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.”

I crouched behind a heavy oak tasting table, my assault rifle braced against the edge, my eyes fixed on the rusted iron grille set into the stone wall twenty feet away. Beside me, Ava was breathing through her teeth, trying desperately not to make a sound while Harper pressed a fresh bandage onto her torn thigh.

In the dim red glow of the emergency lights, Claire stood near the back of the tunnel, completely motionless, her weapon leveled at the darkness. She looked less like a maid and more like an apex predator waiting in the tall grass.

Clink.

A faint metallic scrape echoed from inside the ventilation shaft.

Someone was crawling through the narrow ductwork, dragging tactical gear across the corrugated metal.

I flicked my thumb over the fire selector switch, my finger resting lightly on the trigger. If it was one of Marcus’s hit squads, they were coming through single file—a turkey shoot if we held the bottleneck, but if they threw in a flashbang or a phosphorus grenade, we would all burn in this concrete tomb.

“They have thermal optics,” Claire whispered from the shadows, her voice barely audible over the hum of the backup generator. “The vent exhaust gives us away. Move the girls behind the steel reinforced pillar, now.”

“I can cover the choke point,” I hissed back.

“You can’t cover an angle while worrying about three children, Mr. Vale,” she replied sharply, stepping past me with terrifying calmness. “Let me handle the hallway. You secure the family.”

Before I could argue, the iron grille exploded inward, showering the stone floor with rusted screws and jagged metal shards.

A black-clad operative dropped from the shaft, his rifle raised, his tactical helmet fitted with glowing green night-vision lenses. He didn't hesitate—he swept the room, his weapon tracking toward Harper and Ava.

Pfft.

A soft, suppressed cough echoed through the cellar.

The operative’s helmet cracked as a 9mm round tore straight through his visor, dropping him instantly onto the stone floor without a sound.

From the shadows, Claire stepped forward, her pistol still raised, her face completely expressionless. She didn't pause to check the pulse; she immediately pivoted toward the open duct, listening intently to the sounds echoing from inside the pipe.

“There’s two more behind him,” Claire said, her voice chillingly calm. “They’ve got breaching charges. If they plant a satchel on this vault door, the concrete overhead will collapse and bury us alive.”

I stood up, stepping over the dead operative and leveling my rifle alongside her. The corporate billionaire, the syndicate boss, the ruthless negotiator—all of that exterior was gone. Right now, I was just a father standing back-to-back with a mysterious woman who wielded a gun like a seasoned veteran, defending my daughters in the dark.

“How many clips do you have left?” I asked, sliding a fresh magazine into my vest.

“Enough,” Claire replied, glancing sideways at me with a faint, grim smile that didn't reach her eyes. “And if we run out, Mr. Vale... we improvise.”

Suddenly, a muffled voice crackled through the comms headset clamped to the dead operative’s collar.

“Team Two, report. Status on the target and the kids? Command wants confirmation before we drop the heavy gas.”

Claire reached down with the toe of her boot, pressed the transmission button on the dead man’s radio, and spoke in a cold, steady imitation of the fallen mercenary’s voice.