Her Sworn Protector. Marie Ferrarella

was larger than her bedroom back at the apartment. As a matter of fact, Kady thought, taking a long look around, this bathroom looked larger than her living room. Not to mention that the gold sink and tub fixtures probably cost more than a year’s rent.

      She shook her head as she turned the handles and proceeded to wash her hands. What did a man need with a gold swan spouting out an arc of water into a black onyx tub? She dried her hands on towels that felt softer than whipped cream.

      Moving over to the tub, Kady paused to look at it more closely. A huge stained-glass window directly behind it cast beams of blue and gold into the room. The tub itself was round and roomy enough for three wide-hipped people to sit comfortably without touching.

      Opulence run amok, she couldn’t help thinking.

      It seemed like such a waste. The money that all this had cost would have been put to better use funding another clinic or helping to get people off the streets and on their feet again.

      Kady straightened the towel she’d used and backed away. It was Milos’s money, she told herself, and she had no right to impose her own set of values on him. The man should be free to enjoy it. Heaven knew he seemed to enjoy very little these days, focusing exclusively on his company and obsessing about it the way he did. It wasn’t healthy. At his age, a man as well off as Milos should have no reason to stress himself out to the point of having an anxiety attack. He should be into the coasting part of his life.

      And then she smiled. She sincerely doubted if she’d be willing to just coast at seventy. She’d still want to work, still want to make a difference. She supposed that was what kept the man going, a sense of purpose. Work, if you didn’t hate it, was what kept you young. And Milos just told her that he considered the business his life and—

      About to go back into the bedroom, her hand on the doorknob, Kady paused, cocking her head. Trying to make out a sound. She could have sworn she heard a series of popping noises coming from somewhere within the bedroom. If she didn’t know better, she would have said they sounded like firecrackers.

      Kady frowned slightly. All right, what was Milos trying to pull now? She knew he thought himself invincible, but she wanted him to spend the rest of the day in bed. Anxiety attacks were not heart attacks, but they could certainly feel that way to the body, and after that kind of an ordeal, Milos’s body deserved to rest.

      Now that she’d told Milos that the situation wasn’t actually dangerous, he was probably champing at the bit to get back into the game of besting Skourous and his company, making sure the other man had no opportunity to get the better of him.

      She sighed, shaking her head.

      With a reprimand on her tongue, all set for release, Kady opened the bathroom door.

      And stopped dead.

      There was someone else in the room. Someone dressed all in black, right down to the gloves on his hands and the shoes on his feet.

      The collar of the turtleneck pullover was raised up high, covering his mouth and his nose. Even his eyes seemed to be coal black. The only thing of vague color was the gun in his hand. Gray. The gun’s barrel appeared strangely disproportioned.

      And then she recognized it for what it was. A silencer. The intruder had a silencer at the end of the gun barrel.

      He’d come to kill someone.

      He had killed someone, she realized in the next moment. That was what the noise had been. Bullets fired through a silencer.

      Milos was lying in bed the way she’d left him, except that now there was a pool of blood on his wide chest. The sight of another figure, crumpled on the floor, registered less than a beat later.

      Byron?

      No, whoever it was was built smaller than the man who had accompanied her to the penthouse.

      And then her heart felt as if it was constricting into a hot ball within her chest.

      Ari.

      Ari was lying there at the foot of Milos’s bed. The other bodyguard must have rushed in when he heard the “pop” and had died trying to protect Milos.

      Where was Byron? Was he lying somewhere, hurt? Dying? Dead? Kady felt her throat tightening more and more.

      All these thoughts flew through her brain a beat before she pulled back into the bathroom, afraid that the killer would see her, too.

      Her heart racing, Kady resisted the temptation to close the door again. Any unnecessary movement or sound might catch the killer’s attention, make him come closer to investigate.

      But she couldn’t just stand here, frozen. Not knowing. What if he came after her?

      With her heart racing faster than she thought humanly possible, Kady angled one of the three adjacent medicine cabinet mirrors to see what the killer was doing. To her surprise, he unscrewed the silencer from the gun barrel, tucking the former into his pocket and the latter into the back of the waistband of his slacks and then smoothed down his collar. As if appearance counted.

      When he turned toward the door, she caught a clear glimpse of him, his image reversed in the mirror. Tall, his slight build appearing thinner because of the black clothing he wore, the killer looked young. Maybe twenty-eight, maybe less. He had a mop of curly black hair that looked as if a comb could get lost there.

      She had no idea who he was. And then she saw his eyes. They weren’t looking at her, but even at this distance, she’d never seen eyes so dead before.

      She had to struggle to keep from shivering, from making a sound.

      The killer paused at the door, listening. Kady held her breath. Had he heard her? She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t tell. Very carefully, she shrank back in the bathroom, making sure that her image wasn’t thrown back at him in the mirrors.

      In the recesses of the bathroom, she could no longer see what was happening. Her insides felt like jelly. She counted off seconds in her head, waiting. Mentally reciting a fragment of a prayer the sisters at St. Catherine’s had taught her.

      Finally the door opened and then closed again. As she eased back into range in the bathroom, her eyes were glued to the mirror. The outer door remained closed. It looked as if the shooter was gone.

      Only then did she let out the breath she’d been holding. The next moment Kady shot out of the bathroom and rushed first to check the man on the floor. One look told her that Ari had been shot where he stood. She would have expected him to be disposed of the moment he’d entered the room. What was he doing clear across here, on the other side of Milos’s bed?

      Probably following the killer’s orders, hoping to stay alive, she thought. Just like her.

      Ari was dead. Had probably been dead even before he’d hit the floor. There was a single bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

      She didn’t remember crossing to the bed. The next thing she knew she was bending over Milos, searching for a pulse. Willing him to live. At first she couldn’t find any evidence of a pulse, but then, squeezing her fingers hard over the man’s thick wrist, she thought she detected the faintest hint of erratic rhythm.

      He was alive.

      She needed to keep him that way.

      Her bag was still in the bathroom where she’d taken it, but she didn’t want to leave Milos’s side.

      Her heart froze in midbeat as she saw his electric-blue eyes flutter open. Milos’s lips moved, but she couldn’t hear anything. Leaning in closer, she felt the faint brush of his breath against her cheek and thought she heard him say, “Skourous,” but she couldn’t have sworn to it.

      “Don’t talk,” she ordered. “We’ll get you to the hospital. You’re going to be all right, Milos,” she promised hoarsely. “You’re going to be all right.”

      Kady wasn’t even aware that she was crying, or that her tears were falling on the old man’s face. She saw his lips move again,