They dragged my maid into the center of my mansion and branded her a thief in front of everyone—but the necklace beneath her collar exposed the accusation as a trap. She wasn’t an ordinary servant. She was the last living witness to the betrayal that slaughtered my family and turned me into the man everyone feared.

The black sedan and its accompanying convoy of SUVs slid to a halt on the wet cobblestones of the front courtyard, their tires hissing against the damp stone.

Inside the main hall, the crystal chandeliers were dark. The massive iron-and-glass front doors stood slightly ajar, the morning fog drifting across the polished marble floor like a ghostly tide.

The heavy oak doors of the courtyard exploded inward as a breaching charge blew the deadbolts clear through the frame. Wood splinters rained across the floor as six heavily armed men in black tactical gear, wearing night-vision goggles and carrying suppressed assault rifles, poured into the grand hall in a textbook wedge formation.

At their center walked Vincenzo Moretti Jr.—a tall, lean man in an expensive tailored trench coat, his slicked-back dark hair wet with mist, a cold, predatory smirk playing across his lips.

“Clear!” barked the lead operator, his rifle sweeping the dark corners of the grand foyer.

“Don't bother clearing,” Vincenzo said, his voice echoing off the marble pillars. He stepped over the splintered wood of the front door, pulling a silver cigarette case from his coat pocket and flicking open a lighter. “The old man isn't here to negotiate. Burn the house down, take the girl, and bring me the maid’s head on a silver platter. My uncle Arthur wants this chapter closed once and for all.”

The operator raised his rifle, aiming toward the grand staircase—

Crack.

A single, suppressed shot rang out from the shadows of the second-floor balcony.

The lead operator’s head snapped back in a spray of dark blood, his body crashing hard onto the marble floor before his twitching fingers could even squeeze the trigger of his rifle.

“Contact! Second floor landing!” screamed the second-in-command.

Instantly, the grand hall erupted into a deafening roar of automatic gunfire. Tracers lit up the darkness, chewing through the imported banisters, shattering crystal chandeliers into a million glittering shards, and gouging deep trenches into the stone walls.

From the darkened shadows of the East Gallery on the second floor, I leaned out from behind a concrete support pillar, squeezing the trigger of my carbine in short, controlled bursts. Two more tactical operatives dropped, their bodies tumbling over the railing to crash onto the floor below.

“Flush them out!” Vincenzo roared, ducking behind a massive marble pillar as a volley of return fire chewed up the stone inches from his face.

Four operatives split off, rushing toward the sweeping double staircase with thermal breaching tools, intending to blow the reinforced doors leading to the upper residential wing where Mia was sleeping.

“Elena, now,” I spoke quietly into my comm-link.

From the opposite end of the second-floor gallery, Elena didn't use a rifle. She dropped a heavy, industrial-grade fire suppression canister down the open stairwell shaft.

The canister hit the marble floor with a heavy clatter right at the base of the stairs, instantly releasing a blinding, high-pressure cloud of dense, white chemical foam and halon gas that filled the entire ground floor in less than three seconds.

“Gas! Gas!” an operative choked, stumbling backward, his thermal goggles blinded by the thick particulate cloud.

Before they could recover, I dropped over the second-floor railing, using the heavy velvet drapes to slide down to the ground floor in a single, fluid motion. I hit the floor running, my carbine spitting lead into the white fog. Two operatives dropped instantly, clutching their legs and chests, screaming in agony as the chaos swallowed them whole.

Vincenzo Moretti Jr., coughing violently and waving the white smoke away from his face, staggered toward the shattered front doors.

“Cowards! Get back here!” he snarled, pulling a 9mm pistol from his coat holster.

As he cleared the fog near the threshold, a massive, midnight-black shadow materialized out of the mist beside him.

Kaiser didn't bark. He simply hit Vincenzo like a freight train of muscle and fury, knocking the gun out of his hand and driving him hard into the wet gravel of the courtyard. The Doberman’s jaws locked onto the thick wool of Vincenzo’s trench coat near the shoulder, pinning him to the ground with enough force to crack several ribs.

I walked slowly out of the foggy doorway, my boots crunching on the glass and debris, stopping two feet from where Vincenzo lay gasping for air beneath my dog.