Forty-eight hours was supposedly the longest any maid had survived inside Falcone Manor,

The heavy iron gates of Falcone Manor stood half a mile down the winding, cliffside driveway. I ran after them, ignoring Gabriel’s sharp command to stay in the foyer. I wasn’t going to cower in a marble hallway while men fought over me as if I were a piece of stolen luggage.

When I burst through the front portico into the freezing coastal air, the scene unfolding on the gravel drive stopped me dead in my tracks.

Four black Escalades had rammed the wrought-iron security perimeter, their grilles mangled against the reinforced steel bars. Eight men in heavy leather trench coats stood near the headlights, automatic pistols gripped loosely at their sides.

At the front of the group stood an older man with silvering slicked-back hair and a cruel, narrow face scarred across the bridge of his nose.

“Roman!” the man called out, his voice carrying over the crashing roar of the waves below. “We don’t want any trouble with the Falcones! We’re just here for the girl! She owes three hundred grand to the clinic!”

“Three hundred grand?” I choked out from the top of the marble steps. “My debt was twelve thousand!”

Declan didn’t even glance back at me. He was walking down the drive alone, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his leather jacket, whistling a tuneless, discordant melody. He walked with the relaxed, predatory grace of a wolf entering a pen of sheep.

“Hey, Frankie,” Declan said pleasantly, stopping ten feet from the armed crew. “Nice coat. Is that real leather, or did you steal it off a corpse in Dorchester?”

Frankie sneered, gesturing toward me with his gun hand. “She signed the guarantor agreement, Declan. The girl belongs to Don Moretti until the principal and interest are satisfied. Hand her over, and we walk away.”

“You see, that’s where you’re confused,” Declan said, tilting his head. He pulled his hands from his pockets. In his right hand, a five-inch tactical blade flicked open with a sharp, metallic *clack*. “You think Maeve owes you money. But the way I see it, you’ve been extorting Clara Carter’s daughters for five years. Which means you owe *us*.”

“Declan—” Frankie began, raising his weapon.

What happened next was a blur of lethal, practiced violence.

Declan didn't dodge; he closed the distance before Frankie could finish squeezing the trigger. A deafening gunshot cracked through the freezing air, the bullet tearing through the shoulder of Declan’s jacket.

Declan didn't even flinch.

He drove his shoulder into Frankie’s chest, slamming the older man into the hood of the lead SUV with enough force to crack the windshield. The blade in Declan’s hand flashed twice, ruthless and precise, hamstringing two of the men who tried to flank him.

Gunfire erupted.

Before the sound could even echo off the cliffs, Gabriel appeared beside me on the portico, raising a suppressed semi-automatic rifle to his shoulder. Three rhythmic, coughing cracks sounded beside my ear.

Down on the drive, three of Moretti’s gunmen collapsed instantly onto the gravel, their weapons clattering across the stones.

“Get down, Maeve!” Gabriel barked, shoving me gently behind a solid granite pillar as another bullet chipped a chunk of marble from the portico wall.

“Declan!” I screamed.

Through the smoke and headlights, I saw Declan surrounded by the remaining three collectors. One of them swung a heavy iron crowbar, striking Declan across the ribs with a sickening, hollow thud. Declan stumbled, dropping to one knee on the gravel.

A second man drew a combat knife, lunging straight toward Declan’s unprotected throat.

Without thinking, without a single rational thought crossing my panicked mind, my hand found a heavy bronze urn sitting on the portico balustrade. Fueled by pure, unfiltered adrenaline, I heaved the twenty-pound urn over the railing and hurled it downward toward the collector lunging at Declan.

The bronze pot crashed directly onto the man’s shoulder and collarbone, shattering bone with an audible crunch and knocking him sideways into the dirt.

Declan looked up, blood dripping from his split lip, his eyes wide in absolute disbelief.

He didn't waste the opening.

Rising like a demon from hell, Declan seized the man with the crowbar by the throat and slammed his head repeatedly into the SUV’s steel bumper until the man stopped moving entirely. The last surviving collector dropped his weapon, fell to his knees in the blood-stained gravel, and threw his hands into the air, trembling violently.

Silence descended over the cliffside, broken only by the whistling wind and Declan’s ragged, heavy breathing.

Roman walked down the marble steps behind me, his hands in his pockets, not a single hair out of place. He didn't even draw a gun. He simply stood at the edge of the drive and looked down at the bloodbath as if reviewing an unsatisfactory lawn maintenance report.

Declan stood panting over the wreckage, wiping a smear of crimson from his cheek with the back of his hand. He looked up at me standing behind the pillar, his dark eyes glowing with wild, feral admiration.

“Did you just throw a three-hundred-year-old urn at a hitman?” Declan called out, a breathless, bloody grin spreading across his face.

My hands were shaking so hard I had to press them against my thighs to keep from collapsing. “He was going to stab you, you idiot!”

Gabriel lowered his rifle, letting out a low whistle. “Remind me never to make her angry in the kitchen. She has terrifying aim.”

Roman stepped to the edge of the drive, his gaze fixing on the lone surviving collector on his knees.

“Tell Victor Moretti one thing,” Roman said, his voice flat, emotionless, and colder than the Atlantic sea spray. “Tell him the Carter debt is officially marked paid in full. And tell him that if any man carrying his colors sets foot within five miles of Maeve or Lily Carter again, I will personally hang his severed head from the Boston Harbor bridge.”