Chapter 1 Prologue

Maya could no longer feel her hands.

The ropes binding her wrists were pulled so tight that every minor shift sent a jagged ache up her arms. She leaned against the cold wooden chair, trying to suppress the rising panic, but the claustrophobic room seemed to shrink with every ragged breath.

Outside, footsteps echoed.

Slow. Heavy. Closing in.

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She had stopped asking herself how she'd ended up here. There was no logic left to make sense of it.

The heavy door groaned open, and Maya froze.

A man stepped into the room, studying her in silence before taking a measured step closer.

Maya stared. Something in the sharp line of his brow, the set of his jaw, was familiar. Too familiar.

Then he smiled, and her stomach dropped into a void.

"Uncle..."

He didn't answer. Instead, he dragged a wooden chair across the floorboards, its legs screeching against the wood, and sat directly across from her.

"You've grown," he said quietly.

Maya's breath hitched. She had spent a decade trying to bury his memory, trying to forget the shadow he cast over her childhood. Yet here he stood, looking as though no time had passed at all.

"You can't be here," she whispered, her voice trembling.

His smile vanished, replaced by something cold and empty. "Neither should you."

A sharp metallic crack reverberated from the corridor outside. Both of them snapped their heads toward the door.

Another crash echoed, followed by a sudden, suffocating silence.

For the first time, a flicker of genuine fear crossed her uncle's face. He stood abruptly. "What was that?"

Before he could move, the door was slammed off its hinges. Several armed men flooded the room, clearing the corners with mechanical precision.

And behind them walked Alexander.

Maya's breath caught in her throat. "Alexander..."

His eyes swept the room and locked onto hers. For a fraction of a second, the icy detachment on his face shattered, revealing raw relief. But as his gaze shifted past her to the man at her side, his entire body went rigid.

"You," Alexander breathed.

Her uncle stared back, his expression turning pale.

Alexander took one slow, deliberate step forward, his hand steady on the grip of his sidearm. "I've spent ten years looking for you."

Maya looked between them, her chest tightening with confusion. "You... you know him?"

Neither man acknowledged her. Her uncle's hand darted beneath his jacket, and the air in the room instantly turned lethal.

"Don't," Alexander warned, his voice a low, lethal whisper.

Maya strained frantically against her bindings, the rough hemp tearing into her skin. "Alexander-"

Her uncle lunged, grabbing her shoulder as a shield, his firearm clearing his coat-

A deafening roar shattered the small room.

Maya screamed as muzzle flash blinded her. Her uncle jolted, gasped, and stumbled backward before collapsing onto the floorboards.

Smoke curled toward the ceiling. Alexander stood frozen, his weapon still raised, his face an unreadable mask.

Silence swallowed the room whole.

Maya stared at the lifeless body on the floor, then raised her eyes to Alexander. The man who had held her while she cried. The man she had loved. The man she had never imagined standing in a pool of blood, holding a smoking gun.

His dark eyes met hers through the haze.

And Maya knew, with terrible certainty, that nothing between them would ever be the same again.

Three months earlier...