Sixty million dollars had just changed hands when a baby crawled beneath my desk and exposed the secret my own brother had taken to his grave. Everyone believed Julian Caruso had died eighteen months earlier, but when that little girl looked up at me with his unmistakable gray eyes, I realized someone had been hiding his child inside my own house.

I didn't give Vincent the chance to clear his holster.

I slammed my heavy mahogany desk chair straight into his stomach. The three-hundred-pound leather-and-steel chair caught him off guard, pinning him against the doorframe. His suppressed Sig Sauer pistol slipped from his fingers, clattering across the polished oak floorboards.

Before he could recover, I stepped in, delivering a heavy right hook directly to his jaw, followed by a knee to his ribs.

Vincent grunted, hitting the floor hard, but he was a trained veteran. He swept his leg out, catching my ankle and dragging me down with him. We tumbled across the Persian rug, striking the edge of the marble fireplace.

I grabbed the heavy brass poker from the hearth and brought it down across Vincent’s shoulder. Bone cracked. He cried out in agony, his right arm going limp.

I pinned him to the floor, pressing the iron poker across his throat until his face turned purple.

“Who ordered the strike on Julian’s boat?” I growled, my chest heaving, adrenaline surging through my veins like liquid fire.

Vincent choked, his eyes bulging as he fought for air. “Marcus...” he gasped out. “Marcus... and Vane...”

“Where are the original ledgers?”

“In... in the vault... behind father’s study...” Vincent rasped. “Julian... Julian locked them... before he fled...”

I pressed harder. “Did Marcus know about Hannah?”

“No!” Vincent wheezed, his hands clawing at the iron bar. “We... we thought Julian was alone! We didn't know... about the child... until today!”

I lifted the poker just enough to let him draw a ragged breath, then brought the heavy brass pommel down against his temple. Vincent went instantly limp, unconscious on my office floor.

I stood up, panting, wiping a smear of blood from my forehead where I had struck the fireplace.

I rushed to the hidden door behind the bookcase and keyed in my private biometrics. The heavy steel door slid open quietly.

Hannah was cowering in the corner of the small bedroom, clutching Grace tightly to her chest. Grace looked up at me, her big gray eyes wide, but she wasn't crying. She held her little white sock in her right fist, watching me calmly.

“Gabriel?” Hannah whispered, seeing the blood on my shirt. “What happened?”

“My house is no longer safe,” I said, grabbing a tactical duffel bag from the closet and throwing in cash, passports, and a high-caliber sidearm. “Marcus and Vincent sabotaged Julian’s boat. They’re downstairs right now with hired guns trying to seize the estate.”

Hannah gasped, her face draining of color. “Oh God... Julian was right. They killed him.”

“They killed my brother,” I said, pulling a spare coat over my ruined suit and handing Hannah a heavy wool sweater. “But they aren't taking his daughter. Not while I’m breathing.”

I picked up Grace, wrapping her securely inside my coat against my chest. Her little fingers immediately grabbed my lapel, holding on tight.

“Follow me,” I commanded. “We’re taking the old service tunnels beneath the wine cellar.”

We slipped out of the bedroom, stepping over Vincent’s unconscious body in the study.

Outside, down in the main marble foyer three floors below, the sound of shouting and shattering glass echoed up the grand staircase. Uncle Marcus’s men were breaching the main entrance.

We moved quickly down the hidden servant stairwell, descending into the cool, damp subterranean levels of the two-hundred-year-old estate.

As we reached the iron door leading to the family vault near the wine cellar, the heavy blast doors at the top of the stairs slammed open.

“Search every room!” Marcus’s gravelly voice bellowed down the corridor. “Find Gabriel! And if you see the maid and her kid, put them in the incinerator!”