The day I buried my father, I called my husband and asked for a divorce. Ethan Blackwood laughed and said, “Go ahead, Claire. Let’s see how you pay your father’s hospital bills without my money.” I didn’t tell him my father was already dead—or that while Ethan was vacationing in Miami Beach with another woman, I had signed my father’s death certificate alone.

The smell of cordite and pulverized brick burned Claire’s lungs.

Ethan’s body was heavy, hot, and unyielding on top of hers. He had both arms locked around her head, his broad back absorbing the hail of plaster and splintered timber.

She could feel the rapid, furious thump of his heartbeat against her ribs—a rhythm she had fallen asleep to for two years, now tainted by violence.

“Marcus!” Ethan roared, his voice cutting through the deafening ringing in Claire’s ears. “Suppressing fire! Move the perimeter to the south alley!”

Outside, the heavy, rhythmic thuds of semi-automatic return fire echoed from the street. Marcus and the Blackwood security team were returning fire with military precision.

The sound of screeching tires tore through the rain below, followed by the muffled roar of a high-performance engine speeding away down Western Avenue.

“Clear!” Marcus shouted from the stairwell, his weapon drawn, smoke drifting from the barrel. “They’re mobile! Two black Suburbans, local Oregon plates. Boss, they weren't trying to breach. It was a drive-by hit. They were trying to take you out through the third-story glass.”

Ethan didn’t move immediately. He remained pinned over Claire, his face inches from hers.

His dark hair was dusted white with drywall, and a trickle of crimson blood ran down his temple, dripping onto the collar of his expensive coat. His eyes scanned every inch of her face, his gaze wild and desperate.

“Are you hit?” he demanded, his hands gripping her shoulders, checking her arms, her neck, her ribs. “Claire, look at me. Are you bleeding?”

“Get off me,” Claire gasped, shoving violently against his chest.

Ethan stumbled back onto his knees, giving her room. Claire scrambled backward, coughing on the dust, her eyes darting across the demolished room.

“Maya!” Claire screamed.

From behind the kitchen island, Maya lifted her head, her face pale as a ghost, covered in grey dust, but unharmed. “I’m okay… Claire, what was that?! Who were those people?!”

“Moretti’s men,” Ethan answered coldly, pushing himself to his feet. He reached inside his coat, checked the chamber of his Sig Sauer, and shoved it back into the leather holster. “They didn't track Claire. They followed my jet from Chicago. Don Dominic leaked my flight plan to the Morettis the second I left Illinois.”

Ethan turned his dark gaze toward Claire, extending a hand to help her up.

Claire slapped his hand away and climbed to her feet on her own, her boots crunching over shattered glass.

“You brought a war to my doorstep,” Claire hissed, her chest heaving. “You brought your blood and your enemies to my best friend’s home!”

“Claire, listen to me—”

“No, Ethan! You listen to me!” she snapped, pointing a trembling finger at the ruined apartment. “For two years, I tolerated your coldness. I tolerated Vanessa showing up at your galas, whispering in your ear, wearing your mother’s jewelry. I tolerated you treating my father’s medical care like a leash around my neck! But this?”

She gestured wildly at the bullet holes in the wall.

“You don’t get to play the hero because you jumped on top of me during a firefight *you* caused! You are the danger, Ethan! You have always been the danger!”

Ethan flinched. The words hit him harder than any bullet ever had. He stood amidst the ruins of the apartment, a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars, feared by politicians and criminals alike, looking utterly gutted.

“I know,” Ethan said softly.

The quiet admission caught Claire off guard. She stared at him, her guard up.

“I know what I did,” Ethan continued, stepping closer, ignoring Marcus who was gesturing urgently from the doorway. “I know I was arrogant. I know I took you for granted. I thought if I kept you safe in that mansion, if I paid Arthur’s bills, you would always be there. I thought you would never leave me.”

“Because you thought I was weak,” she whispered.

“No,” Ethan said, his voice raw with sudden, painful clarity. “Because I was terrified of how much I needed you. Because every time I looked at you, Claire, you made me feel human. And in my world, being human gets you killed.”

He took a deep breath, wiping the blood from his brow with the back of his sleeve.

“The Morettis aren’t here to kill me,” Ethan admitted, his jaw tightening. “They’re here for Arthur’s ledger.”

Claire’s blood ran cold. She instinctively glanced toward the butcher-block table, where her father’s leather-bound book still sat, miraculously untouched by the gunfire.

Ethan followed her gaze. His eyes narrowed as he recognized the faded brown leather.