Blood was drying on my cuff when I returned home at 1:43 a.m., but the worst violence waiting for me wasn’t at the docks. Before I could turn on the lights, my housekeeper stepped from the darkness and whispered, “Don’t make a sound,” then showed me why my fiancée had been terrorizing my children for eleven weeks, and why losing my temper was exactly what she needed.

The blood on my cuff was drying into a stiff, rust-colored streak by the time the private elevator chimed at 1:43 a.m.

I had just come from a warehouse near the Chicago River, where three men had learned the hard way what happens when you hijack a Moretti Logistics convoy. For fifteen years, I had built a life that people in this city mistook for legitimate power. From the outside, it looked untouched: a glass penthouse soaring over Lake Shore Drive, bespoke tailored suits, armored black SUVs, charity galas, and quiet handshakes with city councilmen.

Photographs in society magazines never showed the men bleeding on concrete docks.

I stepped into the dark foyer, resting my hand against the cold marble wall. I reached for the light switch, eager to wash the copper smell off my skin before checking on my children.

Before my fingers touched the brass plate, a shadow detached itself from the darkness beside the Steinway grand piano.

"Don’t turn on the lights," a voice whispered.

My body reacted instantly. My right hand dropped behind my waist, my fingers locking around the cold steel grip of my concealed Glock.

"Take your hand off it, Roman," Naomi Wells whispered, stepping closer into the faint amber glow spilling from the streetlights below. "If you pull that gun, you’ll destroy the only chance your children have left."

I didn't lower my weapon. Naomi was forty-two, quiet, and had served as our head housekeeper since my wife Isabella passed away three years ago. She was a woman of few words, invisible by choice. Seeing her standing in the dark like a specter sent a chill down my spine.

"You have three seconds to explain why you’re creeping around my foyer, Naomi," I growled, my voice dropping to a dangerous frequency.

"Your son is awake," she whispered, her voice trembling with a terrifying blend of rage and fear. "Your daughter is trying not to cry in the library. And the woman you’re marrying is teaching them how to hate themselves."

My blood ran cold.

"Camille?" I muttered.

Camille Sloane wasn’t the love of my life. She was the icy, elegant daughter of Patrick Sloane, a ruthless syndicate boss who controlled the rail yards my trucks needed. Our upcoming wedding was a merger—a bloody treaty signed in gold to guarantee peace between two empires.

"If you walk in there and confront her right now," Naomi warned, reaching out to touch my arm with trembling fingers, "she will cry. She will blame the children's grief over Isabella. She will call me a liar, and by sunrise, she’ll tell her father that you broke the agreement."