The heavy rhythmic hiss of the mechanical ventilator was the first sound that clawed its way through the fog of my subconscious. My lungs felt like they were lined with crushed glass, and every attempt to draw breath felt like a monumental battle against an invisible weight.

Before Marcus could reach for the keyboard to execute the final transfer sequence, the overhead fluorescent lights flickered violently and died.

The room plunged into sudden, chaotic darkness, illuminated only by the pulsing red and blue emergency strobe lights mounted along the ceiling.

Marcus froze, his smile vanishing instantly. "What is the meaning of this? Status report!" he barked into the comms unit on his wrist.

There was no answer. Only heavy, suffocating static.

From the ceiling above, the heavy steel maintenance hatch dropped open with a metallic crash. A figure in tactical black dropped silently into the room, landing in a deep crouch before surging upward like a coiled spring.

Before Marcus’s guards could even raise their weapons, a silenced pistol spat fire twice. Both operatives crumpled to the floor without a sound.

Stepping out of the shadows, his face streaked with soot and blood, eyes burning with a cold, terrifying fury, was Dominic Rossi.

"You talk too much, Marcus," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register that made the air in the room feel several degrees colder.

Marcus whirled around, his hand instinctively dropping toward a holster beneath his suit jacket, but Dominic was already closing the distance. In a blur of motion, Dominic slammed Marcus against the stainless-steel counter, kicking his weapon across the floor and pressing the cold barrel of his pistol squarely between Marcus’s eyes.

"Touch her again, and I’ll scatter your ashes across the Mediterranean," Dominic snarled.

Marcus, pinned against the counter, let out a breathless, uneven laugh, though his eyes darted nervously toward the barrel of the gun. "You think killing me stops the transfer, Dominic? The biometric sequence has already been executed. The funds are moving into my offshore accounts as we speak. If I die before the transfer completes, the entire system self-destructs, locking the accounts forever in a dead-man's switch."

Dominic’s jaw tightened. He looked back at me, seeing the heavy steel restraints locked around my wrists. Without a second thought, he holstered his weapon, pulled a heavy tactical combat knife from his belt, and began hacking at the electronic control panel of my chair with brutal, calculated precision.

Sparks showered across the floor as the internal circuitry shorted out. With a final, agonizing groan of stressed metal, the locks sprang open.