The first attack hit before Lila Hart could decide whether Damian Rowe was protector or captor. A shot shattered the lock. Damian Rowe 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, Damian Rowe traced its payments and erased seals. Every path led back to someone Lila Hart had defended for years.
Damian Rowe 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 the child in the locked nursery is Lila's biological daughter, declared dead at birth. 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 Lila Hart a key engraved with the date of her greatest loss. It opened a private box containing photographs of Damian Rowe meeting the person who had arranged the marriage contract promised her studio back but forbade every question about Damian's missing wife.
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 Lila Hart trusted most bound to a chair.
“You have until midnight,” the caller said. “The child in the locked nursery is Lila's biological daughter, declared dead at birth. Ask Damian Rowe what else he is hiding. Then decide which one of you I kill first.”