The first crack was loud enough to stop a hundred conversations. For one breathless second, the crystal chandeliers continued glittering as though nothing had happened.

The grand marble foyer of the Mercer estate—the very room where Clara had been humiliated less than twenty-four hours earlier—was now a war zone.

Heavy wooden furniture had been overturned to form defensive barricades. Bullet holes starred the antique oil paintings hanging on the walls, and a thick, acrid haze of white smoke drifted through the air from a smoke grenade that had been lobbed through the front window.

Leo Hastings kicked open the heavy front doors, stepping over the shattered glass and broken security console. His face was slick with sweat, his expensive silk tie loosened around his neck, holding a pistol unsteadily in his right hand.

“Come out, Mercer!” Leo screamed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. “You think you can steal my family's legacy and humiliate my sister? We’re going to burn this entire estate to the ground with you inside it!”

From the grand curved staircase overlooking the foyer, a single, calm voice cut through the shouting.

“You’re tracking mud across my Italian marble, Leo,” Dominic said.

Leo snapped his head upward.

Dominic stood casually on the landing of the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the polished wooden banister. He didn't look rushed. He didn't look scared. He looked like an executioner waiting for a verdict to be carried out.

And standing right beside him, holding a compact sidearm with absolute tactical composure, was Clara Hayes.

Leo’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief as he spotted Clara standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the most dangerous man in the state.

“You brought the maid a gun?” Leo sneered, lifting his pistol toward the stairs. “Are you out of your mind, Mercer? You’re bringing down a global empire just to play white knight for a piece of trash?”

Dominic’s expression darkened into pure ice.

“That ‘piece of trash’ has more courage in her little finger than your entire family tree possesses,” Dominic said quietly.

Then, Dominic raised his right arm.

Before Leo could pull the trigger of his weapon, a deafening crack echoed from the top of the stairs.

Bang.

The bullet struck the heavy crystal chandelier directly above Leo’s head, shattering a massive cluster of crystals that rained down like razor-sharp hail over Leo and his armed enforcers, forcing them to duck and scream in panic.

Instantly, from the shadows of the side corridors, Calvin and thirty elite Mercer security operatives emerged, raising their assault rifles and cutting off every single avenue of retreat toward the front doors.

“Drop your weapons,” Calvin’s voice boomed across the foyer, cold and absolute. “Drop them now, or you don't leave this house breathing.”

Leo scrambled backward against the wall, bleeding slightly from a minor glass scratch on his forehead, staring wildly around the room as his twenty-man militia was completely surrounded, disarmed, and forced to their knees in a matter of thirty seconds.

The siege of the Mercer estate was over before it had even truly begun.

Dominic lowered his Sig Sauer, walking slowly down the grand staircase with Clara right beside him, stepping over the glittering shards of the broken chandelier.

He stopped right in front of the trembling, cornered Leo Hastings.

Dominic reached out, snatched the pistol right out of Leo’s shaking hand, and tossed it casually aside.

“Tell your father the game is over,” Dominic whispered into Leo’s ear, his voice like grinding stone. “Tell him I’m seizing his corporate assets by noon today, and if he ever sends another dog onto my property, I won't just ruin his family financially. I’ll erase them from history.”

Leo swallowed hard, his face completely drained of color, unable to utter a single word in reply.