She Wore No Jewelry to My $10 Million Gala—Then She Whispered, “There’s Someone You Haven’t Noticed.”

We reached an auxiliary safehouse—an unassuming brick brownstone located in an industrial alley near Pilsen—twenty minutes later.

The safehouse had a fully stocked medical bay in the basement. Finn secured the perimeter and manned the surveillance monitors upstairs while I carried Mara into the sterile white room and laid her gently on the operating table.

Her emerald gown was soaked in dark crimson blood at the shoulder. Her face was pale, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead, but her jaw remained clenched, refusing to cry out in pain.

"Let me look at it," I said, my hands shaking slightly as I cut away the torn silk of her sleeve.

"I’ve had worse," she managed to whisper, though her breath hitched when I pressed a sterile gauze pad against the entry wound. "Through-and-through. The bullet exited. Missed the artery."

"You're still bleeding heavily," I said, washing my hands with antiseptic and prepping the local anesthesia and surgical sutures. "Hold still. This is going to sting."

"I don't need anesthesia," she said, grabbing my forearm with surprising strength. "Just sew it up, Dante. We don't have time."

I looked down into her eyes. Beneath the hardened exterior of an elite operative, I saw the raw, vulnerable human being who had spent her entire life fighting battles for people who never cared whether she lived or died.

"I'm not doing this without numbing it, Mara," I said softly, my voice filled with an intensity that surprised even myself. "You spend your whole life taking bullets for the world. Let someone take care of you for once."

Her grip on my arm slowly loosened. A single tear slipped down her cheek, which she quickly blinked away. "Why do you care so much? You barely know me."

"I know you risked your life to save hundreds of innocent people at my gala," I said gently, administering the local anesthetic around the wound. "I know you jumped in front of a grenade to save me in my own home. And I know that I haven't been able to think about anything else since the moment I saw you standing by those terrace doors."

As I carefully stitched the wound with steady, practiced hands, Mara never looked away from my face. The tension between us shifted from the adrenaline of combat to something infinitely deeper, electric and undeniable.

When the final bandage was secured, I gently wiped the sweat from her temple.

"You're safe here, Mara," I murmured, leaning close, our faces inches apart. "I promise you, Vance and Wexler will pay for every drop of blood you lost tonight."