The first attack hit before Emma Shaw could decide whether Julian Black was protector or captor. A shot shattered the lock. Julian Black covered her with his body, returned fire once, and forced a path into the building's service corridor.
They escaped with the sealed record but not the evidence that proved who had signed it. Inside a guarded room, Julian Black traced its payments and erased seals. Every path led back to someone Emma Shaw had defended for years.
Julian Black placed a contract beside the evidence. For thirty days they would appear united, share information, and never move without security. In return, he would give her access to the one archive capable of proving Julian knows Emma's identity, but someone altered the paternity test before he could tell her. The final clause was strangely specific: neither of them could pretend the attraction between them was part of the agreement.
She laughed once, without humor. “You wrote a rule against falling for you?”
“I wrote a rule against lying about it.”
Their first move together became another ambush. A messenger slipped Emma Shaw a key engraved with the date of her greatest loss. It opened a private box containing photographs of Julian Black meeting the person who had arranged her pregnancy test fell from her handbag at the feet of the masked stranger she had tried to forget.
She pressed the photographs against his chest. “Tell me why I should not leave.”
He did not deny the meeting. He stepped close enough that anger became heat and covered her hand with his over the evidence. His pulse beat once beneath her palm, too fast for the cold man everyone else feared.
“I went there to stop what happened to you,” he said. “I failed. I will not fail twice.”
The lights died before she could decide whether to believe him. His phone lit with a live video of the person Emma Shaw trusted most bound to a chair.
“You have until midnight,” the caller said. “Julian knows Emma's identity, but someone altered the paternity test before he could tell her. Ask Julian Black what else he is hiding. Then decide which one of you I kill first.”