Coming home three days early should have given me the advantage over the traitor inside my organization. Instead, I walked into my own fortified Chicago mansion, heard my seventeen-year-old daughter screaming behind a locked kitchen door, and found the quiet maid I barely noticed digging metal out of her bleeding leg while my youngest child—silent for three years—whispered, “Claire is fixing it.”

The door to the mezzanine office was reinforced steel with an electronic keypad lock. Claire didn't hesitate. She pulled a small electronic bypass device from her tactical rig, plugged it into the maintenance port beneath the keypad, and stared intently at the tiny LCD screen as lines of code scrolled past at blinding speed.

Beep.

The green light flashed. The heavy deadbolt retracted with a mechanical click.

I raised my MK18, shouldered the door open, and stepped into the room with my weapon leveled at the center of the office.

Yuri Geller—a massive man with a shaved head, gold chains hanging heavily around his thick neck, and an expensive tailored suit drenched in sweat—looked up from a sprawling mahogany desk covered in laptop computers, cash bundles, and ledger books.

"What the—" Geller started, lunging for a heavy revolver resting beside his keyboard.

I didn't hesitate. I fired a single round into the corner of the desk, shattering the wood a fraction of an inch from his hand.

"Touch that gun, Geller," I said, my voice cutting through the room like a razor blade, "and I'll plant the next round directly between your eyes."

Geller froze, his hand hovering over splintered wood, his face turning the color of chalk as he recognized me.

"Julian Vale," Geller breathed, his eyes wide with stark terror. "How... how are you here? Marcus said you were trapped in Miami!"

"Marcus was an idiot," I said, stepping forward and kicking the revolver away across the floor. "And you're about to find out what happens when you try to dismantle my family."

Claire stepped past me into the office. She didn't waste time threatening Geller. She immediately walked over to the primary desk terminal, plugged her encrypted data drive into the USB port, and began downloading the entire database of financial transactions, encrypted comms logs, and membership rosters of the corruption ring operating inside Chicago.

"Download is at forty percent," Claire announced, her eyes glued to the progress bar. "We have about two minutes before the automated system logs an unauthorized data transfer."

Geller swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically toward the door. "You think you can just walk in here, Vale? You think exposing my ledger changes anything? Rostova owns half the federal judges in this district! Even if you kill me, your empire is already dead!"

"My empire isn't dead, Geller," I said, pressing the barrel of my pistol firmly against the center of his forehead. "It's just getting purged."

Before Geller could speak another word, the sharp, shrill alarm of the warehouse security system blared across the entire facility.

Red strobe lights began flashing violently along the ceiling rafters, casting an eerie, demonic glow over the office.

"Someone tripped a hardwired perimeter sensor downstairs," Claire said calmly, the progress bar on her screen hitting ninety-eight percent. "They know we're here."

"How many?" I asked, keeping my gun locked on Geller.

"At least a dozen," Claire replied, ripping the data drive out of the terminal just as the progress bar hit one hundred percent. She slipped the drive into her tactical pouch and drew her suppressed pistol with her left hand. "And they're sealing the exit doors."

Geller let out a hysterical laugh, blood draining from his face as he realized what was coming. "You're trapped! You'll never make it out of the warehouse alive!"

"Shut up, Geller," Claire snapped, walking over and striking him across the jaw with the heavy grip of her pistol. The regional director slumped unconscious onto his desk.