Chapter 4 - THE BEAST UNLEASHEDThe masked man—designation Agent Kaine, one of the Syndicate’s most feared enforcers—tilted his head, his laser sight painting Holden’s chest with a searing red dot.
"The vault code isn't in your financial ledgers, Holden," Kaine said, stepping down the grand staircase with deliberate slowness. "It’s encoded in the genetic sequencing of your sister's bloodline. And the dog? That animal was engineered by your father to guard the primary biometric scanner. Without the beast's saliva and the child's pulse, the underground vault stays locked forever."
"You think my father built a billion-dollar vault just to hide money?" Holden smiled, a dark, dangerous smirk spreading across his face as he leveled his pistol. "He built a tomb. And you're standing right on top of it."
Kaine raised his weapon, but before he could pull the trigger, a sound echoed from the dark corridors behind him—a sound that made even the seasoned Syndicate mercenaries freeze in their tracks.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was the heavy, rhythmic impact of massive paws hitting hardwood floorboards at full sprint.
Kaine spun around just as a streak of black lightning cleared the hallway archway. Phantom didn't bark. He didn't warn them. A hundred and thirty pounds of pure, unbridled canine fury slammed directly into the chest of the nearest mercenary, sending the grown man flying across the foyer to smash against a marble pillar with a sickening crunch.
"Shoot the damn dog!" Kaine roared, firing three rapid rounds from his submachine gun.
Bullets ricocheted off the marble floor and grazed Phantom’s thick shoulder, but the pain only seemed to fuel the beast's supernatural fury. With jaws wide, Phantom lunged at Kaine, ignoring the gunfire entirely. Kaine managed to raise his tactical rifle barrel to block the snapping jaws, but Phantom’s weight knocked him flat on his back, the titanium mask clattering across the floor.
As Kaine struggled beneath the massive beast, his face exposed for the first time, Holden gasped.
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The man wasn't a mercenary. He was Viktor Cross—their uncle, the man reported dead in a prison riot ten years ago.
"Surprised, nephew?" Viktor choked out, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth as Phantom’s massive paw pinned his throat to the floor. "The Cross empire was mine before your father stole it. And now... I’m taking it back."
