The silence of my penthouse office felt heavy, suffocating. I sat behind a desk carved from solid obsidian, the blue glow of my monitors reflecting off the cold glass. Hannah’s words echoed in my mind like a gunshot: Growing up without her father actually being there.

The roar of twin-engine snowmobiles split the frozen silence of the Adirondack woods.

"Martha! Get the girls into the root cellar under the floorboards!" I barked, grabbing my tactical rifle from the wall rack and slamming a fresh magazine home.

Martha didn't panic. She had lived through my world long enough to know the drill. She grabbed Claire and Chloe, bundling them down the trapdoor before pulling the heavy braided rug back over the latch.

Hannah grabbed a heavy steel fireplace poker, her knuckles turning white as she stood beside the heavy oak front door.

"You stay back," I ordered, chambering a round.

"I'm not hiding, Victor," she said, her voice shaking slightly but laced with absolute steel. "My father died because he couldn't fight back. I am not running."

Boom.

The front door exploded inward in a storm of splintered oak and iron hinges.

Three heavily armed operatives wearing black urban-assault gear poured through the doorway, weapons raised.

I didn't hesitate. I dropped to one knee, squeezing the trigger twice. The lead operative took two rounds to the chest and crashed backward into the snow outside. The second one swung his rifle toward me, but before he could fire, a heavy iron object struck the back of his helmet with a sickening clang.

Hannah had swung the fireplace poker with the force of a professional baseball player, sending the second operative staggering sideways. I finished him with a single shot to the shoulder.

The third man—taller, wearing a scarred balaclava—grabbed Hannah by the collar, shoving the cold barrel of a suppressed pistol directly beneath her chin.

"Drop the weapon, Vance! Or the girl's brains decorate your cabin wall!" the man barked, his voice distorted by a throat mic.

I froze. The rifle in my hands suddenly felt heavy as lead.

"Salvatore sends his regards," the operative sneered, tightening his grip on Hannah's neck. She choked for air, her face turning pale, but she didn't scream. Instead, she looked past the man's shoulder straight at me, shaking her head slightly.

Shoot him, her eyes said. Don't worry about me.

"Let her go, Salvatore," I said, my voice dropping into that dead, terrifying register that had made emperors fall.

"I'm not Salvatore, Vance," the man laughed. "I'm just the guy collecting the bounty."

Suddenly, the front window shattered inward. A heavy, armored combat drone—fitted with high-intensity strobe flash-bangs—dropped from the frozen sky directly into the center of the cabin.

Flash!

A blinding white explosion of light and deafening sound filled the room. The mercenary holding Hannah screamed, dropping his weapon as disorientation took him.

I didn't wait to see. I lunged forward across the room, tackling the operative through the broken doorway out into the snowbank. We rolled down the steep embankment, trading punches in the freezing powder. He pulled a combat knife, slicing a deep gash across my forearm, but I ignored the pain, wrapping my forearm around his windpipe and twisting until a sharp crack echoed through the woods.