The morning light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my high-rise apartment was cold, grey, and unforgiving. On my glass coffee table sat the leather-bound document Nikolai Moretti’s lawyer had delivered precisely at eight o'clock.

Rain pounded relentlessly against the manicured lawns as our convoy of six black SUVs pulled up to the perimeter. Red emergency flares burned in the driveway, casting an eerie, blood-colored glow over the pristine white mansion.

Inside, gunfire echoed through the heavy oak doors.

"Volkov sent twelve men," Victor reported from the front seat, checking his submachine gun. "They've breached the main foyer. Your family is barricaded in the panic room on the second floor."

Nikolai unholstered a suppressed pistol from his shoulder harness. He turned to me in the back seat. "You stay in the vehicle, Evelyn."

"No," I said, reaching down and pulling a small, sleek 9mm pistol from my purse—a gun Nikolai’s tactical team had taught me to use three days ago. "I'm coming with you."

Nikolai stared at me for a long moment. Most men in his position would have locked me in the car. But Nikolai just gave a slow, approving nod. "Behind me. Shoot anything that isn't wearing a silver raven pin."

We moved into the mansion like shadows.

The grand foyer was a warzone. The pristine marble floor where Serena had practiced her first dance steps was covered in shattered glass, spent shell casings, and the bodies of three Hart family guards.

From the top of the grand staircase, a loud, heavy voice echoed down.

"Break the door down!" Nikolai Volkov—a massive Russian man with a shaved head and heavy facial tattoos—roared at his men. "Arthur Hart! Open this door or I’ll blow your useless wife’s head off right here!"

At the end of the second-floor hallway, my mother was on her knees, screaming hysterically, a Russian mercenary holding her by her hair with a pistol pressed to her temple. Serena was huddled behind a decorative pillar nearby, weeping so hard she was hyperventilating.

My father was locked inside the panic room, refusing to open the reinforced steel door to save his own wife.

"Always a coward, Arthur!" Volkov laughed, raising a heavy sledgehammer to break the panic room lock.

"Volkov," Nikolai’s voice cut through the hallway like a frostbite wind.

Volkov froze, spinning around.

Nikolai stepped into the hallway, moving with terrifying, effortless grace. Before the Russian mercenary holding my mother could even react, Nikolai raised his pistol.

THWIP. THWIP.

Two bullets took the mercenary directly through the throat and temple. He collapsed instantly, releasing my mother, who scrambled backward across the floor, shrieking in terror.

Volkov’s remaining seven men raised their weapons, but my tactical team poured out of the stairwell, blinding tactical lights pinning the Russians against the wall.

"Nikolai Moretti..." Volkov spat, his eyes wild with rage. "This is Hart territory! It has nothing to do with you!"

"Everything in Chicago has to do with me," Nikolai said smoothly, stepping aside to let me pass.

I walked into the center of the hallway, holding my weapon steadily at my side.

Serena looked up through her tears, her eyes wide with shock. "Evelyn?!"

My mother stared at me from the floor, her expensive gown covered in blood and grime, her pristine hair ruined. "Evelyn... oh god... Evelyn, save us!"

I didn't look at them. My eyes were fixed on the steel panic room door.

I walked up to the digital keypad on the wall, tapped in my private override code, and slammed the door open button.

The heavy hydraulic locks hissed, and the steel door swung inward.

My father, Arthur, was sitting in the corner of the panic room holding a small shotgun, shaking violently. When he saw the door open, he raised the gun in terror—until he saw my face.

"Evelyn?" he gasped, his jaw dropping. "How... how did you..."

"Get out, Arthur," I said coldly.

He stumbled out of the safe room, looking around at the bodies, at his weeping wife, at Volkov pinned against the wall by Nikolai’s men, and finally at me.

"You... you brought Nikolai?" Arthur stammered. "You saved us?"

"I didn't save you for your sake, Arthur," I said, stepping closer to him until I was standing inches from his face. "I came to collect what you owe."

I pulled a legal document from my coat pocket and slammed it against his chest.

"What is this?" Arthur whispered.

"A full, unconditional transfer of one hundred percent of Hart Shipping assets to the Moretti Logistics Authority," I said, my voice echoing loudly in the quiet hallway. "You sold out to Volkov. You embezzled company funds. You left your wife to die outside a panic room while you hid like a rat."

"Evelyn! You can't strip your father of his company!" my mother sobbed from the floor. "We are your family!"

I slowly turned my head toward my mother.

"Family?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. "Family doesn't hand your engagement ring to your sister. Family doesn't sit silently while you are humiliated in front of six hundred people. Family doesn't lock themselves in a steel room while mercenaries drag you by your hair."

I looked back at my father. "Sign the paper, Arthur. Or I walk out this door right now, and Nikolai lets Volkov finish his business."

Volkov, still held by two bodyguards, let out a booming laugh. "Sign it, old man! The girl has more balls than your whole bloodline!"

Arthur looked at the paper, then at Nikolai, who was casually resting his hand on his gun holster, waiting for an answer.

With trembling hands, Arthur took the pen from my coat pocket and signed his name on the line.

I snatched the paper back, blowing gently on the wet ink.

"Thank you, Arthur," I said, slipping the document into my coat. "Hart Shipping no longer exists. You are now unemployed."

I turned on my heel and began walking toward the staircase.

"Evelyn! Wait!" Serena cried out, scrambling toward me and grabbing the hem of my coat. "What about me?! What am I supposed to do now?! Julian is in jail! The family is ruined! Where am I supposed to go?!"

I looked down at my sister. The girl who had taken my dress. The girl who had taken my ring.

I reached down, took her hand, and slowly pulled the diamond engagement ring off her finger—the ring that Julian had given her, the ring that had originally belonged to me.