**THE MAFIA KING’S DEADLIEST TEST: She Broke Into His Fortress For Fun, But Falling For Him Was Never In The Contract**

The estate’s ground floor had transformed into a kill zone choked with cordite and pulverized plaster.

The arc flash Tessa triggered had done its job: two mercenaries stumbling through the eastern gallery were clutching their night-vision goggles, shrieking as the burned phosphor blinded them in the sudden gloom.

Marco moved without hesitation. Two controlled double-taps echoed through the corridor, and the screams ceased abruptly.

*Four down.*

“Tessa!” Marco’s voice cut through the haze, low and commanding.

“Still breathing!” her voice called back from the pantry entrance. She emerged with the Sig Sauer held in a textbook low-ready position, her breathing heavy, a smear of black soot across her cheekbone that only accentuated the fierce beauty of her features. “The main circuit’s completely dead. I bought us about three minutes before their backup team figures out how to bypass the burnt relays.”

Marco stepped over the fallen bodies, closing the distance between them. Without a word, he grabbed her by the shoulder, his thumb roughly wiping the soot from her cheek, his eyes performing an instantaneous medical sweep over her frame.

“You’re unhurt?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her chest heaving against the tight fabric of her catsuit. “You?”

“They missed,” he said flatly, though a thin crimson line was already weeping through the fabric of his black sweater along his left ribcage where a ricocheting ceramic fragment had grazed him.

Tessa noticed it instantly. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“It’s a high-caliber graze, Mr. Duca. Don't be heroic, it doesn't match your brand.”

Before Marco could reply, the heavy thump of tactical boots sounded from the grand staircase above them. The Petrov team wasn't just clearing the ground floor—they had breached the second-story balconies.

*“Duca!”* a voice with a thick Russian accent barked from the mezzanine above. *“Throw down your weapon! You have nowhere to run! We hold the master suite and the surveillance hub!”*

Marco’s heart went cold. *The surveillance hub.*

He clicked his communicator. “Cal? Cal, respond.”

Nothing. Only the hiss of open static.

“They didn't breach the hub,” Tessa whispered urgently, tugging at Marco’s sleeve to pull him beneath the overhang of the grand staircase where the sightlines from the mezzanine were blocked. “The vault doors on that hub are three-inch hardened tungsten. Even with thermite, it would take twenty minutes to burn through.”

“Then why isn't he answering?” Marco demanded, his jaw clenched so tight the tendons stood out like wire cords along his neck.

“Because they severed the local radio repeater when they entered the master bedroom,” Tessa explained rapidly, her eyes darting across the architectural lines of the ceiling. “Marco, listen to me. Your house has an old dumbwaiter shaft behind the second-floor linen closet. It runs directly from the pantry behind us up to the master hallway.”

Marco stared at her. “How do you know about a dumbwaiter that was boarded up during the 1920s renovation?”

“I told you: historical blueprints. The shaft is still open behind the drywall. It’s narrow, but I can fit.”

“No,” Marco growled instantly, his hand tightening around her wrist. “You’re not climbing into a vertical coffin while armed assassins control the high ground.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Tessa countered, stepping into his personal space, her hazel eyes ablaze with fierce determination. “They’re waiting for you to walk up those stairs. They have two rifles trained on the landing. If you step out, you’re dead. If I go up the shaft, I can flank them from the master closet, hit them with the taser and the Sig, and give you the three seconds you need to breach the stairs.”

Marco looked at her. Really looked at her.

He was used to men who fought for money, men who obeyed out of fear, and women who ran from the first sign of violence. But Tessa Morgan stood before him with death twenty feet above their heads, offering to be his vanguard.

The feeling that hit him wasn't just respect. It was a dark, possessive awe.

“If they touch you,” Marco said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, lethal promise, “I will burn the entire city of Chicago until there is nothing left of the Petrov family but ash.”

A faint, breathless smile touched Tessa’s lips. “Good to know my hourly rate includes full-service retaliation.”

She pulled away, slipping into the dark pantry. Marco followed her, using his combat knife to rip away the decorative wooden paneling covering the old dumbwaiter shaft. The vertical void was narrow—barely twenty inches wide—with an old iron pulley cable hanging down the center.

Tessa holstered the Sig, tested the cable with a hard tug, and wedged her boots against the brick interior.

“Two minutes,” she said, looking down at him.

Marco reached out, his hand cupping the back of her neck, pulling her down into an urgent, searing contact that barely stopped short of a kiss. Their foreheads touched, their breaths mingling in the dark.

“One minute,” Marco murmured against her skin. “Don't make me come up there to save you.”

“I never need saving,” she whispered back.