Chapter 1 - The Night the Gates Fell
At 11:42 p.m., the front doors of Blackwood Estate exploded inward.
I was on my knees polishing the marble when the two massive oak panels tore away from their hinges and crashed across the foyer. Freezing rain rushed inside with enough force to scatter dead leaves over the floor I had spent the last hour cleaning.
For one ridiculous second, I stared at the mess and thought, Mrs. Moretti is going to blame me for this.
Then a man stumbled through the broken doorway.
His hand pressed against his side. His black coat was soaked with rain, and blood had spread across the white shirt underneath.
He took three more steps.
Then he collapsed at my feet.
I dropped the polishing cloth.
“Sir?”
He rolled onto his back.
My breath caught.
Leo Moretti.
Thirty-four years old. Only son of Vittorio Moretti. The heir to an empire people in three states knew better than to discuss in public.
I had worked at Blackwood for eleven months, and in all that time Leo had spoken to me exactly twice.
Once to thank me for finding his watch.
Once to tell his father not to fire me after I accidentally spilled red wine on a senator’s wife.
Now his face was gray.
“Mr. Moretti?”
His eyes opened.
His hand shot out and locked around my wrist.
I gasped.
“They breached the gate.”
His voice was barely audible.
“Who?”
“Samuel.”
My stomach dropped.
Samuel Reed was Blackwood’s head of security. He had worked for the Morettis for fourteen years. He controlled every gate, camera, alarm, guard rotation, vehicle schedule, and private communication channel on the estate.
“What do you mean?”
Leo swallowed painfully.
“Samuel sold us out.”
A distant engine growled beyond the windows.
Then another.
I looked toward the driveway.
Black SUVs appeared through the rain.
One.
Two.
Four.
Six.
Men climbed out.
Not estate guards.
These men carried rifles.
“Oh my God.”
I grabbed the radio clipped to my apron.
Leo knocked it from my hand.
“No.”
“We need help.”
“They’re monitoring everything.”
“You’re bleeding to death.”
“And if they find me here, you die with me.”
A burst of gunfire cracked somewhere behind the mansion.
I flinched.
Leo closed his eyes.
“There’s an old groundskeeper’s cabin in the north woods.”
“I know.”
“Half a mile.”
“In this storm?”
“It has a cellar.”
Then his body went limp.
“Leo?”
Nothing.
I should have run.
My Honda was parked in the staff garage. There was an old service road behind the greenhouse that might still have been open. I had no family in that house. No loyalty to the Morettis. No reason to die for a wounded man whose last name made people lower their voices.
Then I thought of Sophie.
My nineteen-year-old sister lying under fluorescent hospital lights while doctors explained that the surgery she needed would save her heart but might destroy the rest of our lives financially.
Eighty-four thousand dollars.
That was the amount sitting in my banking app like a death sentence.
I knew what helplessness felt like.
I knew what it meant to stand beside someone you loved and realize that wanting them to survive was not enough.
“Damn you,” I whispered.
I got my arms under Leo’s shoulders.
He was heavy.
Really heavy.
I dragged him across the foyer.
Outside, the nor’easter swallowed us.
Freezing rain struck my face so hard I could barely see. I wrapped Leo’s arm over my shoulder and forced him upright.
“Walk.”
His knees buckled.
“Leo, walk.”
He stirred.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because I clean up messes for a living.”
A weak laugh left him.
“What’s your name?”
I almost dropped him.
“You don’t know my name?”
“I know your face.”
“Wonderful.”
“What is it?”
“Leora Hayes.”
“If we survive, Leora Hayes, I’m giving you a raise.”
“If we survive, I’m quitting.”
He laughed again.
Then I felt something warm against my hand.
Blood.
Too much.
Behind us, flashlights appeared between the trees.
Voices followed.
“They came this way!”
I pulled Leo deeper into the woods.
One of my shoes vanished in the mud.
I left it.
Branches tore at my uniform. My fingers went numb. Leo leaned more heavily against me with every step.
“Stay awake.”
“I am.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m a Moretti.”
“That apparently isn’t the same thing as immortal.”
He opened one eye.
“I like you.”
“You’re delirious.”
“Probably.”
The cabin finally appeared between the trees.
I nearly cried.
The door was swollen from years of damp weather, and I had to shoulder it twice before it opened.
Inside smelled like dust, cedar, and cold ashes.
I lowered Leo onto an old rug.
“Don’t move.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
I found an oil lamp and matches in a cabinet.
When the flame caught, I saw the wound clearly for the first time.
A bullet had torn through his lower side.
My hands started shaking.
“I can’t do this.”
Leo watched me.
“Cabinet above the sink.”
Inside was an old emergency medical kit.
Gauze.
Bandages.
Antiseptic.
A packet of clotting material.
I stared at it.
“You know how to use that?”
“No.”
“Neither do I at the moment.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Leora.”
I looked at him.
“Pack the wound.”
My stomach turned.
“I’ve never—”
“You want me alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
I knelt beside him.
The first time he groaned, I nearly stopped.
The second time, he grabbed my wrist.
“Keep going.”
“I’m hurting you.”
“Good. Means I’m alive.”
I pressed the gauze into the wound with both hands.
Leo’s jaw clenched.
“Tell me something,” I said.
“What?”
“Anything.”
“Samuel has a terrible golf swing.”
I stared at him.
“That’s what you choose?”
“You said anything.”
Voices moved through the woods.
Closer now.
I blew out the lamp.
Leo whispered, “Cellar.”
I found the trapdoor beneath an old table.
We barely got inside before the cabin door opened upstairs.
Boots crossed the floor.
A man said, “There’s blood.”
Another answered, “Reed said bring Moretti alive if possible.”
“And the maid?”
A pause.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Leo’s hand found mine in the darkness.
I held my breath.
The cellar smelled like wet earth.
My heart pounded so loudly I was sure they could hear it.
Boots stopped directly above us.
A floorboard creaked.
Then someone’s phone rang.
“Yeah?”
Silence.
“No, we haven’t found him.”
Another pause.
Then the man said something that made Leo’s fingers tighten around mine.
“What do you mean you have the sister?”
My body went cold.
The man continued.
“Hospital?”
Sophie.
I started to rise.
Leo pulled me down.
The footsteps moved away.
The cabin door slammed.
For five full seconds, neither of us breathed.
Then I turned toward Leo in the darkness.
“They have my sister.”
“Maybe not.”
“You heard him.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going back.”
“You’ll get killed.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
I froze.
Leo pushed himself upright, breathing hard.
“Samuel knows who you are now. Which means helping me made you part of this whether either of us likes it.”
“I never asked to be part of your family’s war.”
“I know.”
“Then fix it.”
He was silent.
“Fix it, Leo.”
“I will.”
“How?”
His voice changed.
Less weak.
More dangerous.
“First, we survive until sunrise.”
“And then?”
Lightning flashed through cracks in the cellar walls.
For the first time, I saw something in Leo Moretti’s face that frightened me more than the men outside.
Not fear.
Fury.
“Then,” he said, “I find out how many people Samuel betrayed.”
He looked at the ceiling.
“And I burn his whole operation to the ground.”
I should have been afraid of him.
Instead, I tightened the bandage around his waist.
“Fine.”
Leo looked at me.
“Fine?”
“But Sophie comes first.”
A faint smile crossed his face.
“Leora Hayes…”
“What?”
“You really have no idea who you’re giving orders to.”
I leaned close enough that he could see I wasn’t joking.
“And you have no idea how little I care.”
For the first time that night, Leo smiled.
Then a vehicle stopped outside the cabin.
A door opened.
And someone knocked three times.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Leo’s smile disappeared.
“That isn’t Samuel’s signal.”
May you like
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s mine.”
