Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY

“He set us up.”

Vincent was instantly on his feet, handing Mia back to me. He kicked the heavy wooden door with a sickening crunch, but the deadbolt held tight. It was a reinforced fire door.

Smoke began to curl rapidly through the gaps. The fire wasn’t a distraction this time—it was an execution. Julian’s backup plan. If he couldn't control the empire, he would burn the heirs with it.

“Get back to the window!” Vincent shouted, coughing as the thick, acrid smoke began filling the small room.

I retreated, pressing Mia’s face into my chest and covering her head with my jacket to protect her lungs. The baby began to cry, a high, thin wail that tore at my heart.

Vincent grabbed the heavy metal rocking chair in the corner of the room. With a roar of pure adrenaline, he hurled it at the window.

The glass didn't shatter. It bounced off.

“Bulletproof,” Vincent swore, coughing violently. “Julian retrofitted this room. It’s a kill box.”

Panic clawed at my throat. I remembered the heat from two years ago. The smell of burning wood. Julian had tried to burn me alive once; now he was finishing the job.

“Vincent!” I screamed over the roar of the flames outside the door. The wood was beginning to blister and blacken.

Vincent dropped to his knees, ripping off his thick suit jacket. “Cover her face completely with this!” he ordered, wrapping his jacket over Mia and my head.

Then he pulled his gun.

“Close your eyes and cover her ears!”

I curled into a tight ball on the floor.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Vincent emptied the magazine into a tight circle on the bulletproof glass. The structural integrity of the window weakened into a spiderweb of deep cracks.

He didn't reload. He backed up, took a running leap, and threw his entire 220-pound body shoulder-first into the weakened glass.

The window exploded outward.

A rush of cold night air flooded the smoky room. Vincent scrambled back inside, his shoulder bleeding, and grabbed me.

“We have to jump. It’s only a one-story drop to the awning below,” he yelled over the roar of the fire.

He grabbed me around the waist, pulling me and the bundled baby tight against his chest, and we threw ourselves out into the night.

We hit the canvas awning hard, ripping through the fabric and tumbling onto the wet grass of the courtyard.

I gasped for air, frantically pulling the jacket off Mia. She was coughing, but her eyes were open, and she was crying loudly. She was alive.

Vincent pulled us up. Sirens began wailing in the distance.

But as we stumbled toward the front gates, a dark figure stepped out from the shadows of the garden.

It was the matron of the orphanage, holding a shotgun. Her hands were shaking, but the barrel was pointed directly at me.

“Julian said you’d try to take her,” the woman said, tears streaming down her face. “He said if I let you leave, he’ll kill my grandson. I can’t let you leave.”

“Put the gun down, Mary,” Vincent ordered, stepping in front of me and Mia.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

She pulled the trigger.

Vincent didn't hesitate. He threw his body completely in front of mine.