.

It was consuming.

It tasted of raw possessiveness, of desperate relief, and of a hunger that had been caged for six long months. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard frame, careful not to press against my cast, yet holding me so tightly that not even the ghost of my past could squeeze between us.

I kissed him back with everything I had left, surrendering the last remnants of my fear to the fire in his touch.

When he finally broke the kiss, his forehead rested against mine, both of us breathing raggedly in the quiet morning light.

"You're not a captive here, Lena," he murmured against my lips. "If you want to leave when you're healed, I will buy you a house anywhere in the world. I will fund your life. You will never want for anything."

I pulled back slightly, looking directly into the eyes of the devil who had torn down the gates of hell to pull me out.