Carrying my eight-month pregnancy felt like an unbearable weight as I held a scalding porcelain bowl, forced to serve like a maid in my own home.

At precisely 8:14 PM, the sky above the estate lit up with a dull, rumbling roar.

It wasn't thunder. It was the distinctive, heavy thrum of twin turbine engines cutting through the freezing Alaskan air. A massive military-grade helicopter dropped out of the low cloud cover, descending directly onto the estate’s manicured front lawn, flattening the decorative winter shrubbery beneath a gale-force downdraft of rotor wash.

Inside the dining room, the sudden noise rattled the crystal chandeliers.

Richard slammed his wine glass down onto the table, his face draining of color. "What the hell is that?! Is that a news chopper?"

Before anyone could answer, the heavy front oak doors rattled violently as heavy boots struck the exterior porch.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Open up! Federal authorities—correction, family business!" a deep, terrifying voice echoed through the reinforced wood.

Richard marched toward the foyer, his expression a mask of arrogant fury. He threw open the interior wooden door, expecting to see local police officers whom he could easily bribe or dismiss with a phone call. Instead, he stared through the wrought-iron security gate at two towering figures standing in the blinding snowstorm.

They wore matte-black tactical gear, heavy ballistic vests, and night-vision goggles pushed up onto their foreheads. Their faces were cold, carved from granite and old scars.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" Richard snarled through the iron bars, puffing out his chest. "This is private property! I am Richard Sterling, and I demand you identify yourselves immediately or I will have your badges by morning!"

The man standing on the left—tall, broad-shouldered, with a jagged scar running down his left jawline—slowly lowered his tactical visor. His eyes were dead, black, and devoid of any human warmth. It was Jax.

"You don't have badges to take, Richard," Jax said, his voice quiet, raspy, and carrying the chilling weight of an executioner. "You don't even have a phone signal anymore. We jammed local towers five miles out."

Richard’s arrogance faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a flicker of genuine confusion. "What? Who sent you? Is this some kind of sick joke?"

From behind Jax stepped the second operative, Kael—leaner, moving with the terrifying fluid grace of a striking viper. Kael held a heavy hydraulic breaching tool in his gloved hands. He didn't say a word. He simply jammed the steel wedge into the frame of the iron security gate and began to apply pressure.