POV Noelle
“Luna!”
Her name rips from my throat like a siren. The alarm blares, glass shatters somewhere down the hall, and before I can even grab the baby monitor, the power dies—everything plunges into black.
I hear the crash first. Then the scream.
“Maria!” I shout, stumbling toward the nursery.
The air smells of gun oil and fear. Footsteps thunder through the penthouse—heavy boots, three, maybe four of them. My pulse pounds so hard it feels like I’m running through my own heartbeat.
When I reach the doorway, a flash of light cuts through the dark—a phone flashlight. Maria’s voice, shaking but fierce, yells, “Stay back!”
Two men in masks shove through the nursery door. Maria stands in front of the crib, holding one of Owen’s kitchen knives like it’s a sword. Luna’s wails pierce through the air, raw and terrified.
One of the men snarls something in a language I don’t understand. The other moves forward. Maria swings. The blade catches his arm—but the second lunges, knife glinting.
“NO!” I scream.
Owen’s footsteps pound down the hallway behind me. A gunshot explodes, deafening in the close space. The first man drops, screaming, clutching his shoulder. The second bolts toward the window. Owen fires again—misses—and the man dives out through the shattered glass onto the lower terrace.
The air fills with dust and gunpowder.
Maria collapses against the wall. Blood soaks her apron.
“Oh my God—Maria!” I fall to my knees beside her. The knife still dangles from her hand. “Don’t move, don’t you dare move—”
“It’s nothing,” she gasps, voice faint. “Go—help him—”
“Shut up,” I choke out, pressing my hand against the wound in her side. “You saved her. You saved my baby.”
Her lips tremble in a weak smile. “That’s what grandmothers do.”
Owen grabs my shoulder. “Stay here. Rhea’s coming. Keep her alive.”
I look up at him. “Don’t you dare get killed!”
He doesn’t answer—just reloads and vanishes down the stairwell like a ghost made of fury.
Rhea bursts into the nursery seconds later, gun drawn, hair disheveled, eyes cold. “Status?”
“Maria’s hurt,” I say, trying not to sob. “She took a knife to protect Luna.”
Rhea drops to her knees beside me, snapping open the trauma kit she always carries. “Pressure here,” she orders.
“I’m trying.”
“She’s lost too much blood.”
I grab a roll of bandages from the kit, wrapping them tight around Maria’s waist. My hands are slick with blood. Rhea curses softly, cutting away the fabric to reveal the wound.
“It missed the lung,” she mutters. “She’s lucky.”
Maria groans, her hand clutching mine. “Don’t—tell—Noelle—”
“You’re literally talking to me,” I say through tears. “And you’re going to live, do you hear me? Because Luna’s going to need you to tell this story someday.”
Rhea pulls out a syringe, injecting painkiller. “She needs stitches.”
“Then stitch her!”
“I don’t have enough thread.”
I glance around the room wildly. “Use mine.” I rip the hem off my silk nightgown, thrusting the strip at her. “Use whatever you have to. Just—just do it.”
Rhea nods and gets to work, steady hands moving with grim precision. I can hear the distant chaos from below—the echo of Owen’s boots, a door slamming, a shout, another shot.
Luna starts crying again, louder this time. I turn to the crib, scooping her up. She’s trembling, her tiny body pressed against my chest. “Shh, baby. Mama’s here. You’re safe.”
Safe. The word tastes like a lie.
Thirty minutes later, the blood on my hands has dried to a rusted brown. Maria is unconscious but breathing steady. Rhea leans back, wiping sweat from her brow. “She’ll make it.”
I exhale shakily, the first real breath I’ve taken all night. “Thank God.”
Rhea checks her gun, reloading. “Where’s Owen?”
“Still down there.”
She looks at me sharply. “He’s alone?”
“He said to stay with Maria.”
Rhea mutters a curse under her breath and stands. “I’ll go find him.”
“Wait!” I grab her wrist. “He’s—he’s not the same when he’s angry.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “That’s why I’m going.”
She disappears down the hall, leaving me with Luna and the soft hum of silence that feels worse than noise. I rock my daughter until my arms ache. Every creak of the building sounds like danger returning. Every minute feels like an hour.
When the elevator dings, I flinch. Then Owen’s voice fills the hallway. “It’s me.”
He’s covered in bruises, his shirt torn, knuckles bleeding. The metallic smell hits first—blood, not all his. Behind him, Rhea follows, grim and exhausted.
“It’s over,” she says. “Three down, one escaped through the west stairwell. We’ll track him by morning.”
Owen doesn’t speak. He walks straight to the nursery, looks at Maria on the couch, then at Luna asleep in my arms.
His eyes soften for the first time in hours. “She okay?”
“She’s fine,” I whisper. “Thanks to Maria.”
He nods once. Then his gaze flicks to me, and something in him cracks. “You could’ve died.”
“So could you.”
He runs a hand through his hair, pacing the length of the room. “They knew where to hit. They came straight for her. That means someone fed them intel.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “And we’ll find who.”
His head drops, breath ragged. “I should’ve been faster.”
“You saved us,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “I barely saved you.”
I step forward, gripping his face with my blood-streaked hands. “Stop blaming yourself. Tonight we all survived—that’s what matters.”
He exhales sharply, pulling me into him, one arm around me, one around Luna. We stand there in the wreckage—the broken glass, the blood on the floor, the distant wail of sirens rising toward us like ghosts.
Rhea moves around quietly, securing the windows, making calls. Maria stirs and groans softly, and I whisper a silent thank-you to whatever mercy stayed her life.
When the sirens fade, dawn begins to seep through the cracked blinds. Pale light touches everything it shouldn’t—shattered furniture, bullet holes, red footprints trailing down the hall.
Owen sits on the floor beside the crib, elbows on his knees, head bowed.
I kneel next to him, clutching Luna’s blanket in my hands. The white fabric is streaked with someone’s blood—Maria’s, maybe his, maybe both.
My voice trembles as I whisper, “For whoever tried to break this house tonight… may they never understand what they failed to destroy.”
Owen looks up, eyes raw. “You’re praying for them?”
“No,” I say softly. “I’m praying against them.”