Armed guards drew their weapons on a feral Cane Corso, completely unaware that a little girl in a pink dress was about to step into the killing zone.

The private library was located on the west wing of the second floor—a vast, two-story room filled with floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves, rolling ladders, and the smell of old paper and leather.

Elena slipped through the side service door, keeping her back pressed flat against the bookshelf frames.

Titan followed her like a shadow. For a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound dog, he moved with terrifying silence, his claws barely making a sound against the thick Persian rugs.

Across the dark room, near the large stone fireplace, stood two men in dark suits.

They were Vincent's private enforcers—men brought in from the New York branch who owed no loyalty to Adrian or Dante.

One of them held a crowbar, prying at the dark wood paneling at the base of a massive, seven-foot-tall antique grandfather clock.

"Hurry up, Leo," the second man muttered, checking his watch. "Vincent said the drive is tucked behind the pendulum housing."

"The wood is reinforced steel, idiot," Leo growled, leaning his weight onto the crowbar. Wood splintered with a sharp CRACK.

Elena knew she had less than thirty seconds before they breached the internal housing.

She looked around the room. On a side table three feet away sat a heavy brass bookend shaped like a sailing ship.

She picked it up, her knuckles turning white.

"Titan," she whispered, leaning down close to the dog's ear. "Stay."

Titan growled softly in his throat, his muscles trembling with contained violence, but he remained glued to the shadow of the bookshelf.

Elena took a deep breath, stepped out from behind the mahogany shelf, and hurled the brass bookend with all her strength toward the far corner of the room.

The heavy brass ship smashed into a glass display case holding antique globes.

CRASH!

Shattered glass cascaded across the hardwood floor.

"What the hell was that?!" Leo shouted, spinning around with his gun drawn.

"Check the corner!" the second man barked, stepping away from the grandfather clock.

Both men turned their backs to the clock, creeping slowly toward the display case near the far window.

Elena didn't waste a second.

She ran silently across the rug, reaching the grandfather clock. She reached her hand through the splintered gap in the wood paneling, her fingers scraping against cold steel until they caught on a small, rectangular plastic object mounted behind the brass pendulum.

The flash drive.

She pulled it hard. The magnetic clip released with a soft click.

"HEY!"

Leo had turned around.

His eyes widened as he saw the maid standing by the clock, holding the black drive in her hand.

"Drop it, bitch!" Leo yelled, raising his pistol directly at Elena's chest.