Roughly four-months later

Natalia Giovanni sank deep into the cushions of the ten-thousand-dollar, custom-made sofa in her fit-for-a-palace bedroom, studying the intricate gold-and-red embroidery in the pillows as she powered up her laptop.

The World Wide Web was the only true escape she ever got from her life in a gilded cage.

She braided a thick band of her waist-length, dark-brown hair and folded it into knot, just above her neck, to keep it off her shoulders—the luxurious, loosely waved tresses were compliments of a Tanzanian beauty queen for a mother and an Italian billionaire for a father, the former being gunned down in a business deal gone wrong when Natalia was only ten years old.

Ah, but then her father’s business was sketchy at best.

Natalia didn’t know if Luca Giovanni trafficked in illegal arms or drugs, along with the prostitution, but one thing she knew for sure: The women he kept housed in The Fortress, the name his henchman used for the enormous, 25,000-square-foot building, surrounded by a ten-foot-high wall on their private 500-acre estate in Morrison, Colorado, were not there of their own free will. The fortress was divided by wings, or quadrants—north, south, east, and west—and from what Natalia had managed to discern over the years, her father kept his high-end call girls in the northern wing, his low-end prostitutes in the east, and the least fortunate of all in the south. Women he sold to be slaughtered.

She bit down on the rubber tip of a pencil, trying to dispel the thoughts.

It was inconceivable to Natalia that her once-beloved papa could traffic in a business so abhorrent. Who the hell purchased beautiful, innocent women for the sole purpose of taking their lives—in ways Natalia didn’t dare to even imagine—and what kind of monster would kidnap, raise, or house such victims for years and years, only to sell them for top dollar, knowing their ultimate fate?

As for who he kept in the west, Natalia didn’t care to speculate. She knew the southern wing brought $150,000 a head in trade, in individual sales. The sex slaves in the west brought $100,000 a head, so they must have been a very rare commodity—special, in their own right. And, ultimately, Natalia could do nothing about it.

Not any of it!

Her father had made one thing clear: Somewhere in the world, scattered amongst four separate countries, there were four ruthless mercenaries just waiting to receive their marching orders—five million dollars each to eliminate every living soul in The Fortress should the Giovanni compound ever be raided. Should Natalia Giovanni ever significantly disobey her father, leave the compound, or try to escape her life.

Should Natalia ever disappear.

Yes, Luca Giovanni had placed the lives of hundreds of helpless women squarely on Natalia’s young shoulders. She held all their fates in her slender, elegant hands. She was Luca Giovanni’s only child, and her father would rather see the world burn than live a day without Natalia present. In fact, his diabolical plan had gone further than that: Luca had placed the lethal contracts through his late attorney, Max Brazilian, and Max was the only one who knew the identities of the mercenaries—he was the only one who could call off the contracts.

And he’d taken that option with him to the grave.

Natalia sighed, staring at the bright-blue screen of her laptop as her programs came online, wondering for the millionth time if there wasn’t some way around it. At only twenty-five years old, Natalia was a whiz with computers—hell, she was a virtual cyber-pirate—and there wasn’t a website, firewall, or government security system Natalia couldn’t hack. All it would take was a carefully placed email—or an anonymous letter sent to a dozen news organizations—to turn her father in and set the women free. But therein lay the rub: Could the FBI, CIA, or DEA move that quickly or efficiently? Could they get the women out in a matter of a few short hours—could they move them to safety before Max’s mercenaries could strike?

Five million dollars was a lot of money.

Still, Natalia might have risked it if it weren’t for the girl with the faery-princess eyes, the beautiful, innocent child with silver-blue irises that sparkled like finely spun glass, the four-year-old girl Natalia had seen on that terrifying, ill-fated night: the night Natalia had hidden in the back of a bodyguard’s jeep in order to slip into The Fortress. The night her father had caught her and whipped her within an inch of her life.

Luca had never spanked Natalia before…or after.

And she had never forgotten those eyes: the eyes of a child growing up in captivity, a child only five years younger than Natalia…

She shook her head briskly to dismiss the thought.

There was no point to all the morbidity: It didn’t free a single soul, and it didn’t serve Natalia. Like the women in Luca’s “employ,” she was just trying to survive the hand that fate had dealt her.

Turning her attention to her cyber daydreams—her infinite need to escape—Natalia opened an elite social website and felt her stomach twitter with butterflies.

Where was he tonight?

And where had he gone?

Santos Olaru.

The dark, handsome stranger with crystal-blue eyes; unusual black-and-blond hair, with an occasional highlight of white; and teeth so perfect, so pearly white, they gleamed like a string of jewels: Natalia’s strikingly handsome, cut-like-a-statue, imaginary cyber-boyfriend.

She had spied on him, cyber-stalked him, and hacked into the places he’d hacked, eventually acquiring his first and last name, while watching the way he worked, just because he’d so impressed—and intrigued—her.

Hell, the man moved like a ghost in the machine.

In and out of secured, encrypted systems, without leaving the barest footprint.

Planting documents, or uploading information, without the host ever knowing he was there.

He was like a virtual magician, and Natalia had been watching him for years…

From a distance…

From the Web.

But it was only last year, on December 31^st, that she’d managed to finally see a picture of the otherwise secretive and elusive hacker: a photo of the tall, stunning Adonis standing next to two other men at a New Year’s Eve party in Dark Moon Vale.

At the Dark Moon Vale Casino, to be exact.

He looked like he might have been on security detail, at least from the way he was dressed, and for whatever reasons, perhaps to set the guests at ease, all three men in the photo were wearing nametags: Santos, Saxson, and Ramsey.

A guest of the casino had snapped the picture and uploaded it onto her social media page. And who could blame her? The men were pure, unadulterated eye-candy! Still, it was the only photo, the only ID of any kind Natalia had ever managed to find of Santos.

He had removed the photo within one hour, but Natalia already had it.

She logged into iChat Platinum with her fictitious name, ArabianNight500, and immediately scanned the page for his avatar: Sentinel2000. Clever. He had to be searching for something…or someone… Santos didn’t chat with mere mortals. She chuckled at the silly thought. Of course she pretended he was a god; why not? In Natalia’s eyes, Santos Olaru was far more handsome, brilliant, and slick than any man she’d ever met. And she’d managed to grab his attention, if only for a second, using a clever end-around technique where she’d bypassed his login, without knowing his password, and placed a pop-up chat-box of her own making directly on his page.

He had hesitated for the space of two heartbeats before typing: Who are you? How did you get in? And that’s when Natalia had logged off and added five layers of encryption. She didn’t want Santos Olaru tracking her… The trail he would find would go back for years.

Twirling her pencil through her fingers, she inhaled sharply when she saw his bright-blue icon light up. So, he was there…online. She took a slow, deep breath, trying to muster her courage, and reopened the end-around chat.

What the hell.

It was now or never.

Natalia had just turned twenty-five earlier that month, and her father was determined to see her married before she turned twenty-six. He was planning to give her away to an imposing brute of a man, Oskar Vadovsky, with long, dark hair that seemed naturally black and red, and eyes the color of used charcoals: slate gray and black. Without conscience, clemency, or pity, Luca Giovanni intended to toss Natalia out of the Giovanni compound like so much expendable garbage, for one compelling reason and one reason only: to secure the business relationship between Giovanni Inc. and its most lucrative, longest-standing client.

Natalia had pleaded with her father, on more than one occasion, not to do it, not to give her to Oskar. She had even dropped to her knees and begged. But Oskar Vadovsky made Luca Giovanni millions and millions of dollars each year, purchasing the southern-wing women.

Natalia was not supposed to know this.

She was not supposed to know that her future husband was a stone-cold killer.

The marriage was supposed to be a blood-bond contract between the Giovannis and the Vadovskys, a joining of their two powerful houses, and her father swore that Oskar would treat Natalia like a princess and provide her with the life she was accustomed to. After all, the man was supposed to be highly invested in their “ongoing joint ventures”—he wouldn’t dare cross Luca Giovanni.

No one would.

Still, Natalia would rather die than marry the dark, tainted brute.

The man did not possess a soul.

Unfortunately—and for whatever reason—Oskar really wanted Natalia.

And that was the beginning, middle, and end of the subject.

Turning her attention back to her screen—and the fabricated, open iChat box—she stared at her keyboard and vacillated: Natalia would never know love. She would never know what it felt like to want something…or touch someone…from the truest depths of her soul. Reaching out from across the Internet to her imaginary, fantasy lover, Santos, was the closest she might ever come. And time was running out—she may as well do it.

Are you there? She typed the words in lowercase letters, literally holding her breath.

No answer.

She would have to be bolder.

Santos? Now this should get his attention. His name was supposed to be Sentinel2000.

I’m here, he shot back. What is your real name?

Holy cow!

Natalia slammed the laptop shut.

Santos Olaru had responded to her!

She jumped up from the couch, paced around the bedroom, and shook out her hands to dispel the nervous energy.

Holy hell!

He had spoken to her!

Squeezing her braid and squealing with delight, she hurried back to the sofa and reopened the screen. ArabianNight500, she typed, biting her lower lip so hard it left an indentation.

Ah. He typed fast. ArabianNight500…I see. So you aren’t going to tell me?

I just did, she typed. I’m afraid that has to be good enough.

She felt her heart sink into her stomach—would he be annoyed? Or worse, disappointed? Would he think she was playing games?

She wasn’t!

It was just…

It was just that she had to be careful.

Extremely, extremely careful…

Her father was a dangerous man, and her life was strictly off-limits. Her true identity could never be known. Still, she wanted this connection more than she wanted water, more than she wanted her next breath.

But what if she had already turned him off?

The laptop fan began to hum beneath her, even as the soft, pastel glow illuminated the couch. Natalia bit her nails. “C’mon, Santos,” she whispered beneath her breath. “Say something…anything.” When her eyes misted with tears, she knew she was a foolish little girl.

She was an idiot.

A child.

A twenty-five-year-old virgin who had been born into a criminal empire.

An expert hacker who was toying with the very best—her superior.

And she had just tainted the only pure, untouched fantasy—the only potential coveted friendship—she had ever hoped to contrive.

The daydream that kept her sane.

One minute turned into five, then five turned into ten, and Natalia felt sick to her stomach. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she reached for the screen to close it: “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she whispered.

He was too smart to play silly games with a child.

And then her screen lit up with a message from Santos.

Natalia…

Giovanni…

Where are you?

Can we meet?

* * *

Santos Olaru leaned back in his leather recliner, staring at the wall of monitors in his modern glass-and-steel domicile beside a private lake on the northwest end of Dark Moon Vale. The moonlight was shimmering like a spotlight on the serene, crystal water below, and it merged with the glow of his monitors, creating a peaceful halo effect.

She was at it again.

The human female.

Playing her coy cyber games and following Santos all over the Web.

From what he could tell, she had followed him for years.

At first, he had found it cute…entertaining…something to cut through the boredom on his HOJ days off, but now, it was no longer amusing. The woman was an expert hacker, and for a moment, she had gotten the best of him, with her multiple layers of diversion and encryption.

But this time, the vampire had been ready.

Ready to follow her, ready to slip into her machine, ready to trace her expertly disguised, hidden address…the moment she reopened the chat-box.

Only what he’d found was chilling.

The IP address led back to Luca Giovanni, the reclusive billionaire. And the human female’s administrative credentials led back to several expensive software purchases, all under the name of Natalia. A quick scan of vital records, and Santos Olaru knew, at least with 95 percent certainty, that he was being followed…through cyberspace…by Giovanni’s daughter.

What. The. Hell.

Human concerns—even human crimes—were off-limits to the house of Jadon.

Napolean’s law was inviolable!

But this?

This was something altogether different.

Jocelyn Levi had come to Dark Moon Vale as an agent of ICE, investigating a human-trafficking ring, one she believed was run by Luca Giovanni, but she had never had a chance to follow up. It was no longer her concern: no longer her job…no longer within her legal purview.

Not to mention, she got derailed by Shelby and Dalia’s tragic story.

By her and Nathaniel’s Blood Moon.

But then Xavier Matista, a lycan enemy from the land of Mhier, had interfered with Saxson’s Blood Destiny, holding the woman hostage for nearly a week while he’d kept another human sex slave in the Swingle-Duplex Suites: a pair of lavish Denver penthouses owned by Giovanni, Inc.

According to Nachari Silivasi, Zayda Patrone—Keitaro’s wild, feral guest who just happened to be Xavier’s biological daughter—was the offspring of one of Luca’s human prostitutes, born in some nefarious brick structure where she grew up as a slave.

It was all supposed to be a coincidence.

Until now…

Luca Giovanni’s daughter, following Santos on the Web…

For years?

This was no accident.

It couldn’t be.

ArabianNight500—my ass!

He hit a button to activate voice dictation and spoke each word, including punctuation, clearly: Natalia, ellipses. Giovanni, ellipses. Where are you, question mark. Can we meet? Question mark.

It didn’t matter if she answered in the affirmative…

He was already looking up her physical address from an incredibly reliable source: her most recent bank statement.