d2.“PLEASE, DON'T DIE! I didn't risk my life saving you just to watch you die!”

The call came directly to Dominic’s encrypted line at 3:15 PM.

He was in the middle of signing the acquisition deeds for the Great Lakes Shipping docks when Marcus’s face appeared on the boardroom’s teleconference screen.

“Afternoon, Boss,” Marcus sneered.

Dominic’s pen paused above the parchment. He looked up, his gray eyes turning dead and cold within half a second. “Marcus. Where is she?”

The camera shifted. Dominic saw me tied to a rusty steel beam inside a dimly lit warehouse, a strip of duct tape across my mouth, a fresh bruise blooming along my temple.

The temperature in the boardroom seemed to drop thirty degrees. The six corporate lawyers seated around the table froze, terrified by the sheer demonic aura radiating from Dominic Whitmore.

“Shipyard four, Calumet River,” Marcus said with a sickening grin. “Come alone in your fancy chair, Dominic. Sign over the master encryption keys to the offshore ports, and maybe I’ll let her live long enough to push you back to the car. You have forty minutes. Bring a single guard, and I cut her throat.”

The screen went black.

Dominic didn't yell. He didn't slam his fist on the mahogany table.

He slowly laid his pen down.

Arthur, who had been standing by the door, stepped forward, his aged face pale with dread. “Sir... it’s an obvious trap. Marcus has at least twelve rogue mercenaries waiting in that warehouse. We need to call the tactical teams—we need time to surround the perimeter—”

“There is no time,” Dominic whispered.

He reached down to the side of his chair, unclipping a heavy lockbox beneath the seat. From inside, he pulled two custom black Kimber .45 pistols, checking the magazines with crisp, mechanical precision.

“Arthur,” Dominic commanded, his voice shaking the foundations of the room. “Prep the Maybach. Do not call the syndicate. Do not call the police.”

“Sir, you can’t go in there alone!” Arthur pleaded, his voice breaking. “You can’t run! You can’t take cover!”

Dominic looked up at his lifelong butler.

For the first time in two years, Dominic Whitmore locked the wheels of his chair, gripped the edge of the conference table, and pushed himself straight up onto his feet.

He stood tall, towering at six feet two inches, broad, menacing, and terrifyingly alive. He rolled his neck until the vertebrae popped with the sound of cracking timber.

“Who said anything about taking cover?” Dominic growled, sliding both pistols into his shoulder holsters. “I’m going to slaughter every single one of them.”

Thirty minutes later, the iron doors of Calumet Shipyard Warehouse Four rattled open under a torrential downpour.

Inside, eight heavily armed men stood in a defensive semi-circle around the beam where I was tied. Marcus Vance stood in front of me, a smug smile plastered across his face as he watched the single black Maybach roll through the open loading bay.

The driver’s door opened.

Nobody stepped out into a wheelchair.

Instead, a lone figure stepped out into the pouring rain and strode forward on two solid, terrifying feet.

The mercenaries froze.

Marcus’s jaw dropped, his face turning the color of chalk. “What... what is this? That’s impossible! He’s paralyzed!”

Dominic didn't answer. He didn't stop walking.

His stride was deliberate, predatory, each heavy footstep echoing through the cavernous warehouse like the tolls of a funeral bell. The charcoal wool coat he wore swept behind him in the wind.

“SHOOT HIM!” Marcus screamed, sheer panic stripping the authority from his voice. “SHOOT HIM NOW!”

The warehouse erupted into gunfire.

Dominic moved with the lethal speed of a phantom. He drew both .45s in a blinding blur.

*Crack! Crack! Crack!*

Muzzle flashes illuminated the gloom. Dominic didn't miss. Three mercenaries dropped before they could even level their rifles. Dominic closed the distance, utilizing shipping crates for cover with fluid, athletic violence. He vaulted over a steel gantry, disarming a fourth guard with a brutal kick to the chest, snapping the man’s ribs before putting a double-tap into the mercenary behind him.

It wasn't a battle. It was an execution.

In less than ninety seconds, seven men lay dead or groaning on the blood-soaked concrete.

Marcus, terrified out of his mind, lunged behind me, ripping me up by my hair and pressing his revolver against my temple.

“STOP!” Marcus shrieked, hiding his body behind mine. “Take one more step, Dominic, and I blow her brains across this floor! Drop your guns!”

Dominic stopped twenty paces away.

Rain drummed violently against the metal roof above us. The air smelled of cordite, blood, and ozone.

Dominic slowly lowered his weapons, holding them loosely by his hips. His eyes were locked on Marcus, burning with an ancient, unstoppable fury.

“Let her go, Marcus,” Dominic said, his baritone steady, deep, and devoid of fear. “You wanted the docks. You wanted the money. It’s between you and me.”

“You lied to us!” Marcus screamed, his hand shaking so violently the gun barrel dug painfully into my skin. “You played the cripple while we did the dirty work! You think you can walk in here and take everything back? She dies first!”

Marcus tightened his finger on the trigger.

I looked into Dominic’s eyes. In that split second, I didn't see defeat. I saw a command.

*Duck.*

With every ounce of will I possessed, I slammed my head backward into Marcus’s broken nose, simultaneously throwing my entire body weight downward.

*BANG!*

Marcus’s shot went wild, ricocheting off the corrugated ceiling.

Before Marcus could re-aim, Dominic crossed the twenty feet in three explosive strides.

He didn't fire his gun.

Dominic lunged forward, his massive left hand clamping around Marcus’s throat like a hydraulic vise. With terrifying, superhuman power, Dominic lifted the grown man completely off his feet and slammed him spine-first against the concrete pillar.

*CRACK.*

Marcus’s gun clattered to the floor. His hands clawed desperately at Dominic’s iron grip, his legs kicking uselessly in the air as his face turned purple.

“You touched what belongs to me,” Dominic whispered, his face inches from his treacherous lieutenant.