The living room felt different when they returned to it. The manic, violent energy of the assassination attempt had burned off, leaving a heavy, exhausted calm in its wake.

Ryan sat in the center of the velvet sectional.

He had changed into a pair of dry sweatpants, his chest bare, the dark, fading bruises on his ribs fully exposed to the dim light.

He rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the rain lashing against the glass.

Diana walked into the room. The oversized cashmere sweater swallowed her frame, the sleeves pushed up past her wrists.

Her wet hair was combed back, her face entirely scrubbed of makeup. She looked ten years younger, the severe, aristocratic lines of the venture capitalist completely erased.

She didn’t take an armchair. She walked straight to the couch and sat down closely beside Ryan, her thigh pressing firmly against his.

A moment later, Zara walked in from the kitchen, carrying two steaming ceramic mugs.

She wore a simple white t-shirt and cotton shorts. She handed one mug to Diana and set the other on the glass coffee table in front of Ryan.

Zara didn’t sit in a separate chair either. She curled up on Ryan’s other side, pulling her knees to her chest, her bare toes resting against his thigh.

The three of them sat in the quiet, insulated from the chaos of the city below.

Diana took a slow, deliberate sip of the tea. The heat radiated through her chest, settling the last of the tremors in her hands.

"Richard wasn’t at the dinner," Diana said suddenly. Her voice was flat, echoing hollowly in the large room.

Ryan turned his head, looking at her. Zara lowered her mug, listening.

"He was supposed to meet me there," Diana continued, staring blankly at the dark liquid in her cup. "But his assistant called my driver ten minutes before the ambush. Richard decided to fly to Boston for a sudden real estate acquisition. He didn’t even call me himself. He had his assistant tell me he wouldn’t make it."

She let out a dry, humorless laugh that sounded like breaking glass.

"If he had been in that car," Diana whispered, "he would have panicked. He would have screamed at the driver, or tried to open the door, or called his lawyers while the bullets hit the glass."

She looked up, meeting Ryan’s pitch-black eyes. "Richard builds shopping malls. He plays golf. He wouldn’t know what to do about a broken window, let alone a hit squad."

Ryan reached out, his heavy hand resting over hers, covering the ceramic mug.

"Your old life is hollow, Diana. It’s an illusion built on paper. You saw what happens when the paper catches fire."

"I know," she breathed out, leaning her head against his shoulder. The physical contact was immediate, natural. "I don’t want to go back to the townhouse. I can’t go back there."

"You aren’t going anywhere," Ryan stated, his voice a low, immovable anchor. "This is a safe place. You stay here until I tell you the streets are clean."

Zara shifted on the couch, resting her chin on Ryan’s opposite shoulder. She looked across his chest at the older woman.

"The media is going to run wild with the car attack tomorrow," Zara noted quietly. "They’re going to assume it was a random act of violence in Tribeca. They won’t connect it to Rebuild Tech."

"They won’t," Ryan agreed. "But the people who matter know exactly what it was. And they know they missed."

Diana closed her eyes. The terror of the gunfire was still fresh, but the crushing, suffocating isolation she had felt her entire adult life was gone.

She was sitting on a couch between a ruthless tech warlord and a global fashion icon, and for the first time in a decade, she felt entirely, structurally safe.

"I’m out of my depth," Diana confessed, the words slipping out bare and unprotected. "I calculate risk for a living. I read term sheets. I don’t know how to navigate this."

"You don’t need to navigate it," Zara said softly.

Diana opened her eyes, looking at the supermodel.

"You don’t have to be the boss in this room," Zara continued, her dark eyes entirely sincere. She didn’t sound condescending; she sounded like a woman who had already learned the exact same lesson. "You don’t have to manage the leverage or run the numbers. You just have to let him carry it."

Diana stared at Zara, the profound truth of the statement hitting her nervous system like a sedative.

She didn’t have to fight for control anymore. She had already surrendered it.

Ryan’s arm slid around Diana’s shoulders, pulling her flush against his side. His other arm rested heavily across Zara’s waist.

He sat in the center of the velvet sectional, the undisputed gravitational core of the room, grounding them both.

"It’s late," Ryan murmured, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. "We need to sleep."

He didn’t wait for them to agree. He stood up, pulling Zara up with his left hand and Diana with his right.

He led them down the short hallway toward the master bedroom.

The massive king-sized bed dominated the room, the heavy silk sheets pulled back. Ryan didn’t bother turning on the bedside lamps. The ambient glow of the city provided enough light.

He lay down in the exact center of the mattress.

Zara didn’t hesitate. She crawled onto the bed, curling up immediately on his left side. She draped her arm across his chest, her face pressing into the crook of his neck, completely at ease in her designated sanctuary.

Diana hesitated at the edge of the mattress.

The deep, ingrained conditioning of her conservative marriage fought a brief, dying battle against her exhaustion.

She was a married woman, standing in the bedroom of a twenty-four-year-old man and his supermodel girlfriend.

Ryan turned his head. His dark eyes locked onto hers, stripping away the last ounce of her hesitation.

He lifted his right arm, opening the space beside him.

Diana swallowed hard. She climbed onto the bed, sliding under the heavy duvet.

She curled into his right side, her back to the window, pressing her face against his bruised ribs. The scent of his skin, clean and sharp, filled her lungs.

Ryan rested his hands on both of them—one hand tangled in Zara’s dark hair, the other resting heavily on the curve of Diana’s waist.

The thoughts of revenge tossled at the back of his mind, a sleeping predator waiting for the dawn.

Outside, the storm raged, hammering violently against the reinforced glass.

Inside, the empire slept.