"THE BILLIONAIRE'S MAID KICKED THE BRIDE IN FRONT OF 300 GUESTS—BUT WHAT THE BRIDE WAS HIDING CHANGED EVERYTHING

Lily didn't scream. She didn't hesitate.

With all the strength in her nine-year-old body, she bit down violently on Sabrina’s gloved thumb.

Sabrina shrieked in pain, her grip loosening for a fraction of a second. Lily instantly dropped her weight, collapsing toward the wet tiles of the terrace floor.

Grace moved like lightning.

She didn't fire at Sabrina—she couldn't risk hitting Lily. Instead, Grace pivoted on her heel, her left arm sweeping upward to deflect Arthur’s revolver just as it fired.

*BANG!*

The bullet shattered a framed oil painting on the nursery wall. Before Arthur could recover, Grace drove an open-palm strike directly into his sternum, shattering the cartilage, followed by a vicious elbow to his temple. The attorney collapsed like a sack of wet cement, his revolver skittering across the floorboards.

"Lily!" Ethan roared.

Ethan lunged past Grace, diving onto the terrace into the driving rain, wrapping his body over his daughter just as Sabrina brought her machine pistol around.

*SPAT-SPAT-SPAT!*

The bullets sparked violently against the reinforced stone balustrade, inches above Ethan’s head.

Sabrina snarled, realizing she had lost her human shield. She turned and scrambled up the metal exterior service ladder leading toward the rooftop helipad.

"Stay with her!" Grace shouted to Ethan, grabbing Arthur’s dropped revolver and sliding her Glock into its holster.

"Grace, wait!" Ethan called out, holding Lily tightly against his chest, shielding her from the rain. "Don't go up there alone!"

"She doesn't leave this roof," Grace said, her voice hard as steel. "Not tonight."

Grace sprinted onto the terrace, grabbing the rungs of the ladder and hauling herself upward into the teeth of the gale.

The rooftop of the Caldwell building was a vast, rain-swept expanse of gravel, air-conditioning units, and blinking red aviation lights. The sound of twin turbine engines cut through the storm as an unmarked black AugustaWestland helicopter hovered fifty feet above the landing pad, its searchlight sweeping across the puddles.

Sabrina was twenty yards ahead, sprinting toward the pad, waving her arms toward the pilot.

"ROSTOVA!" Grace’s voice cut through the roar of the rotors.

Sabrina stopped. She turned, wiping wet hair from her blood-streaked face. In the glare of the helicopter’s spotlight, she looked like a cornered beast.

She raised her weapon.

Grace fired two shots from Arthur’s revolver. The heavy rounds struck the machine pistol in Sabrina’s hands, shattering the polymer casing and ripping the weapon from her grip.

Sabrina screamed in rage, drawing a seven-inch combat blade from the tactical sheath on her vest.

"You think you’re a hero, Holloway?" Sabrina screamed over the deafening whine of the helicopter. "You’re nothing! You’re a broken soldier playing house with a billionaire and a dead woman’s brat!"