THE BLOOD AND THE FROST

The hours stretching between the afternoon and the dead of night felt like walking barefoot over broken glass. I sat on the edge of the sprawling four-poster bed in the East Wing guest room, staring at the brass handle of the locked door. The sun dipped below the horizon, plunging the Valente estate into a heavy, oppressive darkness.

"Drink the water," Adrian’s voice commanded softly through the earpiece.

I looked at the crystal glass sitting on the nightstand. "I'm not thirsty."

"Drink it anyway. Adrenaline dehydrates you. If you have to fight, your muscles will cramp," he instructed smoothly. "We have the data from Karen’s phone. My tech team decrypted it an hour ago. Dante has been selling our shipping routes to the Falcone family for six months. The baby was just the final strike to break my mental state so he could take the throne."

"And my sister?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter the fragile hope keeping me together.

"We traced the GPS coordinates from a text Dante sent to Dr. Aris," Adrian replied, his tone softening just a fraction. "They are holding her at an abandoned psychiatric facility on the edge of the city limits near the Falcone territory. I have a tactical strike team gearing up right now. But we cannot move until Dante makes his play on you. If we hit the warehouse first, he'll know we're onto him and he'll vanish. We need him dead, Elena. Tonight."

"I know," I said, rubbing my arms to ward off the chill. I was wearing my dark jeans and a plain black sweater Adrian had left for me. I was ready. But the waiting was agonizing.

"I am in the surveillance room two floors above you," Adrian said. "The cameras in your hallway have been disabled on a looped feed. Dante thinks the path is clear. When he comes through that door, you stay out of the line of fire. Do you understand? You drop to the floor and you do not move."

"Understood."

Midnight struck. The grandfather clock in the distant hallway chimed a mournful, hollow tune.

Then, the faintest sound of metal sliding against metal.

My breath caught. Someone was picking the lock from the outside. The deadbolt slid back with a sickening click.

I threw myself flat onto the floor beside the heavy mahogany dresser, pressing my body into the shadows. The door creaked open slowly, letting in a sliver of pale moonlight from the hallway.

A figure stepped into the room. But it wasn't Dante.

The man was smaller, wiry, dressed entirely in black tactical gear with a ski mask pulled over his face. He held a suppressed pistol in his right hand, the long black cylinder of the silencer pointing dead ahead. Dante hadn't come to do his own dirty work. He had sent an assassin.

"Adrian," I whispered frantically, realizing my earpiece was still active. "It's not Dante. It's a hitman."

"I see him," Adrian snarled over the comms. "I'm coming down. Stay down!"

The assassin moved with lethal grace, approaching the bed. He raised the weapon, pointing it directly at the pillows bunched under the blankets that I had arranged to look like a sleeping body. Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. Three muffled shots tore into the mattress, feathers exploding into the air like grotesque snow.

The assassin paused, realizing instantly that there was no blood, no gasp of pain. The bed was empty.

He whipped around, his eyes scanning the dark room, locking onto the shadows near the dresser. He saw my foot.

He raised his gun, stepping toward me.

Instinct took over. The paralyzing fear vanished, replaced by a primal, desperate need to survive. I grabbed the heavy brass base of the decorative lamp sitting on the floor next to the dresser. As the assassin leaned around the corner of the wood, bringing the gun down to aim at my head, I swung the heavy brass base with every ounce of strength I possessed.

CRACK.

The heavy metal smashed into his kneecap. The bone shattered with a sickening crunch. The assassin let out a muffled howl of agony, his leg buckling beneath him. His finger jerked on the trigger. A bullet smashed into the mahogany dresser inches from my face, showering me in sharp wood splinters.

He collapsed forward, dropping the gun in his desperate attempt to catch himself.

I didn't wait. I scrambled to my feet, diving for the dropped weapon. My fingers brushed the cold steel grip, but the assassin, even with a shattered knee, was fast. He grabbed my ankle, violently jerking me backward. I hit the floor hard, the breath knocked out of my lungs.

He crawled over me, pulling a jagged hunting knife from his tactical vest. The blade glinted in the moonlight, descending toward my chest.

Suddenly, the bedroom door was kicked entirely off its hinges with an explosion of splintering wood.

Adrian Valente stood in the doorway, a menacing silhouette against the hallway light, holding a massive Desert Eagle handgun.

He didn't yell. He didn't issue a warning.

Adrian fired once.

The thunderous roar of the unsuppressed hand-cannon shook the walls of the room. The assassin's body jerked violently violently backward off of me, a massive hole punched cleanly through his shoulder. He hit the floor, writhing in agony, the knife clattering uselessly away.

The entire house instantly erupted into chaos. Alarms blared, red emergency lights bathed the hallway in crimson, and the shouting of guards echoed from downstairs.

Adrian strode into the room, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, righteous fury. He kicked the assassin's gun under the bed and shoved the tip of his smoking barrel directly under the wounded man's chin, forcing him to look up.

"Who sent you?" Adrian roared, the mafia king fully unleashed.

The assassin, bleeding heavily onto the expensive Persian rug, spat blood onto Adrian's shoes. "Go to hell, Valente."

Adrian didn't blink. He shifted the gun down and shot the man in his other, uninjured kneecap.

The scream that tore from the assassin's throat was blood-curdling.

"I asked you a question," Adrian said, his voice dropping to a terrifying, absolute calm. "And you have exactly three seconds to answer before I start shooting things you need to live."

"Dante!" the man sobbed, clutching his ruined legs. "Dante hired me! He said you'd be too distracted to notice a dead maid! Please! Please!"

Adrian slowly lowered the gun. He looked over at me. I was sitting up, gasping for air, trembling violently as the adrenaline began to crash. He stepped over the bleeding man, knelt down in front of me, and gently pulled me into his chest. His large hand cradled the back of my head, shielding me from the horrific sight on the floor.

"You're safe," he murmured into my hair, the violence completely gone from his touch. "I've got you. I've got you."

Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway. Rocco and a dozen heavily armed guards burst into the room, their weapons raised.

"Boss!" Rocco yelled, taking in the carnage. "We heard the shot!"

Adrian stood up, helping me to my feet and tucking me securely behind his broad back. He looked at Rocco, his eyes flat and deadly.

"Lock down the estate. No one gets in, no one gets out. Find Dante Moretti and bring him to the basement. Do not kill him. He belongs to me."

Rocco's face drained of color as the reality of the betrayal hit him. "Dante... Dante left five minutes ago, boss. He took a black SUV. He burned out of the gates right before the alarms triggered."

Adrian cursed viciously, slamming his fist into the wall. Dante had known. He had sent the hitman as a distraction to make his escape.

"Where did he go?" Rocco asked frantically.

I looked at Adrian, my heart dropping into my stomach. "He's going to the asylum," I whispered. "He's going for Lucia."