"Fourteen professional caregivers had already quit Adrian Vale’s mansion, two had left by ambulance, and now I had exactly seventy-two hours to survive the four boys everyone else called impossible. I couldn’t afford to fail because my younger sister needed life-saving surgery, but before Adrian even finished warning me about his sons, something came flying over the second-floor railing straight toward my head.

The north corridor was shrouded in shadows and thick smoke.

The heavy steel emergency shutter over Luke’s room was halfway down, jammed tightly in its iron track just as Luke had described. Through the gap beneath the shutter, I could hear six-year-old Luke crying out in terror, accompanied by the low, rough voices of unfamiliar men.

"Check the room! Find the kids!" a harsh voice shouted from inside. "Vance wants Vale's sons! That's our leverage to force him to sign the harbor lease!"

Rival syndicate men. They weren't here to rob the mansion; they were here to kidnap Adrian’s children.

Adrian raised his weapon, his eyes burning with lethal fury. He slid beneath the half-open shutter, firing three swift, suppressed rounds into the darkness of the bedroom. Shouts of pain and curses echoed from inside, followed by returning gunfire that splintered the heavy mahogany door frame.

"Nia! Get Luke out!" Adrian roared, holding off two armed men who were advancing down the adjacent balcony.

I didn't hesitate. I dropped to my knees, slid beneath the steel shutter, and scrambled into the room.

Luke was huddled under his bed, clutching a stuffed bear, sobbing hysterically. Across the room, seven-year-old Noah was trying to hit a towering, masked gunman with a heavy brass desk lamp.

"Noah! Down!" I screamed.

I lunged forward, tackling Noah to the carpet just as the gunman swung a heavy iron crowbar through the air where the boy had been standing a second before.

The gunman turned his glare onto me, raising his weapon. "Out of the way, bitch!"

I didn't think about my own safety. I didn't think about the danger. I thought about Maya back in Boston, and I thought about these four boys who had lost their mother. I grabbed the heavy brass desk lamp off the floor and swung it with all the strength in my body, striking the gunman squarely across his jaw.

The man stumbled backward, grunting in shock, his weapon clattering onto the floorboards.

Outside in the hallway, the sound of heavy boots approached as Marcus and Adrian’s elite security team finally breached the north wing, overwhelming the remaining intruders in a brutal, rapid tactical assault.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by the heavy breathing of men and the smell of gunpowder.

Adrian slid back under the shutter, his suit torn, blood dripping from a minor graze on his forearm. He dropped his weapon, lunged across the floor, and pulled Noah and Luke into his arms, holding them so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"I have you," Adrian choked out, his voice breaking completely as he buried his face in Luke’s hair. "I have you. Dad's here. I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

From the doorway, Evan and Caleb, who had managed to slip past the security corridor, stood watching.

Adrian looked up at his two older sons. He extended his arms toward them, tears streaming freely down his face. "Evan. Caleb. Come here. Please."

Evan hesitated for a fraction of a second, his tough exterior finally shattering into pieces. He ran forward, throwing his arms around his father's neck, followed closely by Caleb.

For the first time in four years, the Vale family was holding each other in the dark, weeping together, healing together.