A brutal robbery left me bleeding out on the floor of a lonely roadside diner after my own boss secretly used me as bait for ruthless criminals. The men who betrayed me thought I'd be dead before sunrise—but everything changed when a billionaire driving a rare supercar found me, saved my life, and uncovered a secret connecting the attack to my missing brother.

Panic exploded inside the grand ballroom like an inferno.

Wealthy donors shrieked, dropping crystal glasses onto the marble floor as Harrison Vance’s private security guards drew their weapons, trying to clear an escape route for their bosses.

"Kill them!" Victor Vance roared, pulling a suppressed automatic pistol from his shoulder holster.

Before Victor could raise his weapon, Ethan smashed a heavy crystal decanter across the chief guard’s face, grabbed Victor’s wrist, and drove a fierce elbow into his throat.

The gun clattered to the floor as Ethan threw Victor over a mahogany serving table, shattering it into splinters.

"Megan! Move!" Ethan yelled, grabbing my hand as gunfire erupted near the main entrance where Marcus’s team was breaching the heavy oak doors to secure the guests.

We bolted through the service door behind the grand staircase, tearing down the narrow, concrete stairwell that led into the subterranean depths of the estate.

The air grew cold and damp, smelling of ozone and wet stone.

At the bottom of the third flight of stairs lay a heavy, steel reinforced blast door. Sitting on the floor outside were three unconscious Vanguard guards, disarmed and zip-tied by Marcus’s forward team.

"Ethan!" Marcus’s voice echoed from inside the server chamber. "We have the target!"

I practically flew through the open blast door.

Sitting on a medical cot in the center of a massive server room filled with blinking mainframe towers was Jacob. He was thin, pale, and bruised, but his eyes were sharp and alive.

"Meggie?" Jacob gasped, standing up unsteadily on his feet.

"Jacob!" I cried out, throwing my arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder as hot tears rained down my face. "Oh my God, Jacob! You're alive! You're alive!"

Jacob held me tight, weeping quietly as he patted my hair. "I'm so sorry, Meggie. I'm so sorry I put you through this."

"You saved my life, Jacob," I sobbed, pulling back to look at his tired face. "Ethan brought me to you."

Jacob looked over my shoulder at Ethan, who was standing near the door, keeping guard with a cold, focused intensity.

"Thank you, Parker," Jacob said, his voice thick with emotion. "You kept your word."

"Always," Ethan replied smoothly.

Suddenly, a loud, heavy THUD echoed behind us as the emergency steel blast doors slammed shut, sealing us inside the subterranean server vault.

The red emergency lights flashed violently as the air filtration fans died with a slow, whining groan.

Through the reinforced bulletproof glass window of the control booth overlooking the vault, Harrison Vance appeared, his silver hair disheveled, holding a remote detonator unit.

"You think you've won, Parker?!" Harrison screamed through the intercom system, his voice unhinged and desperate. "This entire server room is rigged with thermite charges! In two minutes, every piece of evidence, every server, and all three of you will be turned into ash!"

Ethan didn't panic. He stepped up to the glass window, looking Harrison directly in the eyes.

"You're too late, Harrison," Ethan said through the tablet microphone connected to the system. "The moment we breached this room, Jacob’s master drive uploaded every file from these mainframes directly to the Federal Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Harrison’s face turned white. "What... what did you say?"

"Vanguard Holdings doesn't exist anymore," Ethan declared with icy finality. "Your assets are frozen. Your political allies are being arrested at this very moment. You have nothing left."

Behind Harrison, the thick glass door of the control booth shattered as Federal SWAT operators threw flashbangs into the room.

Harrison dropped the detonator, throwing his hands in the air as heavily armed agents tackled him to the floor, slapping heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.

A second later, the emergency override engaged, and the vault blast doors opened wide, allowing fresh mountain air and the bright flashlights of rescue teams to flood the chamber.