Silence. Not of shock, but calculation. I can almost hear the gears of the old agent turning.
“The FBI handles kidnapping cases, Liam.” Supreme authority in her voice. “Especially those involving high-profile targets and…known criminal elements.”
“I don’t need the Bureaus, Claire. I need her back.”
“You need both,” she counters. “I’m reaching out to my contacts at the New York Field Office. If your building is as secure as you’ve said, they’ll need a federal warrant to breach without starting a domestic war. I’ll have a tactical team on standby at the perimeter in three hours. They’ll be working under ‘official channel’ cover, but the orders will be coming from me.”
“Three hours is too long,” I snarl. “I’ll be there in one.”
“Liam, don’t be a fool. If you charge in there alone, you’re dead or captured, too, and she becomes leverage. Let the Bureau provide the distraction. You know that building better than anyone. Find the back doors. Find the service shafts. I’ll make sure the red tape is cut before you hit the lobby.”
“I’m not waiting for red tape, Ms. Ryan,” I spit, the possessive rage roaring blood to my ears.
“Liam,” she warns. “Remember what I told you. If anything happens to my granddaughter…if a single drop of her blood is spilled because you were too reckless?—”
“Castrate and dismember, Ms. Ryan,” I finish, focusing on the lights of the city. My grip on the steering wheel tightens, cracking the leather. “I won’t let a drop of blood fall on her head. I’ll drain the city dry first.”
I hang up before she can argue.
Manhattan looms ahead, a jagged skyline of glass and steel. My tower is one of the tallest—a needle of black glass piercing the clouds. It’s my pride. My fortress. And right now, it’s a cage for the only thing in this world I care about.
I know every inch of this skyscraper. I designed the security protocols myself. I know the gaps in the sensor sweeps, the blind spots in the cameras, and the private service elevator, which only responds to a single thumbprint.
Mine.
Parking in an alleyway two blocks over, I grab my tactical vest, two Browning high-power pistols, and a Steyr Aug assault rifle from the passenger seat. Blades in my vest. I don’t need a hit squad. I don’t need a plan.
I have a vow.
I slip through a nondescript door in the side of the building—a delivery entrance which bypasses the lobby entirely. My thumb hits the scanner, triggering the green light.
The elevator ride to the top is a blur of floors and adrenaline. My heart is a drumbeat of vengeance.
I’m coming, Lexie. God help anyone who stands between you and me.
The elevator pings as it reaches the sub-penthouse level. I check my magazine, chamber a round, and step into the shadows.
I’m the Donovan King, and I’m about to show those traitors exactly why my father feared me.
Four stand in the hallway, dressed in five-grand suits and holding submachine guns like they’re toys. Old Guard fossils who should have retired a decade ago.
I don’t give them a chance to speak. Precise, surgical, I fire two shots to the chest, one to the head. The suppressor makes it sound like a series of heavy coughs in the marble corridor. I don’t stop to watch them fall. I don’t stop to breathe. I just kick the double mahogany doors open and step into the light.
The penthouse is silent, save for the soft clink of china from the dining table.
I’m covered in the copper-and-salt spray of the men I just ended. The blood coats my tactical vest and masks my face. I am the monster they always wanted me to be.
But then I see her.
Lexie is pinned to the side of a man who should have drowned in ice and silence. Darragh. My father. He’s alive, and he’s holding my world like she’s a rag doll. His thick arm binds her waist, the other priming a gun to her temple, so casual, my vision turns to slaughter.
“Lexie,” I rasp.
“Liam!” she cries with a dark terror. It levels me.
I take one step forward, my finger tightening on the trigger, but I’m too distracted by the sight of my father. I don’t hear the shadow moving behind me.
CRACK.
