At 2:07 a.m., an icy male whisper crackled through my sleeping toddler’s baby monitor:

By 3:30 a.m., Cross Tower had ceased to be a corporate skyscraper; it had become an armed citadel.

Tactical operatives in unmarked black plate carriers manned every doorway. Elevator shafts had been disabled, leaving only the primary freight lift operational under retinal scan protocols. Heavy steel blast shutters had been rolled down over the panoramic glass windows of the penthouse, sealing us in a tomb of brushed chrome, bulletproof steel, and fluorescent lighting.

Leo was awake now, sitting on the sprawling sectional in the private lounge, happily eating dry cereal while watching cartoons on a muted screen. He had no idea what was happening. To him, the men with carbines pacing the hallways were just "Damen's friends."

"Mommy," Leo piped up, waving his blue spoon at me. "Where's Uncle Shadow? He said he was gonna bring me a wooden boat today."

Every operative in the room froze.

Damen, who was standing beside a bank of tactical monitors reviewing thermal drone feeds of the city grid, turned slowly. His expression was an iron mask, but I could see the muscle twitching violently beneath his jawline.

I knelt down in front of my son, taking his small hands in mine. "Leo, baby... look at Mommy. When did you last see Uncle Shadow?"

Leo blinked his bright hazel eyes, thinking hard. "When you were chopping carrots. He was sitting on the big chair in the dark room. He smelled like winter."

He smelled like winter.

A chill crawled down my spine. The guest bedroom down the west hall had been unused for months. It had an exterior balcony facing the fire escape—a balcony that was supposed to be monitored by motion sensors linked directly to the front desk.

"Vance," Damen barked, not looking away from the monitors.

Vance, a burly, scarred veteran who had served as the Cross family's chief enforcer for three decades, stepped forward, wiping cold sweat from his brow. "Boss, we pulled the server logs for the west wing. The camera footage has been looping on a four-minute delay for the past six weeks. The motion sensors were bypassed at the junction box. Whoever did this didn't just break in; they had the root passwords to our primary intranet."

"Julian wrote the root passwords," Damen said, his voice frighteningly calm. "He built the architecture of this security network before he left for Europe. He knows every dead zone in this tower because he designed them."

"Damen, if he wants to kill you, why hasn't he?" I stood up, stepping between Damen and the monitors. "Why go near Leo? My son has nothing to do with your syndicate! His father was an accountant who walked out on us before he was even born! Leo is innocent!"

Damen's jaw tightened. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of something ancient and agonizing crossed his amber eyes—a look of profound guilt that he quickly buried beneath his ruthless facade.

"Are you sure about that, Clara?" Damen murmured.

The air left my lungs. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Before Damen could answer, the lights in the penthouse flickered once, twice, and died.

The television screen went black. The ambient hum of the HVAC system cut out, plunging the sixty-fourth floor into a suffocating, heavy darkness.

"Hostile breach! Cut the power lines!" Vance yelled, his voice echoing through the gloom as tactical flashlights flared to life, cutting blinding white cones through the darkness. Weapons racked with a sharp, collective metallic clatter. "Form a perimeter around the boss and the boy!"

The backup generators should have kicked on within three seconds. They didn't.

Instead, the red emergency exit strobes flared to life, casting pulsating, bloody shadows across the walls.

Then, the high-end boardroom intercom on the wall beside us gave a low, staticky whine.

Clack.

A voice drifted through the speaker, smooth, melodic, and chillingly relaxed.

"Good evening, little brother. It's been a long time since we played hide-and-seek."

Damen raised his weapon, leveling it directly at the ceiling speaker. "Show yourself, Julian! Stop hiding behind the walls like a coward!"

A low, rich chuckle echoed through the intercom.

"A coward? That's rich coming from the boy who let our father sign my death warrant so he could inherit the shipping routes. Did you think fire could erase a Cross, Damen? The ocean didn't want me. And the fire only made me sharp."

"What do you want?" Damen snarled, his chest heaving. "Name your price. The European ports? The offshore accounts in Zurich? Take it and get out of my city!"

"I don't care about your dirty money, Damen. I didn't come for the empire. I came for what's mine."

The speaker clicked off.