Chapter 1
“Don’t wake her,” Mason whispered.
I stopped in the doorway.
Men had disappeared for speaking to me with less respect.
But one look at Claire Bennett silenced every violent thought in my head.
Blood had dried along the bottom of her torn beige coat.
One shoe was missing.
Her left cheek was swollen.
The shoulder of her blouse had been ripped open, and both arms were locked around my sleeping nephew.
Even unconscious, she looked prepared to fight anyone who tried to take him.
For three hours, I had torn Chicago apart searching for six-month-old Eli Kane.
Now he was ten feet away.
Alive.
Sleeping.
Safe in the arms of the last woman I expected to find at the center of a war.
Mason Reed, my security captain, blocked my path.
“I said don’t wake her, boss.”
Rain hammered the windows of our Lincoln Park safe house.
I stared at Mason’s bruised face.
“Explain.”
“She hasn’t slept since the ambush. The doctor thinks adrenaline kept her conscious.”
I walked around him.
My suit was soaked.
Rain ran from my hair onto the floor.
Twenty armed men waited outside for my order to attack Damian Cross’s territory.
Then I reached the sofa.
Everything else disappeared.
Eli was wrapped inside Claire’s ruined coat.
His tiny hand gripped one of her shirt buttons.
I dropped to one knee.
For a moment, I forgot Damian.
I forgot revenge.
I forgot every enemy waiting for weakness.
I touched one finger to Eli’s cheek.
Warm.
My eyes closed.
My older brother, Nathan, had been dead for eleven months.
His wife, Olivia, died beside him in the same highway crash.
Eli was what remained.
At Nathan’s grave, I promised no one would ever touch his son.
Tonight, I failed.
Claire did not.
“How did she find him?” I asked.
“She was in the third SUV.”
My head snapped up.
Claire should never have been near our family convoy.
“She was going downtown to review the Reynolds acquisition,” Mason continued. “Her car broke down. Our driver offered her a ride.”
A coincidence had nearly killed her.
“Cross’s men boxed in the convoy beneath Lower Wacker. They took Eli and grabbed Claire when she fought them.”
I looked at the bruises on her face.
“What happened next?”
Mason gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try.”
“They transported both of them to an old warehouse near Hammond. They zip-tied her hands, but apparently not well enough.”
“And?”
“She got free.”
I waited.
“She hit the guard with a fire extinguisher.”
I stared at him.
Claire was five-foot-five.
Soft-spoken.
Usually dressed in cardigans and sensible shoes.
She apologized when other people bumped into her.
“She took down an armed guard?”
“With a fire extinguisher.”
“What about the others?”
“She set off the suppression system, killed the lights, and used the guard’s key card to reach the loading bay.”
My eyes moved toward her split knuckles.
“She fought them?”
“She outsmarted them. Then she stole a delivery truck and drove through a side gate.”
“Claire?”
“Claire.”
I looked at her again.
For two years, Claire had worked in the accounting division of three companies I secretly controlled.
Most executives barely noticed her.
I noticed her the first time she entered my office.
A senior manager had spent forty minutes explaining why two million dollars had vanished from a construction subsidiary.
Claire waited until he finished.
Then she pushed a folder across my desk.
“The money didn’t vanish,” she said. “Someone divided it into seventeen payments because they assumed nobody examines invoices below one hundred twenty thousand.”
I looked at the records.
“Who?”
She named the thief.
She was right.
I promoted her within a week.
I also moved her office into the safest building I owned.
Claire believed I valued her accounting skills.
That was only half the truth.
My world was full of people who wanted something.
Money.
Power.
Protection.
Claire never asked me for anything.
She brought muffins to receptionists.
She remembered guards’ birthdays.
Once, after a late meeting, I watched her remove an expensive coat and give it to a homeless woman outside our building.
Claire walked three blocks through January snow wearing only a sweater.
She never knew I watched from my car.
I wanted her from that moment.
That was why I stayed away.
My world destroyed beautiful things.
Tonight proved it.
“She drove twenty-eight miles?” I asked.
“With those injuries,” Mason confirmed.
“How did she know this safe house?”
“She didn’t. Eli’s emergency tracker transmitted the address after she escaped the warehouse.”
I looked toward the doctor.
“Has he examined her?”
“He checked for immediate danger. She has bruised ribs, a dislocated finger, and possibly a concussion.”
“Then why is she on a sofa instead of in a hospital?”
“Claire refused to let anyone take Eli.”
I touched her wrist.
Her eyes opened instantly.
She tightened around the baby.
“No!”
“It’s me.”
Claire stared at my face.
Recognition reached her slowly.
“Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
She looked down at Eli.
“He’s alive.”
“Because of you.”
“Don’t give him to anyone.”
Her voice was weak but urgent.
“He’s safe here.”
“No.”
She grabbed my jacket.
“One of your people helped them.”
Mason became still.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
“They knew the route. The decoy cars. Eli’s tracker frequency.”
“That information was restricted.”
“I know.”
She tried to sit.
Pain crossed her face.
I supported her back.
“Don’t move.”
“Damian Cross didn’t order the kidnapping.”
My anger sharpened.
“His men took you.”
“They wore his symbol, but their invoices came from Kane accounts.”
She had been examining accounts while imprisoned.
Of course she had.
“What accounts?”
Claire looked toward Mason and the guards.
“Not here.”
“Mason is loyal.”
“So was whoever gave them Eli’s route.”
I ordered everyone out except Mason and the doctor.
Claire loosened one arm from Eli.
Something small fell from inside her torn sleeve.
A silver flash drive.
“I took it from the warehouse office,” she said.
“What’s on it?”
“Payments from one of your family companies to the men who attacked us.”
“Which company?”
“Kane Family Holdings.”
Only four people could authorize payments from that account.
Nathan had been one of them.
I was another.
The remaining two were my uncle Vincent and my mother, Bianca.
Claire looked toward the door.
“Someone inside your family wanted Eli taken.”
“Why?”
“Because Nathan changed his will before he died.”
My chest tightened.
“Nathan’s will leaves everything to Eli.”
“Not everything.”
She pressed one hand against her abdomen.
Her face twisted with pain.
The doctor stepped closer.
“We need to move her.”
Claire held on to me.
“Your brother found another ledger. He discovered who was stealing from the family.”
“Damian?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She tried to answer, but her eyes closed.
Her body went limp.
I caught her before she fell sideways.
Eli began crying.
The doctor checked Claire’s pulse.
“We need an ambulance now.”
“No public ambulance,” Mason said. “We don’t know who compromised the convoy.”
I ordered our medical team to prepare an armored vehicle.
When I lifted Claire, her coat opened.
A thin chain hung around her neck.
Attached to it was Nathan’s wedding ring.
I knew every mark on that gold band.
“What is she doing with my brother’s ring?”
Mason shook his head.
I searched Claire’s coat carefully.
Inside a hidden pocket, I found a sealed envelope.
Nathan had written my name across it.
Gabriel.
The letter was dated three days before his death.
Claire stirred as I reached for it.
“Don’t.”
“Why do you have this?”
“Nathan gave it to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He made me promise to wait until I could prove what was inside.”
A flash of pain crossed her face.
Then the doctor noticed something beneath her torn blouse.
A faint curve.
He placed a hand near her abdomen and looked at me.
“How far along is she?”
My body went cold.
“What?”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Fourteen weeks.”
Mason looked away.
He knew what had happened four months earlier.
One night after Nathan’s memorial.
One night when Claire found me alone and grief destroyed every wall between us.
I had pushed her away the next morning because I feared my world would hurt her.
She had carried the consequence alone.
“Is the baby mine?” I asked.
Claire’s eyes filled.
Before she could answer, an explosion shook the safe house.
Windows shattered downstairs.
Mason drew his weapon.
Claire grabbed my hand.
“Gabriel, listen to me.”
“What?”
“They didn’t only take Eli because of Nathan’s will.”
Gunfire erupted beyond the hall.
She looked at the crying baby in her arms.
May you like
Then she pressed my palm against the child growing inside her.
“They know this baby is yours.”
