THE STOLEN DIAMONDS AND THE SLEEPING SHADOWS

“Let her go.”

Roman’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of an executioner’s blade. He didn’t raise his gun. He didn’t have to. The pure, unadulterated violence radiating from him was enough to freeze the air in the room.

Victor stood in the doorway, the harsh hallway lighting casting long shadows across his face. He held Sophie firmly by her upper arm. She was crying, her stuffed rabbit dropped and forgotten on the carpet.

“I warned you, Roman,” Victor said, adjusting his grip as Sophie squirmed. “I told you a year ago. You don’t get to just walk away. The syndicate needs you. I need you. And I won’t let you burn our empire to the ground for a dead brother’s bastard.”

“Don’t call her that!” I screamed, stepping forward, my maternal instinct blinding me to the danger.

Victor pulled a sleek, silver pistol from his jacket and pressed the barrel against Sophie’s pink cardigan.

I stopped dead. My heart stopped beating. The world tunneled down to the cold metal pressing against my little girl.

“Back up, Elena’s sister,” Victor sneered. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”

“Victor,” Roman said, his voice horrifyingly calm. “If you pull that trigger, I won’t just kill you. I will dismantle everything you love. I will burn your legacy to ash. Hand me the girl.”

Victor laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “You think I’m afraid of dying? I’m protecting what we built.”

Victor reached into his pocket and tossed a small object onto the floor. It rolled to a stop at my feet.

It was a vintage subway token. Rusted and tarnished.

I stared at it, confusion slicing through the panic.

“Recognize it?” Victor asked me. “Your dear sister gave it to me. It’s what she used to pry the lock on your basement door five years ago. Before she poured the gasoline.”

My breath hitched.

“She told me all about it,” Victor continued, his eyes bright with malicious joy. “How you were always the favorite. How you got the grades, the praise, the boyfriends. She wanted you to burn. She just made a mistake and got your parents instead. But tonight? Tonight, she corrects that mistake.”

Suddenly, Isabella, who had been cowering near the overturned bookshelf, let out a piercing shriek.

“You used me!” she screamed at Victor, her fear finally turning to rage. “You promised me my debts would be cleared if I just left the necklace in the room! You didn’t say you were going to lock me in here to die!”

Victor rolled his eyes, his grip on Sophie slipping for just a fraction of a second as he glanced at Isabella.

It was all Roman needed.

Roman didn’t shoot Victor. The risk of hitting Sophie was too high.

Instead, Roman shot the heavy crystal chandelier hanging directly above Victor’s head in the hallway.

The gunshot was deafening. The chandelier’s support cable snapped.

Hundreds of pounds of crystal and brass crashed down.

Victor lunged backward to avoid being crushed, his grip on Sophie breaking.

“Sophie, run!” I screamed.

My brave, terrified three-year-old scrambled on her hands and knees, scrambling under the falling debris. I dove forward, sliding across the polished floor, and caught her in my arms just as a massive shard of crystal shattered where she had been a second before.

I rolled us away, pressing her face into my chest, covering her ears as gunfire erupted.

Victor was shooting blindly through the dust and debris. Roman was returning fire, methodically driving Victor back down the hallway.

“Get her to the greenhouse!” Roman roared at me, ducking behind a marble pillar as a bullet chipped the stone inches from his face. “There’s a reinforced panic room beneath it. The code is Leo’s birthday. Go!”

I didn’t hesitate. I scooped Sophie up, ignoring the burning ache in my muscles, and sprinted down the opposite corridor.

The mansion was eerily empty. Victor must have cleared the staff and guests out under the guise of an emergency evacuation, trapping only us inside.

We burst through the French doors at the back of the house and into the freezing night air. The massive glass greenhouse loomed in the distance, glowing like a haunted cathedral in the moonlight.

I ran across the manicured lawn, my shoes slipping on the wet grass. Sophie clung to my neck, her breathing ragged.

“It’s okay, baby, we’re almost there,” I panted, throwing my weight against the heavy glass doors of the greenhouse.

They yielded, and we spilled inside into the thick, humid air smelling of orchids and damp earth.

I rushed toward the center of the greenhouse, looking for the hidden floor panel Roman had told me about. I found it beneath a massive potted fern—a heavy steel grate with a digital keypad.

My hands shook violently as I punched in the numbers. 0-8-1-4. Leo’s birthday.

The keypad beeped green. The steel grate hissed open, revealing a stairwell leading down.

“Go, baby, go down,” I whispered, setting Sophie on the top step.

“Are you coming?” she asked, her big brown eyes wide with fear.

“I’m right behind you,” I promised.

I turned back to close the heavy glass doors of the greenhouse.

But as I reached for the handle, a cold, gloved hand shot out from the shadows of the orchids and grabbed my wrist.

I gasped and was violently yanked backward, crashing into a heavy wooden potting table.

I looked up, my vision spinning.

Standing over me, holding a heavy iron key in her other hand, was a woman who shared my exact face.

Elena.