Dominic Vale had hired eighteen nannies to control his traumatized son, but when Noah attacked me, I noticed something in his eyes that made me question everything. The eighteenth nanny fled the mansion with blood running down her forehead, screaming that four-year-old Noah Vale was “not right”—and by that afternoon, I was kneeling in front of the same little boy while one of Chicago’s most feared mafia bosses watched from the staircase.

The bunker remained sealed for forty-eight agonizing hours, the tension inside thick enough to choke on.

Marcus had been securely bound to a steel chair in the interrogation cell, completely refusing to speak despite Dominic’s most brutal intimidation tactics.

I was sitting in the medical bay, gently stroking Noah’s hair as he slept peacefully beside a completely exhausted Tyler.

My mind was racing with a million terrifying thoughts, the weight of the Black File burning a hole in my conscience.

Suddenly, a strange, rhythmic buzzing sound echoed from the pocket of Marcus’s confiscated tactical vest lying on the medical table.

I cautiously reached into the pocket and pulled out a cheap, untraceable burner phone.

The screen displayed a single, encrypted text message: The doors are closed. Did you secure the asset?

I stared at the glowing screen, my pulse pounding loudly in my ears, and typed a single response: The asset is ready to talk. Name the place.

I did not tell Dominic what I was doing; he would have completely forbidden me from leaving the absolute safety of the bunker.

But I knew that as long as the Volkovs were hunting me, Tyler and Noah would never be truly safe.

The phone immediately buzzed with a location: an abandoned cathedral in the deepest, most desolate sector of the Chicago industrial district.

I waited until the digital clock on the wall struck three in the morning, the entire bunker completely silent except for the hum of the ventilation system.

I walked into the kitchen and made two cups of black coffee, slipping three heavy sleeping pills from the medical bay into one of the mugs.

I found Dominic in the command center, his eyes red and exhausted from staring at the security feeds for two straight days.

"You need to rest, Dominic," I said softly, handing him the spiked mug of coffee with a deceptively gentle smile.

He took the mug gratefully, his fingers brushing against mine, sending a painful jolt of electricity up my arm.

"I will not sleep until I know you are safe, Clara," Dominic murmured, drinking the hot liquid without a single second of hesitation.

Guilt completely gnawed at my stomach, but I forced myself to watch as his eyes grew heavy, his massive body eventually slumping onto the console in a deep sleep.

I gently kissed the top of his head, whispering a silent apology, before gearing up in a tactical vest and loading two heavy pistols.