The most feared man in New York unknowingly spent an entire flight sitting beside the little girl he had been searching for without even realizing she was his daughter. When she looked at me and asked, **"Have you ever loved someone enough to ruin your own life?"** I thought it was just an innocent question. Then the plane hit violent turbulence, and I found myself holding the hand of the child whose mother had hidden her from me for six long years.

By 2:00 a.m., Lila was fast asleep in the massive canopy bed of the master suite, guarded by two of my elite security personnel outside her door. Elena was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her daughter sleep, refusing to leave her side.

I walked down the cold concrete stairs into the subterranean level of the estate—a reinforced bunker beneath the mansion where my security operations were conducted.

Inside an interrogation room lit by a single overhead fluorescent bulb, the hitman from the plane was strapped securely to a steel chair. His nose was broken and bandaged, and blood dried on his navy collar.

Paul stood in the corner, holding a tablet.

"What do we have?" I asked, stepping into the cold room, rolling my sleeves up to my elbows.

"His name is Viktor," Paul reported. "Former Serbian special forces, hired through a mercenary broker in Vienna three weeks ago. We cracked his encrypted phone."

I walked up to Viktor, leaning over the steel table until my face was inches from his.

"Who gave you the flight manifest?" I asked softly.

Viktor spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete floor, sneering. "Go to hell, Moretti. Julian will tear your empire apart. You think hiding in Canada saves you? He knows about the kid now."

In a fraction of a second, my hand clamped around Viktor’s throat, my grip like iron, cutting off his air supply instantly. His eyes bulged as he kicked his legs against the chair.

"Listen to me very carefully, Viktor," I whispered, my voice dropping into a register of pure, unadulterated lethality. "You shot at my daughter. You brought violence into the air where she breathes. You have five seconds to tell me how Julian found her, or I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your short life begging for death."

I loosened my grip slightly. Viktor choked, gasping for air, terror replacing his arrogant sneer.

"A... a private investigator!" Viktor wheezed out. "In Boston! A man named Miller! He tracked a wire transfer Elena’s mother sent her six months ago! Julian paid him half a million for her location!"

"Where is Julian right now?" I demanded.

"Montreal," Viktor confessed frantically. "He’s at the Grand Horizon Hotel! He came to North America three days ago to oversee the hit personally! He has twenty men with him!"

I straightened up, wiping my hands with a white handkerchief.

"Paul," I commanded.

"Yes, Boss?"

"Call the team. We leave for Montreal in twenty minutes."

"Luca!"

A voice echoed from the doorway. I turned around. Elena was standing at the entrance of the basement room, her face pale, having followed me down the stairs.

"You're going after him?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"He sent a killer after our daughter, Elena," I said, walking up to her, taking her by the shoulders. "Julian will never stop. As long as he draws breath, he will hunt you and Lila. I am ending this tonight."

Elena looked into my eyes, seeing the absolute, terrifying resolve of the man she had once fallen in love with.

"Come back to us," she whispered, reaching up to touch my cheek. "Please... don't leave her again."