Thirty-two weeks pregnant, I watched my husband walk into his family’s Christmas party with another woman wearing the diamond necklace he had secretly purchased during a hotel stay.

The basement of the Dre estate wasn't a standard cellar; it was a fortified labyrinth built during the Prohibition era, with reinforced concrete walls and heavy steel doors that led to wine vaults, mechanical rooms, and an old fallout shelter.

"Can you make it down the stairs?" Logan asked, eyeing my swollen abdomen with genuine concern.

"I run twelve-hour codes on my feet in the ICU," I told him, adrenaline flooding my veins, sharpening every sense. "I can handle stairs. Do you have a weapon?"

Logan reached into his waistband and pulled out a compact 9mm pistol. "I took it from my car before I came in. Seven rounds. We can't take on four mercenaries in an open shootout."

"We don't have to," I said, a dangerous plan forming in my mind. "The fire suppression system for the wine cellar isn't water. It’s Halon gas."

Logan stared at me, his eyes widening. "Halon starves oxygen out of the room to kill fire instantly."

"If we can lure them into the vault corridor and trip the manual release from the control room, they won't be able to breathe for forty seconds. Long enough to drop them."

"And what about Matthias?" Logan asked coldly.

"Matthias made his choice when he bought that diamond choker with stolen lives," I said. "He’s on his own."

We slipped through the service door into the stairwell. The lights flickered once, twice, and then snapped off entirely as the mansion's main circuit breakers were sabotaged.

Only the crimson emergency lights hummed to life, bathing the concrete descent in a blood-red glow.

From down below, in the deep belly of the house, we heard the sound of iron scraping against stone—and a woman weeping.