The first time Leo reached for me, I thought he wanted my necklace. By the third time, the entire restaurant had gone quiet. Aurelia was packed that Friday night, all amber light and white tablecloths, with a jazz trio fighting to be heard over champagne glasses and people who spoke louder whenever they mentioned money.

The hallway exploded into absolute chaos.

Glass showered over the carpet like diamonds, and the thunderous roar of automatic gunfire echoed off the high ceilings of the mansion.

Dante shoved me behind a heavy stone pillar just as bullets tore into the plaster walls where we had been standing a second before.

"Marco, hold the staircase!" Dante roared, stepping out from behind the pillar and firing three precise, devastating shots down the hallway. The loud, booming thud of his hand-cannon drowned out the lighter chatter of the intruders' submachine guns.

Down the hall, two men in dark tactical gear collapsed onto the floorboards.

"Alina, move!" Dante grabbed my belt loop, pulling me along the wall toward my bedroom door.

I didn't care about the smoke, the smell of gunpowder, or the terrifying noise of war inside the house. My entire world was narrowed down to the little boy in the room at the end of the hall.

I threw the bedroom door open.

The room was filled with soft amber light, but Leo was awake, standing up in his crib, holding onto the wooden rails, his face red as he screamed in absolute terror at the sound of the explosions outside.

"Leo!" I cried out, rushing across the room.

I reached into the crib, lifting him into my arms, pulling his soft body tight against my chest. I pressed his head into the crook of my neck, covering his tiny ears with my hands to muffle the terrifying sounds of gunshots outside.

"I'm here, sweet boy, I've got you," I whispered frantically, swaying back and forth. The instant he felt my arms, his frantic screams turned into desperate, shivering whimpers, his little fingers clutching my sweater with terrifying strength.

Dante stepped into the room, locking the heavy oak door behind him and sliding a heavy steel security bolt across the frame.

"The internal security team is counter-attacking from the lower courtyard," Dante said, his breath steady despite the chaos. He walked over to the grand mahogany wardrobe near the balcony, reached inside, and pulled a hidden lever.

A portion of the rear wood paneling slid open silently, revealing a reinforced steel door equipped with a digital keypad.

"A panic room," I breathed.

"Standard installation in all Rosselli residences," Dante said, typing a rapid code into the pad. The steel door hissed open, revealing a carpeted, brightly lit room stocked with communications gear, medical supplies, and emergency rations.

Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked the bedroom door.

The heavy oak frame splintered inward with a deafening crack, smoke pouring through the cracks as wood fragments rained over the carpet.

"Get inside!" Dante shoved me and Leo into the steel doorway of the safe room.

Through the clearing smoke in the bedroom, a man stepped through the ruined doorway holding a tactical shotgun. He was tall, thin, with slicked-back dark hair and a long, jagged scar running across his left eye—Lorenzo Valenti’s chief lieutenant, a notoriously vicious hitman known as the Reaper.

The hitman’s cold eyes swept across the room, locking onto me and the child in my arms.

"Well, well," the hitman sneered, raising his shotgun. "Look at what we found. The lost little bird of the Valenti family."

Before he could pull the trigger, Dante stepped directly between the hitman’s gun barrel and my body.

Dante didn't fire his weapon; he closed the distance in a fraction of a second, grabbing the hitman’s shotgun barrel with his bare hand, shoving it upward toward the ceiling just as it discharged with a deafening BOOM, blowing a massive hole through the plaster overhead.

Dante smashed his heavy elbow directly into the hitman’s jaw, sending him stumbling back toward the shattered bedroom door.

"Alina! Close the door!" Dante roared over his shoulder, engaging the hitman in a brutal, hand-to-hand struggle against the ruined furniture.

"No! Dante!" I screamed.

"CLOSE IT!" Dante shouted, driving his knee into the hitman’s ribs.

I looked at the steel door control inside the panic room. I looked at Leo weeping against my shoulder. And then I looked at Dante—a man who was risking his life to protect a waitress he had met twenty-four hours ago because she cared for his child.

My mother had spent her whole life running from violence. But as I watched Dante fight for our survival, I realized something profound.

Running didn't keep you safe. Fighting for the people you loved was the only thing that kept you alive.

I set Leo down on the soft carpet inside the safe room. "Stay here, baby," I whispered.

I reached onto the emergency supply shelf inside the panic room, grabbed a heavy steel oxygen canister, and stepped right back out into the smoky bedroom.

The hitman had managed to tackle Dante against the bed frame, drawing a long tactical knife and pressing it down toward Dante’s throat. Dante was holding the killer’s wrists back with all his remaining strength, his veins bulging against his neck, but his strength was faltering.

I didn't hesitate. I swung the heavy steel oxygen canister with both hands, slamming it with all my strength directly into the side of the hitman’s head.

A sickening crack sounded through the room.

The hitman’s eyes rolled back, and his limp body collapsed sideways onto the floorboards, completely unconscious.

Dante lay on the carpet, gasping for air, his dark hair messy, his white shirt stained with dirt and soot. He looked up at me, standing over him holding a bloody steel cylinder, her eyes wide with adrenaline.

For three seconds, neither of us moved.

Then, a slow, dark, admiring grin spread across Dante Rosselli’s face.

"Remind me," Dante gasped out, sitting up slowly and rubbing his neck, "never to make you angry."

I dropped the steel canister onto the carpet with a heavy thud, my hands shaking uncontrollably as the adrenaline began to fade. "Is... is he dead?"

"No," Dante said, standing up and checking the hitman’s pulse. "Concussed. Which means he's going to answer every question I have about Lorenzo Valenti before sunrise."

Downstairs, the sound of gunfire began to die away, replaced by the sharp, authoritative shouts of Marco’s men securing the estate grounds.

Dante stepped closer to me. Without a word, he reached out, wrapped his broad arms around my waist, and pulled me tight against his chest.

I froze for a fraction of a second, surprised by the gesture, before burying my face into his shoulder, letting out a long, shuddering breath. He smelled of sandalwood, rain, and gunpowder—a strange, comforting combination that made me feel entirely safe.

"You're a remarkable woman, Alina Valdez," Dante whispered against my hair.

"It's Elena," I whispered back, pulling back slightly to look into his dark eyes. "My mother called me Lena. My real name is Elena."