Reaching him took less than four seconds, and it felt like the longest stretch of her life.

The Old Port District at 2:00 AM looked like a graveyard of industrial ghosts. Rusting cranes loomed over the black water of the river like giant iron skeletons, and the heavy fog rolling off the bay reduced visibility to less than thirty feet.

Emily pulled her wet hood lower over her face as her taxi sped away into the gloom. She stood in the shadow of an abandoned brick sugar refinery, looking across the cracked asphalt street at Warehouse 17.

The building was a massive, windowless corrugated-steel structure. A single yellow floodlight flickered above the metal side door. Outside, two black SUVs were parked in the shadows, their engines idling quietly.

Emily crept along the perimeter wall, her heart thumping against her ribs. She found a small loading hatch near the back that had been left slightly unlatched to allow thick electrical cables to run inside to a portable generator.

Squeezing through the narrow opening, she dropped quietly onto a stack of wooden pallets inside the dark interior.

The warehouse smelled of oil, salt water, and damp concrete. Deep within the central floor, bright industrial halogen lights illuminated a cordoned-off area. Emily crept along a high steel catwalk, staying flat on her stomach behind a row of rusted shipping containers, looking down at the scene below.

What she saw made her blood run cold.

In the center of the illuminated zone sat a reinforced steel cage. Inside the cage, sitting on a folding chair, was a man with shaggy hair, a torn jacket, and dark bruises across his face.

"Thomas," Emily breathed, her voice catching in her throat.

Her brother was alive.

He was thin, exhausted, and visibly weak, but he was alive.

Standing outside the cage was Enzo Baron, holding a tablet, along with three heavily armed men in unmarked tactical gear.

"I'm giving you one last chance, Taylor," Enzo said, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls. "Give us the decryption key for the secondary ledger you hid on your private server. Victoria is running out of patience. Once Santino is eliminated tonight, we take full control of the syndicate, and we don't need loose ends like you."

Thomas spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete floor. "Go to hell, Enzo. You and Victoria can rot together. The moment that ledger goes public, every federal agency in the country will be knocking on your door."

Enzo sighed, pulling a sleek, silenced pistol from his coat pocket. "A shame. You really were a stubborn journalist."

Enzo raised the gun, aiming it directly at Thomas’s chest.

"NO!" Emily screamed, throwing caution to the wind.

She stood up on the catwalk, pulling a heavy iron wrench from a tool rack beside her, and hurled it with all her strength at the overhead halogen lamp cluster.

The wrench struck the glass fixture with a deafening crack. The lamps exploded in a shower of sparks, plunging the entire warehouse into pitch-black darkness.

"What the hell?!" Enzo shouted down below. "Mendoza! Get the lights on! Kill him now!"

Gunfire erupted in the darkness, muzzle flashes illuminating the steel beams of the warehouse like flashes of lightning.

Emily raced down the metal staircase of the catwalk, her eyes adjusting to the dark. She reached the steel cage, grabbing a heavy crowbar resting on a nearby equipment table. She jammed it into the heavy padlock securing the cage door, putting all her weight onto the bar.

With a loud metallic pop, the lock gave way.

"Thomas! Get up!" Emily yelled, pulling the cage door open.

Thomas stared at her in utter disbelief, his eyes wide in the gloom. "Emily?! What... how are you here?!"

"No time to explain! We have to move!" she cried, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet.

"There they are! Get them!" a voice roared through the dark. A flashlight beam swept across the floor, locking onto Emily and Thomas as they stumbled toward the rear exit.

Two armed mercenaries cut off their path, raising their automatic rifles.

Emily pulled Thomas behind a stack of crates, trapped with nowhere left to run. The mercenaries advanced slowly, their laser sights painting red dots across the wooden crates.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors at the front of the warehouse were completely blown off their hinges by an armored vehicle crashing through at high speed.

The black armored SUV slid to a halt in the middle of the warehouse floor. The side doors flew open, and a hail of gunfire erupted from inside, instantly dropping the two mercenaries.

Rafe Lombardi stepped out of the driver's side, a heavy shotgun resting on his shoulder, sweeping the room with lethal precision.

And from the passenger seat, lowered down on a hydraulic lift system, came Santino Ferrara.