“You’ve been stealing from me.” Zo Rossi said it quietly. That made it worse. Men like Zo didn’t need to yell.

Before Zo could make a move toward the bar, the ballroom lights flickered once, twice, and then plunged the massive room into complete darkness.

Screams echoed across the marble floor. Champagne glasses shattered.

"Pinch!" someone shouted near the entrance.

In an instant, Zo’s hand locked around my wrist with a iron grip. He didn't panic. He pulled me violently behind his body, slamming my back against a structural marble pillar just as the pop-pop-pop of suppressed gunfire erupted near the main doors.

"Down!" Zo barked, shoving me to the floor beneath the protection of the pillar.

Panic erupted in the dark. Hundreds of wealthy guests stampeded toward the emergency exits, trampling tables and chairs in the pitch black. Red laser sights crisscrossed the ballroom ceiling.

"Marcus!" Zo yelled into his wrist communicator. "Report!"

Static hissed through his earpiece. "Assault team on the west entrance! They cut the main power lines! We need to move you now, boss!"

A shadow moved rapidly around the pillar. I caught the glint of a steel barrel aiming directly at Zo’s back.

"Zo!" I screamed.

Without thinking, I grabbed a heavy bronze centerpiece from a fallen table and swung it with everything I had into the gunman's knee.

The bone cracked loudly. The man collapsed with a guttural roar, his gun skittering across the smooth floor.

Zo spun around, his own firearm clearing his coat holster in a microsecond. He fired two quiet shots into the darkness. The threat was neutralized.

He looked down at me, breathing heavily, his eyes wide with shock. "You hit him with a centerpiece?"

"He was going to shoot you!" I shouted over the noise of screaming guests.

Zo didn't waste time analyzing it. He grabbed my hand, yanking me to my feet. "We move now."

We sprinted through the chaotic ballroom, staying low, dodging falling furniture and terrified patrons. Zo led me through a service door behind the stage into the hotel’s rear kitchen corridor—the exact route I had mapped out for him in his daily briefing.

Marcus and three guards met us near the dishwashing station, their weapons drawn and focused on the exit doors.

"Where is Frankie?" Zo demanded, his voice dangerously low.

"He went out the side exit two minutes ago with Moretti’s men," Marcus reported, sweating profusely. "He took the primary motorcade files, boss. He gave them our safehouse locations."

Zo stood in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the commercial kitchen. His tux jacket was torn at the shoulder, a streak of soot across his cheek, but his posture was terrifyingly calm.

"He thinks he won," Zo said softly.

He turned to me. I was shaking, the silk of my dress torn at the hem, my breathing ragged.

Zo reached out, his thumb gently wiping a smudge of dirt from my jawline. His touch was unbelievably gentle compared to the violence surrounding us.

"You saved my life back there, Tessa," he murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my chest ache.

"I was just... doing my job," I whispered weakly.

"No," Zo said, stepping closer until I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "A residential manager organizes my house. You took a bullet for me."

"I hit a guy with bronze," I corrected with a faint, nervous smile.

Zo didn't laugh. He framed my face with his large hands, his palms warm against my cold skin. "I'm sending you and Mia out of the city tonight. My estate in Lake Geneva is fortified. Nobody knows about it."

"What about you?" I asked, grabbing his wrists. "You’re going after Frankie?"

"Frankie stole from me," Zo said, his voice dropping into the terrifying register of the man who ruled Chicago. "And in my world, when someone steals from me, I take everything they have."