Chapter 5 - LIGHTS OUT IN THE PENTHOUSEThe music in the penthouse ballroom suddenly cut out with a harsh, whining shriek of feedback.
The two hundred guests stopped talking, turning their heads toward the stage in confusion. On the massive overhead projector screen—which moments ago had been displaying a glowing digital portrait of Victor Cole—the image flickered violently.
The portrait vanished. Replaced by a live security feed of the hotel’s underground vault, where Victor’s five elite enforcers from the Halloway Street ambush were currently tied to chairs, stripped of their weapons, and gagged. Standing behind them, calmly sharpening a hunting knife against a whetstone, was Miller.
A collective gasp rippled through the ballroom. Victor’s smile vanished instantly, draining the color straight from his face.
"What is this?" Victor hissed, turning to his head of security, Ray Delgado—who was miraculously walking with a heavy limp and a bandaged arm from his encounter with Sovereign earlier that night. "Ray! Fix this! Who hacked the feed?!"
Before Ray could bark an order into his radio, the massive double doors at the entrance of the ballroom slowly creaked open.
The chatter died down entirely. The room fell into a tomb-like silence.
Walking through the threshold wasn't an army of rival thugs. It was a single man in a charcoal suit, walking with the slow, deliberate stride of an executioner. Behind him walked a small girl in a black hoodie, her hands still tucked in her pockets. And padding softly beside her, amber eyes gleaming under the crystal chandeliers, was a scarred, massive dog.
Marcus Cole stepped onto the polished marble floor, his boots clicking with terrifying rhythm.
Victor froze, his glass slipping from his fingers to shatter against the floor, amber liquid splashing across the pristine white marble like fresh blood.
"No," Victor breathed, trembling as color completely drained from his face. "No... I watched them put three bullets in you. I saw you bleed out!"
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Marcus stopped fifty feet away, his hands resting casually inside his jacket pockets, his gaze locked onto his cousin with a terrifying, predatory calm.
"You always did have terrible math skills, Victor," Marcus said, his voice carrying clearly across the silent ballroom. "Ten against one wasn't a fight. But this? This is an eviction."
