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ONE

L eone

The moment that chilling silence comes through, I know with sickening certainty something has gone terribly wrong. This isn’t a call dropping. It’s not the gradual fade of bad reception or a poor connection.

It’s a violent silence.

Like something was crushed—smashed.

“Fallon?” Her name is a panic-stricken shout as I bark it into the phone. My stomach drops into a frozen pit of dread, and my breath turns to ice in my chest when she doesn’t answer. I yank the phone away, and the screen confirms my worst fear. The line’s dead. Completely disconnected.

Desperation twists inside me, a gut-wrenching sensation I haven’t felt in years. My lungs lock up, each inhale shuddering through my entire body as if something has crawled into my chest and is choking the life out of me. It doesn’t take long to recognize what’s paralyzing me. Fear.

It’s a different kind of fear. The kind that leaves my hands shaking so violently I can’t even think straight.

The world fades away around me, consumed by the deafening ring in my ears.

The dull thrum of the casino building falls silent.

I stand frozen at the center of my office, heart battering against my ribs.

Across the room, Milo straightens and shoots to his feet. The subtle shift in my posture and the terror in my voice are enough to put him on alert within seconds. He snatches up the keys. “Leone!” Milo snaps, wanting to know what is going on.

“We have to get home,” I don’t recognize my voice as I speak.

Those five words are enough to send him into overdrive, while all I can think is I can’t lose her—lose them.

Not again, Angelo nearly killed me before I killed her.

Lydia, I thought I loved her and would die for her until I realized I mostly kept her around because my father hated her.

Fallon, so pure-hearted that she could love a monster like me, showed me what love could be. Now, the thought of losing her has paralyzed me.

“Get your shit together. What’s wrong with you?” Milo’s growl slices through my terror. He shoves me hard, and the shock jolts me back to the present. His eyes burn with a mixture of frustration and urgency. “Now, let’s go!”

I’m on autopilot. Following him out of the office, I force my legs to move even though everything around me is a blurring haze. My fingers fumble with the phone as I call the guards at the gate, my mind a frenzied mess that refuses to focus.

All I get is silence. I curse loudly, fear morphing to anger.

Rocco. I try his phone as we hit the parking lot, my mind racing.

Again, it’s the same. Dead air on the other end.

I slide into the passenger seat. Milo throws me a worried glance when he sees the name flash across the dash.

He knows just as well as I do this is bad.

Because Rocco always answers. Always. Unless he can’t.

“Try the house phone,” Milo barks. I’m already on it, punching in the numbers.

The tires screech as he slams into reverse, shooting backward out of the lot. The wheels spin against the pavement before catching, and then we’re off, tearing away from the casino. The phone rings out, the sound taking on a mocking quality. No answer.

Within seconds, we’re flying down the street, weaving and dodging through heavy traffic like it’s a goddamn video game.

I barely register how fast we’re going. Milo’s driving like a madman, and we’re a blur through the city, the lights streaking past the windows like smears of neon paint.

My mind is a dozen miles away, still trapped in those last moments on the phone.

The fear in her voice. Analyzing every sound, every detail.

My hands shake even more as we get to the highway. My fingers fly across the phone’s screen, pulling up the house security cameras, needing to see what the hell went down.

Static follows. Each feed is a scrambled mess of pixels and white noise. No video. No audio. No answers. Just static.

I should’ve been there. Should’ve had more men on her—more eyes, more protection, hell, an army if that’s what it would’ve taken.

I should’ve seen this coming. The signs had been there, subtle but insidious—a car parked a little too long on the corner, a familiar face that didn’t belong where it was, the way silence had stretched unnaturally over the past few weeks, like the universe itself was holding its breath.

Things had been too quiet for too damn long.

I didn’t see it. I ignored the warnings because I wanted to believe we were finally in the clear, that maybe, just maybe Mikhail lost interest, as long as he kept his shit off my territory, I didn’t give a fuck what he was doing and clearly that was mistake.

I stupidly believed we could have a moment of peace. And now she’s gone.

The tires screech with every sharp turn, and the car jolts as he cuts across lanes, narrowly missing a delivery truck.

Horns blare behind us, angry shouts following in our wake.

Neither of us cares. He glances at me once, and whatever he sees in my expression keeps him silent.

Normally, I’d bark at him to slow the fuck down, to think instead of driving like a lunatic.

Right now? Right now, I couldn’t care less if he wraps this damn car around a pole, as long as it gets us to the house faster.

Another turn, harder this time and my shoulder slams against the passenger door with enough force to bruise. Pain flares briefly before fading into nothingness; it’s drowned out by the storm raging inside me. My stomach twists into knots so sharp they’re damn near cutting me from the inside out.

I’ve lost men before—good men. It’s an occupational hazard in this life. You bury your dead and move on because dwelling on it gets you killed just as easily as bullets do. However, this? This is different.

This is Fallon.

My wife.

The woman who walked into my world, tearing down walls I didn’t even know I’d built and forcing me to feel again—to love again.

She looked at me like I was more than just a monster wrapped in an expensive suit and armed with a loaded gun.

She saw something good in me when no one else did, not even myself.

She stopped fighting against me and decided to just love me anyway she could have me.

And she’s carrying my child.

And now, thanks to me, she’s in the hands of my enemies.

If anything happens to her—or to our child—God help whoever’s responsible because there won’t be enough pieces of them left to bury.

The gates come into view up ahead, looming tall and wrought iron against the darkening sky.

Milo doesn’t slow down; instead, he guns it, slamming through with a deafening crash that sends one side of the gate swinging wildly off its hinges.

Gravel sprays beneath the tires as we tear up the driveway toward the mansion.

My heart stops when I see them—two of my men lying crumpled by the gate like discarded dolls—blood pools beneath their bodies, staining the gravel black in the fading light.

“Fuck,” Milo mutters under his breath as he brings the car to an abrupt halt near the front steps.

Before it even fully stops moving, I’m out—my Glock already drawn and ready.

As I sprint toward the front door, my boots pound against the stone steps, taking them three at a time.

The rage inside me isn’t just burning anymore, it’s alive, clawing at my chest like a rabid animal desperate for release.

The door is ajar, so I push it open with my foot, gun leading the way as I step inside.

The first thing that hits me is the smell, coppery and thick enough to coat my tongue with every breath.

Blood. It’s everywhere: smeared across the pristine white marble floors in streaks and handprints, smear marks like a body was dragged through the dead.

I follow the trail, stepping over the prone forms of my men.

I don’t stop to check pulses. I already know they are dead when I hear screaming,

“Milo!” I shout over my shoulder as we take off toward the sound together.

We round the corner into chaos: bodies on the floor, overturned furniture, bullet holes peppering walls and cabinets. Rocco lies near the back stairs, his hand pressing against a gut wound. Blood seeps through his fingers in rhythmic pulses that match his labored breathing.

“Rocco!” I drop to my knees beside him without hesitation, holstering my gun so I can assess the damage. “What happened? Where is she?”

He groans weakly and manages to lift his head enough to look at me. “They… Russians…” His voice is barely above a choked whisper. “Caught us off guard… Took her…”

He groans, gripping my forearm. “They knew the layout. The timing. They were let in.”

Maria’s sobbing draws my attention next.

She sits huddled in one corner of the room, clutching something close to her chest.

I rise slowly and approach her despite every instinct screaming at me to hurry, to move, to do something. Her hands tremble violently as she holds out what she found.

Fallon’s phone.

The screen is shattered, streaked with blood.

My gaze remains fixed on it, as though sheer willpower might piece the fragments back together—not just the screen, but time itself.

As if staring hard enough can rewind the last few minutes and undo the chaos that’s left my world tilting off its axis—the distant sound of engines and tires screeching as vehicles race toward us.

The sound grows louder, more insistent, and I know the authorities and my men are racing to get here.

“Help me get him up. We need to get him to the hospital,” I instruct Milo. Rocco slaps my hands away, and Maria rushes toward the front, knowing backup and an ambulance will be coming.

Help rushes in quickly, and I feel like a sitting duck as Dr. Stevens works on Milo, who refuses to go to the hospital.