Chapter 1 - The Sanctuary
Gabriel looked down at the tiny girl clutching her yellow blanket in the doorway.
The strictly correct answer to her innocent question was absolutely no.
Every rigid rule of his meticulously controlled house demanded that he send her away immediately.
He had built this fortress to keep people out, not to invite them into his inner sanctum.
Instead, he found himself stepping aside and opening the heavy wooden door wider for the child.
He quietly told her that she could stay in his massive room just for tonight.
Nora smiled brightly and climbed right into the center of his pristine, king-sized bed.
When Maren frantically found them sleeping peacefully the next morning, she nearly fainted from pure terror.
She had immediately started packing her bags, fully expecting to be thrown out onto the streets.
Gabriel did not fire her, nor did he yell at her for the sudden, unprecedented intrusion.
Over the next eleven days, that fearless tiny girl and her beautiful, broken mother breathed life into his dead world.
He found himself looking forward to the sounds of their laughter echoing through the sterile halls.
But all of that fragile peace completely shattered when the perimeter alarm screamed at exactly 9:47 p.m.
Gabriel snapped violently back to the present and stared at Maren’s terrified, pale face.
He saw the paralyzing fear in her eyes and felt a protective rage ignite in his chest.
He coldly swore that whatever was coming through those iron gates would have to brutally kill him first.
He drew a heavy, loaded weapon from his waistband and sprinted down the grand curved staircase.
The massive mahogany front doors were already splintering under heavy, violent external blows.
Gabriel’s elite security team quickly formed a defensive wall and raised their automatic rifles toward the grand entrance.
The heavy wood finally gave way under the pressure and crashed loudly onto the expensive marble floor.
A violently bleeding, battered man was tossed casually into the center of the grand foyer.
Gabriel recognized the broken man immediately as his top cartel informant who had been missing for three days.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a rain-soaked designer suit stepped into the bright chandelier light with a cruel smirk.
Maren let out a choked, desperate sob from the wooden landing high above them.
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The strange man smiled directly at her and mockingly called her his beautiful, treacherous runaway wife.
He casually pulled a live military grenade from his dark coat pocket and violently yanked the metal pin.
