The silver bell struck the edge of the breakfast tray hard enough to make every crystal glass in the room seem to tremble.

"Looking for this, Victor?"

Adrian Moretti stood in the doorway of the study. He was wearing his dark suit trousers and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the dark ink running up his arms. He held a thick, leather-bound notebook in his left hand.

Behind Adrian stood four of his top security men, their weapons drawn and aimed straight at Victor Carlisle's chest.

Victor gasped, dropping his gun onto the Persian rug and stumbling backward. "Adrian! I... I was just... I heard a noise in here! I came to check on your study!"

"With a silenced weapon and your daughter's dowry agreements in your pocket?" Adrian asked, his voice chillingly calm. He walked into the room, tossing the leather-bound ledger casually onto the desk. "You've been selling my route coordinates to the syndicate in Detroit for three months, Victor. You used Vanessa to get inside my house, thinking you could frame me for your debts and take over the northern territories."

"That's a lie!" Victor stammered, raising his hands in surrender. "Vanessa loves you! She’s going to be your wife!"

"Vanessa doesn't love anyone who can't buy her diamonds," Adrian replied coldly. "And she was in on it from the beginning, wasn't she? That's why she brought her own 'caterers' into my house today. She was setting up the distraction."

Claire remained completely motionless in the shadows behind the high-backed leather chair, her gun raised, her breath held. She was caught directly between Adrian’s armed guards and a traitorous mobster.

Suddenly, the heavy glass window behind the desk shattered into a million pieces.

Submachine-gun fire erupted from the patio garden outside.

"Ambush!" one of Adrian's guards shouted before being thrown backward by a hail of bullets.

Victor dove for the leather ledger on the desk.

Adrian reacted instantly, pulling his weapon and firing two rounds into Victor’s shoulder, dropping him to the floor. But the attackers outside—hired mercenaries wearing black tactical gear—were already pouring through the shattered window, firing wildly into the study.

Adrian was pinned behind his desk, firing back with lethal accuracy, but his men were being cut down by the sheer volume of gunfire.

Claire knew this was her chance to run. She could slip through the service access behind the safe and escape into the woods. The mission was over; chaos had erupted.

Then she saw a mercenary flank Adrian from his left side, aiming a submachine gun directly at the back of Adrian's head while he was reloading.

Without thinking, Claire stepped out from the shadows.

Thwack! Thwack!

Two quiet, silenced shots echoed through the chaotic room. The mercenary collapsed instantly to the floor.