Two shots.
Two bodies.
A spray of bullets shredded the back of his leather chair and sent stuffing, wood splinters, and paper fragments raining down over Beatrice’s crouched body.
She clamped her hands over her ears.
Her breath came in panicked bursts.
She was not brave.
Not in that moment.
She was a maid from Queens who polished silver and sang lullabies. She did not belong in gunfire. She did not belong in blood. She did not belong in a family war.
“Beatrice.”
Graham crouched before her, hands gripping her shoulders.
“Look at me.”
She forced her eyes open.
“They’re coming for my mother,” he said. “Silas knows Pendleton’s cover is blown. If Isabella testifies to the heads of the five families, he dies.”
Beatrice’s fear found a direction.
Isabella.
Graham checked his magazine.
“Stay here. Lock the door.”
“No.”
His head snapped up.
“I’m coming.”
“You’ll get killed.”
“She trusts me.” Beatrice stood on shaking legs. “If she wakes to gunfire, she’ll panic. She’ll run. She needs me.”
Graham stared at her.
Not as a boss.
Not as a captor.
As a man watching a woman become larger than fear.
“Stay behind me,” he said. “When I say down, you drop.”
They moved through the estate like shadow and heartbeat.
The corridors smelled of cordite, blood, rain, and old money. Bodies lay in the foyer. Glass glittered underfoot. The storm outside hammered the windows while war moved through the house Silas thought he could steal.
Graham killed with terrifying efficiency.
No wasted motion.
No drama.
Only necessity.
Beatrice followed close behind, eyes fixed on his back, rubber-soled shoes silent against marble.
When they reached the west wing, the guards were gone.
The door to Isabella’s suite stood ajar.
Inside, Pendleton hissed, “Hold her still.”
Beatrice did not wait.
She shoved past Graham and threw her full weight into the door.
It burst open.
The scene inside burned itself into her memory.
Isabella thrashed against the silk sheets, terrified and lucid. Silas Romano, handsome in a silver suit, pinned her shoulders down with one hand over her mouth. Pendleton stood beside the bed holding a syringe filled with cloudy liquid, hands shaking.
“Get off her!” Beatrice screamed.
Pendleton turned.
Beatrice slammed into him with every ounce of strength her body had been shamed for carrying.
He flew backward into the glass coffee table.
It shattered beneath him.
The syringe skittered across the floor.
Silas reached for his gun.
“Don’t breathe,” Graham said.
His pistol was leveled at Silas’s head.
Silas froze.
Then smiled.
Badly.
“Graham. Thank God. Pendleton went rogue. I came to stop him.”
“Save it.”
“I swear—”
“I know about the ten million,” Graham said. “The Cayman accounts. The tea. The chemical prison you built inside my mother’s head.”
Silas’s face drained.
Pendleton groaned beneath the broken glass.
Beatrice stood over him with one foot pinning his wrist, fists clenched, chest heaving, apron torn, hair loose from its bun.
Silas looked at her and sneered.
“A fat maid brings down the Romano operation. How poetic.”
Something in Beatrice went still.
For years, words like that had made her shrink.
Now they sounded small.
Desperate.
Far away.
Graham’s voice dropped.
“The woman you were too arrogant to notice saw what my blood tried to hide.”
Silas laughed bitterly.
“You’re too late. My men control the perimeter. The families arrive in twenty minutes. They’ve been told you went paranoid. That you shot your own mother during a delusion. I take the throne tonight.”
“You take nothing,” Graham said.
Silas lunged.
Not for his gun.
For Isabella.
He meant to use her as a shield.
Beatrice moved first.
She threw herself across the bed, wrapping Isabella in her arms and covering the frail woman with her own body.
Silas grabbed the back of Beatrice’s uniform.
A knife flashed from his sleeve.
Graham fired.
The shot cracked through the room.
Silas staggered backward, red blooming across his chest.
He stared down in disbelief, then collapsed hard onto the floor.
Silence followed.
Only Pendleton’s whimpering.
Only Isabella’s ragged sob.
Only Beatrice’s breathing as she kept waiting for the knife that never came.
“Bea.”
Graham’s voice cracked.
His hands touched her shoulders.
She flinched.
Then realized it was him.
Slowly, she lifted her head.
Isabella was safe beneath her, crying but alive.
“My angel,” Isabella whispered, cupping Beatrice’s face. “You saved me.”
Graham pulled Beatrice from the bed and into his arms.