1.I ran from Chicago the night I found my husband with my own sister, carrying a secret he never knew existed. Three years later, he appeared on my porch and stared at my twins with his own amber eyes. I told him he had the wrong house—but when black SUVs rolled into town, I learned my sister had staged everything to erase me and my children.

Before the man with the pistol could round the corner of the sofa, a sudden, violent screech of rubber echoed from the street below.

SCREEECH—CRASH!

The sharp sound of metal colliding with metal rattled the windows. Shouts erupted outside.

"What the hell was that?!" the second man barked, spinning around toward the open front door.

"Check the street!" the lead man ordered, raising his weapon.

I didn't wait. Adrenaline surged through my limbs like liquid fire. I leaped from behind the sofa, the heavy iron poker raised high above my head, and brought it down with every ounce of strength I possessed across the back of the lead man’s shoulders.

He roared in pain, tumbling forward over the coffee table, his gun skittering across the hardwood floor.

"Elena!"

The second man pivoted, aiming the pistol right at my chest. My heart stopped. I braced for the impact, throwing my body defensively toward the hallway where my children were hiding.

BANG.

The sound was deafening inside the small apartment—not the soft thip of a silencer, but a concussive, wall-shaking roar.

Except the bullet didn't hit me.

The second man’s eyes went wide, his knees buckling outward as a red bloom bloomed across his charcoal suit jacket. He dropped the gun, clutching his chest, and crashed heavily to the floor.

Behind him, standing in the splintered frame of my front door through a haze of rising gunsmoke, was Marco.

His tailored black coat was splashed with rain and mud. His knuckles were raw and bleeding, bruised dark purple. In his right hand, he held a heavy Sig Sauer pistol, still smoking slightly at the barrel. His amber eyes were locked on me, blazing with a terrifying, protective fury that I hadn't seen since the night we got married.

"Are you hurt?" Marco’s voice was low, vibrating with a lethal, suppressed rage.

I stood frozen, the iron poker slipping from my trembling fingers and clattering onto the rug. "You... you followed them."

"I never stopped following you, Elena," Marco said, stepping past the groaning man on the floor, his boots tracking mud over my clean white boards. "And whoever sent these animals is going to wish they had never been born."

From the kitchen doorway, little Leo appeared, standing protectively in front of Mila. He looked up at the towering, blood-spattered man holding a gun in our living room, and then looked back at me.

"Mama," Leo said, his voice entirely too steady for a six-year-old. "Is that the man from the balcony?"

Marco stopped dead in his tracks. The gun lowered slowly to his side. He looked at Leo, then at Mila peeking out from behind her brother, and for the first time since I had known him—since the day he took over the most ruthless syndicate in Chicago—Marco Bellini looked entirely defenseless.

"My kids," Marco choked out, his voice cracking. "They have my eyes."

"They have nothing to do with you, Marco," I snapped, stepping between him and my children, my voice sharp as broken glass. "Get out of my house. You brought this war to my doorstep."

Marco shook his head slowly, taking a step closer, ignoring the danger entirely. "I didn't bring the war, Elena. The war was started three years ago. And the person who set us up isn't who you think it is."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded.

Before Marco could answer, my phone—buzzing violently on the kitchen counter—lit up with an unknown text message.

I walked past him, snatched the phone, and looked at the screen.

A single video file was attached from an unlisted number, accompanied by three words: