“You’re not my business partner, Nathaniel,” she teased softly. “You’re my patron. There’s a difference.”
“I’d prefer the title of ‘suitor,’” Nathaniel murmured, his dark eyes darkening with an emotion so tender and intense that Rose’s breath caught in her throat. “If the lady would permit it.”
Rose’s heart thudded against her ribs. Before she could answer, the courtyard gate flew open.
Marcus sprinted across the lawn, his radio blaring static, his face pale with alarm. “Mr. Callaway! Sir!”
Nathaniel stood up instantly, his protective instincts snapping back into place in a fraction of a second. “What is it, Marcus?”
“It’s Victoria,” Marcus breathed, holding out his tablet. “She escaped. Approximately forty minutes ago during a medical transfer from Rosewood to Westchester Medical Center. An armed transport van was ambushed by two men on the interstate. One guard was shot. She’s in the wind.”
Rose gasped, rising from the bench. “Escaped? How could she escape?”
“Arthur’s remaining private loyalists,” Nathaniel snarled, his jaw clenching like iron. “A mercenary extraction. Lock down the estate immediately! Bring my mother to the safe room!”
“Sir, Mrs. Callaway isn’t at the estate,” Marcus said, horror creeping into his voice. “She left thirty minutes ago with a light security detail to inspect the new Callaway Children’s Pavilion at the midtown hospital!”
Nathaniel’s phone rang.
A blocked number.
Nathaniel hit speakerphone. “Callaway.”
*“Hello, darling.”*
The voice on the other end was cracked, frantic, and dripping with manic hysteria. Victoria.
“Where is my mother, Victoria?” Nathaniel said, his voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying register. “If you touch one hair on her head, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
*“Your precious mother is currently sitting in the backseat of an SUV on the eighty-second floor of the Sterling Tower construction site,”* Victoria laughed, a high-pitched, unhinged cackle that made Rose’s blood run cold. *“The very same building where my life was destroyed! Bring the girl, Nathaniel. Bring your little gutter-rat maid. If you call the police, if you bring security, if I see a single helicopter in the sky… I push the old woman off the edge again. And this time, there won’t be anyone to catch her.”*
The line went dead.
Rose stared at Nathaniel, the world spinning around her. “The Sterling Tower… that’s where the wedding was. The unfinished penthouse.”
“Marcus,” Nathaniel commanded, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, apocalyptic fury. “Mobilize the private tactical team. Do not notify the NYPD. Victoria has scouts watching the perimeter. Have the team surround the lower perimeter on foot. Rose… you stay here.”
“No,” Rose said firmly.
Nathaniel turned, glaring at her. “Rose, this is not a negotiation! She wants you dead! She blames you for everything!”
“She will kill Eleanor the second she realizes I didn’t come!” Rose cried, stepping directly into his path, her hazel eyes blazing with an unyielding courage that stunned him. “You heard her voice, Nathaniel! She has nothing left to lose! She is completely insane! If I am there, her attention will be on me. That will give you and Marcus time to get your mother out!”
“I will not risk your life!” Nathaniel roared, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Do you understand me? I almost lost my mother once. I will not lose you!”
Rose placed her hands over his chest, feeling the frantic, violent beating of his heart.
“You won’t lose me, Nathaniel,” she whispered softly, with a calm certainty that cut through his panic. “You saved me from the gutter. You saved my brother. Now let me help you save your family.”
Nathaniel looked down into her determined face. He saw the same girl who had thrown herself onto the shattered glass without hesitating. He knew that trying to stop her was impossible.
Slowly, his hands moved from her shoulders to cup her cheeks. He leaned down and pressed a fierce, desperate kiss to her lips—a kiss full of promises, terror, and an undeniable, burning love that took her breath away.
“If anything happens to you,” Nathaniel whispered against her lips, “I will burn this city to the ground. Let’s go.”
The wind at the top of the unfinished Sterling Tower shrieked through the exposed steel girders like a dying animal.
Eighty-two floors above Manhattan, the penthouse was an empty, cavernous concrete shell. There were no glass railings here—only a raw, jagged drop off into the abyss, where the yellow caution tape fluttered uselessly against the night sky.
In the center of the concrete floor, tied to a heavy steel pillar, sat Eleanor Callaway.
Her mouth was taped, but her eyes were wide, defiant, and blazing with fury.
Standing three paces away was Victoria Sterling.
