Bring another bottle of the Macallan. Tell the kitchen to send ice.”

Bring another bottle of the Macallan.

Tell the kitchen to send ice.”

“Right away, sir.”

She walked out without hurry.

Damon watched her go.

The moment the heavy oak doors closed behind her, he murmured, “Run a background check on her again.”

Vincent frowned. “The maid?”

Damon did not look away from the door. “Yes.”

“She has been here half a year. We vetted her. She is nobody.”

Damon’s expression hardened. “Then prove it twice.”

Vincent gave a short laugh, but Damon did not smile.

He had survived too long by ignoring instincts.

Something about Valerie Hayes was wrong.

But for once, Damon Russo’s paranoia had aimed at the wrong target.

Valerie was not the threat.

The threat was already inside the gates.

And time had almost run out.

The breach happened three nights later.

It was two in the morning when a violent thunderstorm rolled over Oak Haven, swallowing the estate in sheets of rain

and violent flashes of white light. The trees bent beneath the wind. The sky split open above the roof.

In the basement laundry room, Valerie was loading damp linens into an industrial dryer when she heard it.

No thunder.

Not wood cracking.

Suppressed rifle fire.

Her hands stopped.

Another burst followed, faint beneath the roar of rain.

Double taps.

Professional.

Valerie dropped the linens.

A second later, the lights flickered once, twice, then died completely. The huge estate fell into darkness. The backup generators should have responded within five seconds.

They did not.

Sabotaged.

Valerie closed her eyes for one brief breath.

There it was.

The move she had been waiting for.

Upstairs, the first screams began.

Damon woke to the sound of his bedroom door splintering off its hinges.

He rolled out of bed, grabbed the pistol from his nightstand, and fired twice before his mind had fully escaped

sleep. The masked figure in the doorway dropped hard against the carpet.

But more boots thundered in the hallway.

Damon moved fast, bare-chested, barefoot, with murder in his eyes. He stepped into the corridor and saw shadows moving in the dark, men in tactical gear sweeping through his home like they owned it.

His home.

His fortress.

His family’s monument to power.

Under attack.

He fired until the hallway flashed with gunlight. A man fell. Another shouted. Glass shattered somewhere below. Damon’s men were yelling, disoriented and dying. The house intercom was dead. His phone had no signal. The comms were cut.

He needed the panic room in his study.

He fought his way down the grand staircase, his breath steady despite the chaos. At the bottom, he found Thomas Blake crouched behind a marble pillar, bleeding heavily from his shouler.

“They’re everywhere,” Thomas gasped. “Western gate. Inside men let

them through.”

Damon grabbed him by the collar and dragged him behind cover as bullets chewed into the wall above them.

“Vincent?” Damon asked.---