Emma fired toward the voice.

The muzzle flash revealed a man crouched beside the greenhouse door and another behind a concrete planter. Her shot sent both men down. Not wounded—ducking.

“Run!” Marcus shouted.

He fired back toward the wine cellar as a second team entered the tunnel behind them.

Rosa pulled Grace through the greenhouse doorway. Emma followed, expecting a bullet between her shoulders.

Instead, a sprinkler pipe burst above them. Water hammered the tunnel, and the emergency lights flashed back on.

One of Marcus’s shots had struck a valve.

In the sudden glare, Emma saw the nearest kidnapper’s face. Owen Tate, a quiet guard who had carried groceries for Rosa and once helped Grace rescue a bird from the chimney.

That was the true horror of Don Romano’s house. Betrayal wore familiar faces.

Owen aimed at Marcus.

Grace snatched a clay pot from the workbench and hurled it. It shattered against Owen’s wrist. His shot went into the ceiling.

Marcus drove into him, and both men fell into the water.

“Emergency phone!” Emma yelled.

Rosa pointed to a green cabinet. Emma ripped it open, grabbed the receiver, and punched the number Don had given her.

A woman answered on the first ring. “Kim.”

“Angela Romano.”

Silence. Then: “Who is this?”

“Emma Carter. Don Romano accepts your terms. Eight men have an order to abduct Grace before midnight. We’re at the greenhouse east of the estate.”

“Do not go to local police. Do not use a Romano vehicle. Can you reach Post Road?”

Emma looked through the wet glass. Two black SUVs were moving along the garden drive.

“Not without being seen.”

“Stay alive for seven minutes.”

The line died.

“Federal agents?” Rosa asked.

“Eventually.” Emma opened drawers beneath the potting bench and found pruning shears, fertilizer, twine, and a ring of maintenance keys. “We need seven minutes now.”

Marcus slammed Owen’s head against the tunnel wall. The guard went limp.

The second kidnapper fled toward the house.

“They’ll bring everyone here,” Marcus said.

Grace pointed through the glass to an old utility cart used by the gardeners.

Emma followed her gaze. The cart offered no armor and barely enough speed to frighten a squirrel.

“Perfect,” she said.

Marcus stared at her. “For what?”

“Being underestimated.”

Rosa found the ignition key. Marcus rolled a fertilizer spreader across the path, then cut open two bags of lime and dumped them into its hopper.

The first SUV rounded the hedge as Emma started the cart.

“Hold on.”

She floored the pedal.

The cart lurched onto the path. Marcus stood on the rear platform and pulled the spreader lever. A white cloud exploded behind them.

The SUV entered it blind, swerved, and buried its front end in a fountain.

Grace laughed.

It was only one startled sound, gone almost immediately, but Don’s silent daughter had laughed in the middle of a gunfight.

Rosa began laughing too.

Emma took the cart between the hedges. “Which way?”

Grace pointed left, then toward a gap in the stone wall hidden by ivy.

They abandoned the cart and squeezed through. On the other side lay a narrow residential street and a parked sedan with its headlights off.

Emma raised her gun.

The driver’s window descended. A Korean American woman in a charcoal suit displayed federal credentials.

“Rachel Kim. Get in.”

Marcus checked the back seat before allowing Grace inside. Two more unmarked cars approached without sirens.

Rachel looked at Emma. “Where is Don Romano?”

Gunfire rattled from the mansion.

“Drawing them away from Grace.”

“That is either brave or useful.”

“Tonight it’s both.”

Rachel shut the door after Rosa and Grace. “You’re coming.”

Emma looked back at the estate.

Don had lied to her, watched her, and used her grief as bait. He had also stood in that dining room and chosen his wife’s truth over his own power. He was inside a house full of men who believed loyalty belonged to a code instead of a person.

“Take Grace,” Emma said.

“Emma.” Rosa’s warning carried twenty years of experience.

Grace struck the window with her palm.

Emma bent down beside her. “Your father made sure you could choose. I’m making my choice too.”

Grace grabbed Emma’s wrist and shook her head.

“I’m not leaving you. I’m bringing him back.”

It was a promise she had no right to make.

Grace stared at her, gray eyes furious and frightened. Then she pulled the brass key from beneath Emma’s blouse and closed Emma’s fingers around it.

She wrote on the fogged window with one fingertip.

BOTH.

Bring back both the key and her father.

Emma nodded.

Rachel swore under her breath. “Reed, go with her. My team enters in four minutes.”

“No,” Marcus said. “My job is Grace.”

Emma understood. Don might command his loyalty, but the child held his duty.

She took Marcus’s radio and ran back through the wall alone.

The mansion’s front drive had become a battlefield of broken glass and abandoned cars. Don’s voice came through the radio.

“East hall clear. Marcus, status.”

Emma pressed the button. “Grace is with Rachel Kim.”

A pause. “Where are you?”

“Safely outside.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

“Your influence.”

“Leave, Emma.”

“No.”

“That was not a request.”

She slipped through a kitchen door. “Then you wasted it.”

The kitchen was empty except for shattered dishes and a burner left on beneath a copper pan. Emma shut off the flame and heard footsteps in the butler’s pantry.

She hid behind the island.

Vincent entered with two armed men.

His perfect suit was torn at the shoulder. Blood streaked his temple, but he moved without pain.

“The girl is gone,” one man said.

“Then change the order,” Vincent replied. “Don alive. The maid dead. Find the key on her body.”

Emma touched the brass beneath her shirt.

Vincent knew about the box.

She waited until they passed, then whispered into the radio. “Vincent is heading west from the kitchen. He wants the key.”

“Get out,” Don said.

“You first.”

A burst of static swallowed his answer.

Emma followed at a distance. The west corridor led to the old chapel, where candlelight trembled against stained glass. One of Vincent’s men lay unconscious near the door.

The second appeared behind Emma and wrapped an arm around her throat.

She drove her heel into his foot, then slammed the back of her head into his nose. He loosened his grip. She turned, struck him with the gun, and ran into the chapel.

Don stood near the altar with his pistol trained on Vincent.

Vincent held no weapon.

“Tell her,” Vincent said. “Tell the maid how many women passed through your ports while you chose not to see.”

“I know what my silence cost.”

“Do you? Angela knew. That is why she was leaving you.”

Don’s gun did not waver. His eyes did.

Vincent smiled and reached behind the altar.

Emma saw the hidden pistol first.

“Don!”

Both men fired.

Vincent’s bullet struck Don high in the side. Don’s shot shattered the altar rail as Vincent escaped through the sacristy.

Don dropped to one knee.

Emma crossed the chapel and caught him before he hit the floor.

Blood spread beneath her hands, hot and frighteningly fast.

“Grace?” he demanded.

“Safe.”

Only then did Don Romano allow himself to fall.