His eyes met mine, wide with a vulnerability that made my chest ache. For a moment, everything else faded—the danger, the men hunting us, the betrayal. There was only Connor, looking at me like I was something worth trusting, worth believing in.
Then violent pounding shook the panic room door, the moment shattering like glass. We both jerked our attention to the monitors, watching as two men examined the bookshelf, their faces twisted with frustrated anger as they realized we'd escaped their net.
For now.
But the renewed assault on the door told me they weren't giving up easily. And if they couldn't get to us, they'd take everything else they could.
I moved toward the communication panel embedded in the wall, keeping my voice deadly calm as I pressed the emergency contact button. The pounding on the door continued, vibrating through the small space like a physical threat.
"Michael, we have uninvited guests," I said, the understatement almost absurd given the circumstances. Connor stood beside me, his eyes fixed on the monitors showing men ransacking my home.
There was a moment of static, then Michael's steady voice came through the speaker. "Understood, sir. Extraction team is three minutes out."
Three minutes. In business, three minutes was nothing—barely enough time to review a single page of a contract. In this situation, it might as well have been three hours.
I reached out, drawing Connor closer to my wheelchair, a protective gesture that was becoming instinctive.
"Stay away from the door," I instructed, even though the reinforced steel was designed to withstand far more than human fists. "They can't get in. This room was built to survive a direct hit."
Connor nodded, but his attention had returned to the monitors. I followed his gaze to the screen showing my office, where his brother was methodically going through my desk drawers.
Brad's movements weren't random; he knew exactly what he was looking for. He pulled files from the bottom drawer—the ones containing my research on Harris Pharmaceuticals' clinical trials, the evidence of fraud and human experimentation.
"Those bastards," I muttered, watching as Brad pocketed several USB drives from my desk.
"They're not just after me," Connor said, his voice tight with realization. "They want your research on Harris's pharmaceutical fraud."
My jaw clenched as I watched another man connect a device to my computer, fingers flying across the keyboard as he began downloading data. It wasn't just theft; it was targeted corporate espionage, aimed at the heart of the case I was building against Harris.
"Look," Connor pointed at another screen, where Brad was speaking into a phone, his expression smug. "He's reporting back to someone."
I didn't need to hear the conversation to know who was on the other end. Harris was getting desperate. The evidence I'd shown the board was damaging, but it was only a fraction of what I'd collected.
With the full data, Harris could identify what I knew, what I could prove, and—most importantly—what witnesses might still exist.
"Will they get everything?" Connor asked, his hand resting on my shoulder.
"Not everything," I replied quietly. "The most critical files are stored on a separate server. But they'll get enough to hurt us, to prepare countermeasures."
The pounding on the panic room door had stopped. On the monitors, I could see two of Harris's men setting up what looked like small explosive charges around the frame.
Amateur hour.
The door was designed to withstand much worse, but the attempt itself told me how badly Harris wanted what was inside this room.
Us, and the data.
Connor's fingers tightened on my shoulder. "Julian, the main server—it has files about the missing men, doesn't it? The ones Harris..." He couldn't finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant.
"Yes," I confirmed, reaching up to cover his hand with mine. "Names, dates, financial transfers. Everything I've been able to piece together about Harris's previous victims."
His brother had moved to my private safe now, expertly manipulating the dial in a way that told me someone had given him the combination. The betrayal stung, but it wasn't unexpected.
Harris had resources, and money bought information. What bothered me more was that Connor had to witness this—his own blood selling him out for the second time.
A sudden commotion on one of the monitors drew our attention. The main entrance to the penthouse erupted in a controlled explosion, the camera feed briefly whiting out before stabilizing to show smoke and debris.
Through the haze, dark figures moved with military precision—Michael's security team breaching the penthouse.
