HE FIRED HIS HOUSEKEEPER IN RAGE—UNTIL SHE DROPPED A BLACK CREST ON HIS DESK AND WHISPERED THREE WORDS THAT BROKE THE BILLIONAIRE!

The absolute darkness that swallowed the mansion was suffocating. Outside, the Chicago storm unleashed a torrential downpour, lightning flashes casting grotesque, elongated shadows through the fractured glass of the solarium ceiling.

Dante reacted instantly. In a single fluid motion, he pulled Isabella down to the floor behind the low brick retaining wall of the solarium planters just as a hail of submachine-gun fire pulverized the plaster above their heads. Shards of glass and powdered drywall rained down on them like snow.

"Stay down!" Dante commanded, pulling a compact 9mm Sig Sauer pistol from a concealed holster beneath his tailored suit jacket. "Keep your head below the masonry and crawl behind me!"

"Who is shooting?" Isabella gasped, choking on the acrid dust filling the narrow corridor. "You locked down the mansion! Security had the perimeter sealed!"

"Richard didn't work alone," Dante hissed, checking the chamber of his weapon in the strobing lightning. "Julian's data drive didn't just contain financial transactions. It contained the names of Richard’s buyers: the Castiglione syndicate. They knew if Richard was exposed, their multi-million dollar money-laundering network would collapse. Collins must have triggered a remote panic signal from his phone before Marcus secured him."

Another burst of automatic fire ripped through the wooden doorframes at the end of the hall. Heavy tactical boots crunched over broken glass.

"Clear the floor!" a voice barked through the dark in Russian-accented English. "Find the drive! Kill the girl and Moretti! Leave the accountant in the vault!"

Dante counted the distinct footfalls. Three men. Professional mercenaries. They were moving in a disciplined wedge formation, clearing rooms with military precision. Marcus and the domestic security team were likely pinned down or slaughtered on the ground floor; the sudden power cut meant the estate's high-tech defenses were dead, leaving only manual locks.

"Isabella," Dante whispered, his mouth inches from her ear. "The old service dumbwaiter you mentioned earlier. Can you fit inside it?"

Isabella’s breath hitched. "The shaft goes down to the lower kitchens. But the cable—"

"The counterweight is steel-reinforced," Dante cut in, his grip on her shoulder firm, grounding her terror. "If you drop down to the kitchen level, you can reach the secondary security bunker beneath the pantry. There is a hardwired radio there connected directly to the Illinois State Police tactical dispatch. Can you do it?"

"What about you?" she whispered back, her voice shaking but her eyes wide with fear for him. "You can't fight three men with machine guns alone in the dark!"

"This is my house," Dante whispered, a terrifying, predatory calm coating his voice. "I know every shadow, every creak, and every angle of this estate. They are in my domain now."

A shadow crossed the arched entryway to the solarium.

Dante didn't hesitate. He rose half an inch above the brick ledge, aligned his front sight with the muzzle flash of an approaching flashlight, and squeezed the trigger twice.

Two deafening reports echoed under the glass roof. The lead mercenary collapsed with a choked grunt, his heavy assault rifle clattering against the tiles.

"Contact! Solarium! Flank right!" the second mercenary screamed, opening fire on full automatic. The planter wall exploded in a blizzard of pulverized brick and shredded foliage.

"Move! Now!" Dante roared, grabbing Isabella and thrusting her toward the narrow service hatch concealed behind the torn Waterloo tapestry.

Isabella scrambled across the floor on her hands and knees. She threw the wooden hatch open. The dark, vertical shaft yawned beneath her, cold air whistling up from the subterranean depths of the estate. She wedged herself onto the wooden platform, seized the steel guide cable with her blistered hands, and released the manual mechanical brake.