He saved his mistress from the wedding attack while his new wife counted thirty seven minutes beneath the ruins

Before Vivien could answer, the glass door at the rear of the yacht’s cabin shattered with an explosive CRASH.

Shards of glass rained across the teak floor.

Before Damian could turn, a heavily armed operative in tactical black gear lunged through the opening, a suppressed rifle raised and leveled directly at Damian’s chest.

It wasn't one of Damian’s men. It wasn't Roman’s crew.

It was a rogue mercenary from the Moretti syndicate—the remnant faction left over from the wedding night attack, seeking a final, bloody liquidation of the Vale leadership.

“Don't move!” the mercenary roared, his finger tightening on the trigger.

In a fraction of a second born of pure instinct and survival, Damian lunged sideways, intercepting the barrel just as the rifle discharged. A bullet punched through the cabin wall, showering them in wood splinters.

The mercenary swung the butt of the rifle, striking Damian across the temple. Damian staggered back, tasting blood, but grappled fiercely with the attacker, wrestling him toward the wet deck outside.

Inside the cabin, a second operative stepped through the shattered glass, his pistol raised, targeting Damian as he struggled on the slippery deck.

“Damian!” Vivien screamed.

She didn't freeze. She didn't cower.

With the cold, lethal precision of a woman who had been raised in the crosshairs of corporate and physical warfare, Vivien reached beneath the heavy mahogany console table where her father always kept a contingency defense piece—a custom-engraved Sig Sauer P229.

She whipped it out, flicked the safety off with her thumb, and fired through the glass partition.

BANG.

The bullet caught the second operative square in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending his weapon clattering across the deck into the dark ocean water.

Outside, Damian managed to twist the mercenary’s arm behind his back with a bone-crunching snap, disarming him and driving his head hard against the yacht’s metal railing until the man slumped unconscious onto the wet floor.

Panting heavily, blood dripping from a cut above his eye, Damian turned back toward the cabin.

Vivien stood in the center of the shattered doorway, the smoking pistol still gripped firmly in her hand, her posture straight, her cashmere sweater dusted with fine glass powder.

She looked like an angel of vengeance carved out of winter ice.

Damian stepped back inside, wiping rain and blood from his brow, staring at her with a mix of awe and profound reverence.

“You shot him,” Damian breathed.

“I told you,” Vivien said, her voice steady as she lowered the safety and laid the gun quietly back on the table. “You made the mistake of thinking I needed your protection. I was just waiting for you to realize it.”

Sirens began to wail in the distance—the federal maritime coast guard and local police units responding to the automated distress signal triggered by the yacht’s security grid.

Damian didn't look at the approaching lights. He walked across the shattered glass, stopping inches from Vivien. He didn't touch her without permission; he simply held her gaze, letting the raw truth of the moment settle between them.

“Thirty-seven minutes,” Damian whispered, the words thick with self-reproach. “That’s how long you sat under those beams while I ran across the room for someone else.”

“Thirty-eight,” Vivien corrected softly. “You lost track of time in the middle.”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for every second of it,” Damian said. “If you’ll still have me.”

Vivien looked down at the legal transfer document resting on the table—the key to his empire, offered without condition or pride. Then she looked up into his eyes, seeing the man stripped of his armor, standing bare in the rain.

She reached out, her fingers gently brushing a streak of blood from his temple.

“The merger is dead, Damian,” she said, a faint, genuine smile touching her lips. “We’re going to have to start a new courtship from scratch.”