She was unrecognizable. Her blonde hair was greasy and matted, her face smeared with engine grease and dirt. She wore stolen prison scrubs beneath a dirty trench coat, and her hands were trembling violently around the grip of a heavy black semiautomatic pistol.
The heavy service door creaked open.
Nathaniel and Rose stepped out onto the concrete.
The wind instantly whipped Rose’s hair across her face, but she didn’t look down at the dizzying, terrifying drop. Her eyes remained locked entirely on Victoria.
“You came!” Victoria shrieked over the howling wind, waving the gun frantically between Nathaniel and Rose. “The billionaire and his little charity case! Look at you! Look at how pretty you look while I’ve been living in a cage!”
“Let my mother go, Victoria,” Nathaniel said, taking a slow, calculated step forward. His hands were raised, his body subtly angling himself to shield Rose. “You wanted the money? I have three billion dollars in bearer bonds authenticated in a private jet waiting at Teterboro Airport. The flight plan is filed for a non-extradition country. Take the jet. Take the money. Just let them walk.”
“You think I care about the money now?” Victoria screamed, a wild, jagged laugh tearing from her throat. Tears cut tracks through the grime on her cheeks. “My father is dying in a cell! My name is a joke! Every socialite in the world is laughing at me because of *her*!”
She whipped the barrel of the gun directly at Rose’s chest.
“She was a servant!” Victoria wept, her voice cracking with pure, psychotic rage. “She carried my champagne! She cleaned my spills! And you put my grandmother’s sapphire around her neck! You looked at her like she was a queen, and you looked at me like I was dirt!”
“Because she is a queen,” Eleanor’s muffled voice suddenly sounded as she wrenched her mouth free from the loosened duct tape against the concrete pillar. “And you, Victoria, were always trash wrapped in silk!”
“SHUT UP!” Victoria screamed, spinning toward Eleanor, her finger tightening on the trigger.
In that split second of distraction, Rose moved.
She didn’t think about the drop. She didn’t think about the gun. She saw the barrel drifting toward Eleanor’s heart, and the instinct that lived inside Rose’s soul—the instinct to protect the helpless—took over completely.
Rose lunged forward across the slick concrete, tackling Victoria at the waist.
The gun went off with a deafening crack, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly off a steel girder into the night sky.
Both women crashed to the floor, rolling toward the precipice.
“Rose!” Nathaniel roared.
Victoria snarled like a feral dog, clawing at Rose’s face, her fingers gouging into Rose’s shoulder. “I will drag you down with me! We both go over!”
Victoria kicked violently, shifting her weight, trying to roll them both over the edge of the eighty-second floor.
Rose felt the terrifying void of empty air beneath her heels. The wind howled in her ears. But Rose didn’t panic. Her hands, healed and stronger than ever, locked like iron vices around Victoria’s wrists, pinning the gun against the concrete floor.
“You pushed a helpless old woman,” Rose whispered through gritted teeth, her eyes blazing inches from Victoria’s face. “You’re not pushing me.”
Rose slammed Victoria’s hand against the concrete. The pistol skittered across the floor and vanished over the edge of the building, tumbling thousands of feet into the darkness below.
A second later, Nathaniel was there.
His massive arms grabbed Rose, yanking her back from the precipice into the safe, solid center of the floor, pulling her against his chest as if he would never let her go.
At the same moment, four armed tactical officers burst through the perimeter doors, subduing Victoria Sterling against the cold concrete within seconds, pinning her thrashing, screaming body to the floor.
“It’s over!” Marcus shouted, cutting Eleanor’s bonds. “We have her!”
Victoria was hauled to her feet, spitting blood and curses, her eyes rolling wildly as the tactical team dragged her backward toward the service elevators. Her screams faded into the concrete stairwell, swallowed forever by the sirens wailing on the streets below.
Nathaniel was on his knees, holding Rose so tightly she could barely breathe.
His face was buried in the curve of her neck, his broad shoulders shaking with a sudden, silent sob of overwhelming relief.
“You’re safe,” Nathaniel whispered over and over, his voice cracked and raw. “You’re safe. Rose… my brave, foolish girl…”
Rose wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his dark hair. For the first time, she felt the tears slip down her own cheeks—tears of exhaustion, of survival, and of a love so profound it terrified her.
“I’m here, Nathaniel,” she murmured against his ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”
