The scream echoed long before the glass shattered.
Julian Thorne's penthouse, his fortress of steel and power, was breached. Sirens wailed far below, blending with the chaos of the city night, but it was the crack of breaking glass inside his home that made his blood run cold.
He was on his feet in seconds, bare-chested, the sheet still tangled around Anya as she rose from the bed, eyes wide with terror and fire.
"Stay here," he ordered, voice razor-sharp.
"No," she whispered fiercely, clutching the silk around her as if it were armor. "Not without you."
Julian's jaw clenched. Even now, she defied him fragile and reckless, the fire he could neither control nor let burn out. His empire might have been forged in ice and steel, but she was his weakness. His undoing.
The sound came again, glass raining down in glittering fragments across the marble floor. A shadow moved in the darkness of the penthouse, deliberate, silent, lethal.
Julian reached for the drawer beneath his desk, pulling free the weapon he hadn't touched in years.
Anya's breath caught. "Julian.."
He turned to her, his expression carved from stone, voice a growl. "They want to burn what's mine. They'll learn tonight what it means to start a war."
The intruder stepped into the pale light of the penthouse, face masked, blade gleaming red with reflected city fire.
And for the first time, Julian realized the war had already begun.
Autorentext
I write awkward, messy, and ridiculously funny romances think tripping over feelings, accidental kisses, and chaos that somehow turns into love. Warning: may cause binge-reading and uncontrollable laughter.