Gavin’s hand went to his weapon.
Declan’s face hardened. “Why send me a fake painting?”
Amelia looked at the lower right corner where the shadows seemed a fraction too thick.
“To hide something in a place you would assume was decorative.”
Gavin had the painting dismantled in the garage under full containment.
Thirty-eight minutes later, he returned holding a small plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a transmitter.
Declan did not speak for a long moment.
Then he said, “Clear the house.”
By 10 p.m., every room in the estate had been swept twice. Three more devices were found: one inside a lamp base, one beneath a guest-room windowsill, and one in a hollow brass finial on a curtain rod near the nursery Amelia had refused to call a nursery yet.
By 11:15, the wind rose off Lake Michigan hard enough to rattle the old windows.
By 11:46, lightning split the sky over the water.
By 11:52, the south gate cameras went black.
By 11:53, the first explosion shook the house.
Amelia was in the library with a mug of ginger tea when Declan entered with a gun in his hand and a look on his face that belonged to a man no longer pretending civilization had rules.
“Get up,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Malcolm opened the south gate from inside the system.”
A second blast shattered glass somewhere below.
Declan crossed to a bookcase, reached behind a row of leather-bound law books, and pressed a hidden panel. The case swung inward, revealing a concrete passage lit by narrow strips of emergency light.
“At the end is a reinforced room,” he said. “You go in, lock it, and you do not open it unless it’s me or Gavin.”
Amelia rose slowly, fear turning her hands cold.
“You’re going back out there.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Amelia.”
“Do not say my name like that.”
Gunfire cracked through the lower floor.
Declan stepped closer, not touching her.
“Our child is with you.”
“And you are walking toward bullets.”
“I have men here.”
“You also had men in Asheville.”
That hit.
For one second, the hardened surface of him broke and she saw the fear underneath. Not fear of dying. Fear of failing her again.
He took her face in both hands, fast and trembling.
“I need someone in this house to live long enough to hate me tomorrow.”
A bullet struck the library window and spiderwebbed the glass.
Declan pushed her into the passage and closed the hidden door before she could argue.
Amelia moved down the corridor with one hand on the wall and one on her stomach. At the end, she found the reinforced room exactly where he said it would be. It contained water, medical supplies, blankets, communication equipment, and a wall of monitors showing silent feeds from around the estate.
She locked the door.
Then she watched hell unfold without sound.
Men in black moved through the foyer.
Gavin and two guards fired from the upper landing.
Smoke filled the east hall.
On one monitor, Declan crossed the main gallery with terrifying speed, shooting one attacker in the shoulder and dragging a wounded guard behind a marble column.
Another screen flickered, then steadied on the front entrance.
Savannah Calloway walked into the house wearing a white coat over a red dress, her blonde hair pinned perfectly despite the storm. She held a pistol at her side.
Amelia’s blood chilled.
Savannah was not a bargaining chip.
She was a participant.
On the central monitor, Declan turned too late. A man struck him from behind with the butt of a rifle. Declan dropped to one knee. Another attacker kicked him hard in the ribs.
Amelia’s hand flew to her mouth.
Savannah approached him slowly, smiling.
The camera had no audio, but Amelia could read lips. Restoration had taught her patience with small details. Love had taught her the shape of Declan’s name in other people’s mouths.
Savannah leaned down and said, “Your bastard will never be born owning what should have been mine.”
Something inside Amelia went very quiet.
Not calm.
Not brave.
Quiet.
There was an emergency axe mounted behind glass near the interior exit.
Amelia looked at the monitors, then at the axe, then at her stomach.
Declan had told her to live long enough to hate him tomorrow.
Savannah had just threatened to make sure their baby never saw tomorrow at all.
Amelia broke the glass.
The side passage opened behind a tapestry near the gallery. Amelia emerged barefoot, gripping the axe with both hands, moving with a steadiness she did not feel.
No one saw her at first.
The house was chaos. Alarms flashed red. Rain blew through broken windows. Men shouted over gunfire. Declan was on one knee near a cracked column, blood running from his hairline, one hand braced against the marble floor.
Savannah raised her pistol toward him.
Amelia did not think.
She swung the blunt side of the axe into the knee of the nearest armed man.
The crack echoed through the gallery.
The man screamed and collapsed.
Savannah turned.
Declan moved like a wounded animal given one last reason to kill. He lunged upward, caught Savannah’s wrist, twisted, and sent the pistol skidding across the marble.
Gavin appeared from the side hall with three guards.
The remaining attackers dropped or ran.
The whole assault ended in less than a minute, but the silence afterward felt enormous.
Declan turned to Amelia.
His face was blood-streaked, furious, and terrified.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded.
Amelia dropped the axe. Her hands began to shake only after it hit the floor.
“You told me to stay locked in.”
“And?”
“She threatened our baby.”
The word our changed his face.
Not healed it. Not softened it into something simple.
Changed it.
Before either of them could move, Gavin came running into the gallery with a laptop tucked under one arm.
“Boss,” he said, breathing hard. “You need to see this.”
Declan did not look away from Amelia.
“What?”
Gavin’s voice turned grim.
“It was Malcolm. All of it. The Calloways, the leak, Asheville, the engagement story. He didn’t just betray the company. He built the whole trap around her.”
The files Gavin recovered from Malcolm Price’s encrypted server revealed a betrayal cleaner and crueler than any bullet.
Malcolm had sent Amelia the engagement article from an anonymous account minutes after her hospital appointment, knowing pregnancy hormones, shock, and fear would do the rest.
He had ordered her private access badge left active so she could reach the executive floor.
He had arranged for Savannah to ask the exact question that would make Amelia stop and listen.
He had coached Declan’s meeting points so Amelia would hear just enough truth to destroy herself with the missing half.
Most importantly, he had been running millions of dollars through forged paintings, inflated appraisals, and shell collectors tied to shipping contracts. Amelia, with her inconvenient eye and her habit of noticing lies in varnish, would have detected the fraud within a week if Declan had kept her close.
So Malcolm made sure she ran.
He did not remove her because she was weak.
He removed her because she could see.
Amelia read the files two days after the attack while sitting in the estate study with a blanket around her shoulders and purple bruises on her palms from gripping the axe.
Declan sat across from her with two cracked ribs, stitches near his temple, and an expression stripped of every defense he had once worn like armor.
“He used me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But you made it easy.”
Declan looked at her.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt because it did not try to save him.
“I should have told you the truth before I played chess with people who use women and children as pieces,” he said. “I should have trusted you with danger instead of deciding ignorance was protection.”