He abandoned his wife at O’Hare to fly first class with his childhood ex, completely unaware she was boarding a flight to a new country without him.

A violent summer thunderstorm had rolled in over London, breaking the heatwave with a fury that shook the Victorian windowpanes of my flat in South Kensington.

Lightning fractured the midnight sky, casting jagged, electric-blue shadows across the hardwood floor of my living room. Rain lashed against the glass like handfuls of thrown gravel.

I was curled on the velvet sofa, wearing an oversized cashmere sweater and wool socks, a mug of chamomile tea resting on the table beside me. The blueprints for the Scottish estate’s restoration lay spread across the coffee table. For the first time in my life, I felt an unshakeable, profound peace. Tomorrow morning, I was boarding a train to Edinburgh to begin the reclamation of my family’s heritage. The divorce was signed. The past was buried. I was free.

*Bang. Bang. Bang.*

The sound was heavy, wet, and desperate.

I froze.

The knock came from the heavy oak entrance door at the bottom of the private interior staircase that led down to the quiet mews street.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Julian Thorne had installed an advanced electronic security system on the flat three months ago, but the alarm had not sounded. The intercom monitor on the wall remained dark, its wiring dead.

*Bang. Bang.*

It sounded weaker this time—a scraping, sliding noise against the wood, as if someone were collapsing against the other side of the door.

I slowly stood up, my senses sharpening into the survival mode I thought I had left behind in Chicago. I picked up the heavy brass fireplace poker resting by the hearth, holding it tight in my right hand as I crept toward the top of the stairs.

The lightning flashed again through the skylight above the stairwell, illuminating the bottom landing in a blinding white strobe.

Beneath the brass mail slot of the front door, a dark, viscous liquid was slowly seeping across the threshold, pooling on the white marble tiles.

Blood.

"Claire..."

A whisper drifted through the wood. Barely audible over the drumming rain, cracked, shredded by agony, but unmistakably his.

My breath trapped in my throat. "Adrian?"

I flew down the stairs, tossing the brass poker aside, my hands shaking as I deactivated the three heavy deadbolts Julian had installed. I grabbed the brass handle and pulled the heavy oak door open.

The cold night rain blew into my face.

Adrian Moretti collapsed forward across the threshold.

He fell heavily onto his knees, his forehead resting against the marble floor at my feet. He wore no jacket, only a dark tactical sweater that was soaked through—not just with rain, but with a horrifying, sticky warmth that smelled of copper and gunpowder. Three gunshot wounds were visible across his left shoulder and flank, bleeding freely into the fabric.

"Adrian!" I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands instinctively pressing against the wounds on his side, my fingers instantly coming away coated in warm crimson. "Adrian, look at me! What did you do?!"

He groaned, a wet, rattling sound in his chest, and slowly rolled onto his back, his head cradled against my lap.

His face was ghostly white, his lips turning a faint, terrifying shade of blue. Yet his amber eyes, glazed with shock and impending unconsciousness, locked onto mine with a fierce, blinding light that shattered every defensive wall I had spent months constructing.

"They... they came for you," Adrian coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. "Nikolai... Volkov. He was... at the corner of the mews. Waiting for your lights... to go out."

"You idiot," I sobbed, tears blurring my vision as I pressed down desperately on his side to staunch the bleeding. "Why didn't you call the police?! Why did you come here?!"

"Couldn't... risk them being slow," he whispered, his trembling, blood-soaked right hand reaching up, his fingers brushing against my cheek with an agonizing tenderness that broke my heart into a thousand pieces. "Had to... be sure. You're safe, Claire. The team... took Nikolai out in the alley. It's done. You're... you're safe."

His hand slipped from my cheek, his fingers uncurling against the marble floor.

From his palm rolled a small, bloody object that tapped gently against my ankle.

The platinum ring with *C & A — Forever.*

"Adrian! Stay with me!" I screamed, grabbing his face with both hands, feeling his skin growing freezing cold against my palms. "Adrian! Open your eyes! Don't you dare die on my floor, do you hear me?! Adrian!"

His eyelids fluttered, his breathing shallow, hitching in his chest as his head rolled limply to the side.

Outside in the narrow, rain-drenched mews, the heavy rumble of high-powered engines suddenly cut through the sound of the thunder.

Two black SUVs with darkened windows turned sharply into the alley, their blinding high-beam headlights slicing through the rain, illuminating my open doorway in an unforgiving white glare.