The morning started like every other morning. Brody’s alarm went off at 5:45, the same as always. He lay still for exactly four seconds before

The rain poured heavily over the alley behind Brody’s apartment building, drumming against the metal dumpsters and rusted fire escapes.

A non-descript gray delivery van pulled into the dark alley, its headlights turned off. The side door slid open with a low, greased whisper.

Four men stepped out into the dark.

They wore dark tactical rain jackets, night-vision monoculars pulled down over their eyes, and carried suppressed submachine guns tucked close to their chests. These weren't the sloppy muscle from the morning lobby; these were Apex Vanguard's tier-one enforcement unit—former foreign special forces soldiers who specialized in silent urban liquidations.

The team leader, a cold-eyed Czech mercenary named Viktor, gestured with three fingers toward the building’s rear fire exit.

"Target is on the third floor, Apartment 3B," Viktor radioed in a low, accented whisper. "Intel indicates he lives alone with a child. The child is currently unaccounted for, but assume target is inside. No survivors. Clean sweep."

"Copy," his point man replied, pulling a specialized lock-picking device from his pouch.

They moved up the wet metal fire escape like shadows, their boots making zero sound against the iron steps. They bypassed the first two floors effortlessly, arriving at the window of Apartment 3B on the third floor.

The interior of the apartment was completely dark.

The point man used a diamond-tipped glass cutter to score a silent circle in the window pane, reached inside, and unlocked the frame. He slid the window up six inches, stepping smoothly inside onto the worn carpet of Brody's living room.

The second and third mercenaries followed, their weapons raised, infrared laser beams cutting invisible paths through the dark room. Viktor brought up the rear, pulling a suppressed sidearm.

The apartment smelled of faint pine cleaner, cold coffee, and the sweet scent of a child's juice box. To any normal intruder, it looked like a completely vulnerable target.

They fanned out in a classic room-clearing sweep.

Point man moved toward the master bedroom. Second man moved toward the small kid's room lined with dinosaur posters. Viktor and the third man held the center hallway.

The second man pushed open the door to Owen's bedroom. He raised his submachine gun, scanning the small bed tucked into the corner.

The bed was empty—just a pile of pillows arranged under a blanket to simulate a sleeping body.

Before the mercenary could key his radio to warn the team, a pair of thick, calloused hands emerged from the dark space behind the open door.

A heavy mechanical cable—a high-tensile steel refrigerator compressor line Brody had pulled from his workbench—looped around the mercenary's neck.

Brody pulled back with terrifying leverage, dragging the 220-pound mercenary backward into the closet. The man thrashing violently, his boot kicking against the wall once before Brody applied precise carotid pressure. In four seconds, the mercenary went completely limp. Brody lowered him quietly onto a pile of stuffed animals, taking his suppressed submachine gun and tactical radio.

In the hallway, Viktor felt a sudden shift in the air pressure—a faint draft coming from the kid's bedroom.

"Check in, Team Two," Viktor whispered into his throat mic.

Silence.

"Team Two, report," Viktor repeated, his grip tightening on his pistol.

A static pop echoed through Viktor's earpiece, followed by a low, calm voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up:

"Team Two is sleeping, Viktor. You're next."

"He's inside!" Viktor barked, firing three rapid suppressed rounds through the drywall into the kid's bedroom.

The third mercenary spun around toward the hallway, raising his weapon, but Brody was already moving through the darkness he knew intimately.

Brody didn't fire a gun. A gunshot in a residential building would attract police attention and ruin his quiet life forever. He used the environment he had spent six years living in.

As the third mercenary backed up down the narrow hallway, his boot stepped on a loose floorboard—the exact loose floorboard Brody had been meaning to fix for eight months. The floorboard creaked loudly.

The mercenary hesitated, looking down.

In that microsecond, Brody leaned out from the bathroom doorway, holding a heavy 18-inch steel pipe wrench.

He swung the wrench in a short, brutal arc, striking the mercenary directly across the forearm holding the submachine gun. Bone snapped loudly. The weapon clattered to the carpet. Brody followed up with an open-palm strike to the man's temple, dropping him instantly onto the hall runner rug.

Viktor, now alone in the dark apartment, backed up slowly toward the living room. Panic—a feeling he hadn't experienced in fifteen years of contract killing—began to gnaw at his heart.

This wasn't a civilian apartment. It was a kill box carefully prepared by a master predator.

"Show yourself!" Viktor hissed, turning in a circle, his night-vision goggle searching the shadows. "Come out and fight!"

"You came into my home," Brody's voice echoed softly from the kitchen. "You walked past my son's drawings. You stood where he eats his breakfast."

Viktor whipped around, pointing his weapon toward the kitchen doorway.

A form moved in the shadow. Viktor squeezed the trigger, emptying six rounds into the shape—only to realize it was just a dark winter coat Brody had hung over a wooden chair.

Before Viktor could reload, Brody dropped from the top of the kitchen counter directly behind him.

The weight of the former Navy SEAL slammed Viktor onto the living room rug. Brody pinned Viktor's arm behind his back, twisting the joint until the heavy mercenary screamed in agony.

Brody leaned down close to Viktor's ear, his breath warm, his voice icy cold.

"Tell your employer that if another Apex Vanguard operative sets foot in Seattle... I won't stop at the lobby. I'll come to your headquarters, and I will tear your company down brick by brick."