chapter five:The Devil Comes Home

MARA'S POV

The footsteps were getting closer.

I pressed one finger against my lips, warning Sofia to stay silent. Lia buried her face against my chest, clutching her battered rabbit so tightly its torn ear disappeared beneath her little fingers.

A beam of light swept across the records room.

“Check behind those cabinets!” a man barked.

I counted three voices. Possibly four men. All armed.

My pulse remained steady, but my mind moved fast. The room had one obvious entrance, two cabinets large enough to conceal a person, and a narrow ventilation shaft near the ceiling. The shaft was useless for me, let alone two children.

Then I noticed a metal handle beneath the desk.

I pulled it.

A section of the floor shifted.

A narrow staircase descended into darkness.

Of course. A mansion built on secrets had more than one way to bury them.

I guided the girls down and eased the panel shut above us. Seconds later, boots thundered into the room.

“Where the hell did she go?”

A gunshot shattered the silence.

Lia whimpered. I covered her mouth gently, holding her close as dust rained from the ceiling.

“Spread out,” another man ordered. “The woman is trained. Don't underestimate her.”

Interesting.

Someone had told them about me—or they had watched me fight.

We reached the bottom of the stairs. A damp corridor stretched ahead, ending at a rusted service door. I pushed it open a fraction.

Two men stood on the other side.

One turned.

I struck first.

My elbow smashed into his throat. Before he could scream, I ripped his pistol from his hand and drove him against the wall. His partner raised his weapon.

The gun fired.

Pain tore through my upper arm.

I stumbled, but training took over. I fired once. He dropped hard against the concrete, blood spreading beneath him.

The first man reached for a knife.

I twisted his wrist until the blade clattered to the floor, then struck him across the temple with the pistol. He collapsed.

My arm burned. Blood slid beneath my sleeve.

“Mummy?” Lia whispered.

“I'm not your mummy, sweetheart,” I breathed, forcing a smile. “But tonight, nobody touches you.”

I grabbed the fallen man's radio and pushed the girls through the door.

We had barely reached the service courtyard when headlights swept across the estate.

Black SUVs roared through the main gates.

Men in dark suits poured out, weapons raised.

And a tall man stepped from the first vehicle.

He wore a black shirt beneath an open coat. Blood stained one sleeve. His face was cold enough to make armed men hesitate.

He looked toward the mansion.

Then his gaze found me.

For one suspended second, neither of us moved.

I knew who he was before anyone spoke.

Dante Blackwood.

My absent husband had finally come home.

DANTE'S POV

The first thing I noticed was the blood.

It streaked Mara's arm, dark against her skin. Behind her stood my daughters, barefoot and terrified, with Lia clinging to her waist.

For eighteen months, I had imagined returning home to a hundred different disasters.

This was worse than all of them.

“Girls.”

Sofia ran toward me.

I dropped to one knee and caught her as she crashed into my chest. Lia followed, sobbing. I held them both, touching their faces, checking their arms, their heads, searching for injuries.

Then Sofia whispered, “They came to take us.”

Something inside me went silent.

I looked at Mara.

“Who did this?”

“Ask your sister,” she replied.

A gunshot cracked from the upper balcony.

My men shouted.

I shoved my daughters behind my body as bullets struck the SUV beside us. Glass exploded across the courtyard.

“GET THEM DOWN!” I roared.

My security team returned fire. One attacker fell from the balcony, hitting the stone below with a sickening thud. Another tried to escape through the garden and was cut off by my men.

I drew my weapon and advanced toward the mansion.

A masked gunman emerged from behind a pillar, aiming directly at Mara.

She moved before I could.

She shoved Sofia and Lia behind a stone planter, seized the attacker's gun arm, and drove her knee into his stomach. The weapon fired into the night. Mara twisted, slammed him against the pillar, and knocked him unconscious with a brutal strike.

Even wounded, she moved like a soldier.

Not a frightened bride.

A soldier.

I reached her as she staggered.

My hand caught her waist.

For the first time, I felt how hard she was shaking beneath all that control.

“Let go,” she snapped, raising her pistol toward me.

My men immediately aimed their weapons at her.

“Lower them!” I thundered.

Every gun dropped.

Mara's eyes narrowed. “You must be Dante.”

“And you must be the woman who turned my home into a battlefield.”

“Your home was already a battlefield. I simply refused to die quietly.”

Despite the blood, the gunfire, and the bodies scattered across my courtyard, something dangerously close to admiration stirred in me.

Then she swayed.

I caught her again.

“Get a medic!” I ordered.

“I don't need—”

“You're bleeding on my shirt, wife.”

“Buy another shirt.”

For one insane second, I almost smiled.

Then my head of security approached, carrying a dead attacker's radio.

“Boss, we recovered this from the east corridor.”

He pressed the playback button.

A woman's voice filled the courtyard.

Vivienne's.

“Make sure the children stay inside. I want Mara frightened enough to stop digging.”

The recording crackled.

Then another voice answered.

A man's voice I knew too well.

Rafael Voss.

“If she has seen the accounts, frighten her all you want. But if she knows about me, make sure she never speaks again.”

My blood turned to ice.

I looked toward the mansion's upper windows.

Vivienne stood behind the glass, watching us.

When our eyes met, she slowly raised her wineglass.

And smiled.

Tonight, my enemies had entered my home.

They had spilled blood on my grounds.

They had frightened my children.

I handed Lia to one of my men and gave Sofia a final kiss on her forehead.

Then I turned toward the house.

“Lock every gate,” I ordered. “Nobody leaves.”

My gaze fixed on my sister.

“Especially family.”