A barefoot little girl reached for a slice of cake at a charity gala—then a woman in diamonds screamed at her, and a billionaire suddenly knelt down.

The following night, the storm clouds that had threatened the city broke open in a torrential downpour. Thunder rattled the reinforced glass of the penthouse, sending low, vibrating booms through the floor.

Mia woke up screaming.

Damon was at her bedside in a fraction of a second. He swept the trembling four-year-old into his arms, pacing the floor of the guest bedroom as she sobbed hysterically into his chest.

“It’s okay, Mia. It’s just thunder. You’re high up in the sky. Nothing can reach you here,” he murmured, rocking her gently.

“The man with the key!” Mia gasped, clutching his t-shirt with both fists. “He’s coming! He said if I took the locket out from under the floorboards, he would lock me in the deep dark!”

“Who, Mia? Who had the key?”

“Marcus,” she sobbed. “Marcus with the scars.”

Damon felt a chill run down his spine. Marcus—Julian’s chief of security. The man who had stepped toward him at the dessert table.

Suddenly, the penthouse lights flickered.

Then, with a dull, heavy pop from the electrical closet in the corridor, the entire suite went pitch black.

The backup generators did not kick in.

Damon’s instincts flared like a warning flare. The penthouse had a triple-redundant military-grade electrical grid. It could survive an EMP attack. The only way the power could fail was if someone had physically severed the primary conduits in the basement maintenance shafts.

*Someone was inside the building.*

“Thomas!” Damon called out in a low, sharp whisper.

From the darkened hallway, there was no response—only the faint, rhythmic sound of heavy footsteps on the imported hardwood.

Damon moved swiftly. He carried Mia into the master bedroom, opening a hidden wall panel behind the wardrobe. Inside was a steel-reinforced panic room with an independent air supply and a separate satellite comms link.

“Mia, listen to me very carefully,” Damon whispered, setting her down inside the padded enclosure. “I need you to sit on this bench and put these headphones on. Play the music on this tablet. Do not make a sound, and do not open this door for anyone except me. Do you understand?”

Mia’s eyes were wide with terror, but she nodded bravely. “Uncle Damon, be careful.”

“Always, sweetheart.”

Damon closed the reinforced door, the magnetic lock engaging with a quiet hiss.

In the darkness of the master suite, Damon stepped to the nightstand, retrieved a heavy tactical flashlight, and slipped a pair of brass knuckles over his right hand. He didn’t keep firearms in the house, but he had spent seven years training in Krav Maga.

He stepped into the living room.

A flash of lightning illuminated the floor-to-ceiling windows. Standing near the grand piano was a hulking figure dressed in tactical black, carrying a silenced semi-automatic pistol.

It was Marcus.

“You’re trespassing, Marcus,” Damon said, his voice coming from the shadows near the kitchen island.

Marcus spun around, raising the weapon. “Mr. Cross. Julian sends his regards. He said you’ve become an unacceptable liability to his campaign.”

“Julian is sending a hitman to execute a billionaire and an innocent child?” Damon taunted, circling through the darkness with silent footsteps. “He must be truly desperate.”

“The child isn’t an innocent,” Marcus growled, sweeping his flashlight across the empty sofas. “She’s a sixty-million-dollar parasite. She was supposed to die of pneumonia three years ago, but she’s like a cockroach. Always surviving.”

Damon’s blood turned to pure molten magma.

Before Marcus could turn the flashlight beam toward the hallway, Damon struck.

He threw the heavy glass decanter from the bar with pinpoint accuracy. It shattered across Marcus’s gun hand, knocking the weapon to the floor with a metallic clatter. Before the security chief could recover, Damon lunged from the shadows, slamming a brutal right hook directly into Marcus’s jaw.

The brass knuckles connected with a sickening crunch.

Marcus stumbled back against the grand piano, roaring in pain. He swung a wild, heavy fist, catching Damon along the cheekbone and splitting his skin. Damon barely felt it. Fueled by years of repressed grief and the primal instinct to protect his niece, Damon drove his knee upward into Marcus’s ribs, hearing bone fracture.

Marcus collapsed to his knees, gasping for air, blood spilling from his broken nose.

Damon stood over him, breathing heavily, the flashlight beam pinned directly onto Marcus’s swollen face.

Damon leaned down, his voice colder than the rain lashing against the glass.

“You touched Clara. You touched Mia,” Damon whispered. “Now, you are going to tell me everything Julian made you do. Or I will throw you off this balcony, and the police will find your body floating in the harbor before breakfast.”

Marcus looked into Damon’s eyes. For the first time in his violent life, the mercenary saw a man who would actually do it.