Three days after our wedding, my husband kicked the dinner table so hard that plates shattered across the floor.

It was 8:00 PM when my secure satellite phone—a device I only used for high-level tactical operations—let out a sharp, encrypted chime. I was sitting at the kitchen island, sipping chamomile tea while scrolling through the thousands of comments praising my counter-attack, when the screen flashed a restricted, un-traceable incoming call.

I swiped to answer.

"You made quite a mess today, little wolf," a deep, raspy voice murmured through the speaker. It sounded like grinding stones, cold and devoid of human warmth.

I didn't blink. I didn't even sit up straighter. I already knew who it was.

"Victor Vance," I said smoothly, leaning back in my chair. "I wondered when the head snake would crawl out of his hole. I thought you died in that private jet explosion off the coast of Monaco five years ago, Victor. Turns out you just faked your death to escape an international warrant for embezzlement."

A dry, hacking chuckle echoed on the other end of the line.

"Smart girl. Too smart for your own good," Victor replied, his tone turning razor-sharp. "You humiliated my wife. You had my son arrested. You destroyed forty years of careful empire-building in less than twelve hours with a few keystrokes and a voice recording. You think you're untouchable now, don't you?"

"Not untouchable, Victor," I replied, my voice chilling the air around me. "Just prepared. Unlike your incompetent son, I don't need a manual to know how to finish a fight."

"You think you won because the feds took Elena?" Victor sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "Elena was just a figurehead. The real assets, the real power, the real money—it’s all parked in accounts you’ve never even heard of. And right now, I have three men standing outside the lobby of your building with silenced firearms, waiting for my single word to turn your apartment into a slaughterhouse."

I glanced casually at the live security monitor on my iPad.

Down in the lobby, three men in dark hoodies and heavy tactical vests had just slipped through the security gate, bypassing the front desk with a stolen keycard. They were moving with professional precision toward the elevator bank.

"Three men?" I asked, my voice laced with mild amusement. "Victor, you really are out of touch. Did you forget to ask your family who they were trying to bully before you planned a hit?"

"What are you talking about?" Victor snapped, a flicker of genuine unease bleeding through his raspy voice.

"I'm talking about the fact that your little hit squad walked right past three undercover federal agents staked out in the basement garage," I said, tapping the screen to bring up the garage camera feed. "Agent Vance left a welcoming committee behind just in case your ghost decided to call. Look at monitor two, Victor. Tell me what you see."

On the screen, the three tactical-clad thugs were currently being face-planted onto the concrete floor by heavily armed federal operatives before they could even draw their weapons.

The line went dead silent for five agonizing seconds.

"You... you set a trap for me," Victor whispered, his bravado finally crumbling into sheer, unadulterated terror.

"No, Victor," I said, standing up from the chair and walking over to the window to watch the flashing lights below. "I didn't set a trap for you. I invited you to step into the light. And now that you've called me from an encrypted satellite relay... the cyber-crime division has your exact GPS coordinates down to the square meter."

"Bitch!" Victor screamed, his mask of calm entirely shattered. "I will find you! Even if it takes the rest of my life—"

"You don't have the rest of your life, Victor," I interrupted softly. "Look outside your window."

On the satellite tracker embedded in my HUD, a secondary feed lit up in red: a private penthouse suite overlooking a secluded marina in Zurich, Switzerland.

On the screen, heavy wooden doors burst open, and Swiss federal police swarmed into the room, pinning a terrified, aging man to the floor while he screamed into a satellite phone.