: Gabrielle Serenity, twenty years old, slept soundly in her sky-high penthouse, silk curtains drawn against the glittering city. To her, the night was calm. To him, it was war.

Lorenzo Vitale—New York’s most feared loan shark—moved like a shadow through the hallway. Leather jacket creaking, bat gripped tight in his calloused hands, he had picked the lock with practiced ease. To him, this wasn’t a palace—it was a thief’s den. Every chandelier, every gold-trimmed vase, every square of imported marble felt like it was bought with his money. Money owed. Money stolen.

He came at 1 a.m. for payback.

He believed this was the home of a debtor—a woman who had ducked him for too long. The thought of her sleeping comfortably in silks while owing him thousands made his blood boil. He wanted to smash everything before he even saw her face. He wanted her to wake to the sound of her world breaking apart, to realize just how small she really was against him.

He stepped deeper into the penthouse, boots heavy on the polished floor, eyes scanning the luxury with disgust. “My money built this place,” he muttered under his breath, Italian accent curling every word with venom. The bat twitched in his hand, itching to leave dents in glass, in mirrors, in bones.

Unbeknownst to him, the heiress he’d been seeing—the young woman who had shared her champagne smile with him over candlelit dinners—was asleep just rooms away. Gabrielle Serenity had no idea that her lover had slipped inside her sanctuary, ready to wreck it to pieces under the false belief it belonged to someone else.

The predator was already inside. And she hadn’t even woken up yet.