At 2:17 in the morning, I walked into my Chicago penthouse smelling faintly of another woman and found my seven-months-pregnant wife beside a half-packed suitcase. Claire didn’t scream, throw anything, or demand an explanation—she simply looked at me with the eyes of a woman who had finally stopped hoping I would change, and somehow that terrified me more than any enemy ever had.

"Daniel!" Marcus’s voice echoed frantically up the stairs, followed by the deafening sound of automatic rifle fire inside the hallway. "They're inside! It's Michael!"

The peace shattered instantly.

I looked at Claire. She was completely exhausted, barely able to keep her eyes open, holding tiny Hope tightly against her breast.

"Stay here," I said softly, picking up my weapon from the floor. "Barricade the door behind me."

"Daniel... no..." Claire whimpered, her fingers catching my sleeve. "He’ll kill you..."

I turned, kneeling beside her, and kissed her deeply, pouring every ounce of love, remorse, and promise I had into her lips.

"He took six years of my life by making me believe I was a king," I whispered against her skin. "I'm not letting him take another second of our future. I love you, Claire. I've always loved you."

I stood up, racked the slide of my handgun, and stepped out into the hallway, slamming the heavy door shut behind me.

Downstairs, the living room was a scene of utter carnage.

Two of Marcus’s men lay wounded near the kitchen, while Michael Reed stood in the middle of the ruined foyer, surrounded by four heavily armed mercenaries. Michael was wearing a bulletproof vest, his face bruised and bloody from our earlier fight, holding a high-caliber assault rifle.

When he saw me standing at the top of the stairs, a wicked, sadistic smile spread across his face.

"Look at you, Daniel!" Michael mocked, raising his weapon. "The great Don of Chicago, covered in blood and afterbirth, playing the heroic father! You look pathetic!"

"You came all the way out here just to die, Michael?" I said quietly, slowly descending the wooden staircase, step by step, completely calm.

"I came to finish what I started!" Michael snarled. "I took your empire, I took your reputation, and now I'm going to kill your wife and that little bastard upstairs!"

The moment the word bastard left his mouth, I moved.

I didn't shoot at Michael first. I fired three quick shots into the light fixtures in the hallway, instantly plunging the entire house into absolute darkness.

Screams and wild gunfire erupted in the dark.

I knew every inch of that house from the blueprints I had memorized on the drive down. I moved like a phantom in the shadows, closing the distance before they could adjust to the darkness.

Bang! Bang!

I shot the first mercenary through the throat, grabbed his falling body to use as a shield against a hail of bullets, and threw his grenade down the hallway toward the kitchen.

EXPLOSION!

The force of the blast blew two more mercenaries through the front windows into the yard.

Michael scrambled back into the dining room, firing wildly through the doorway. "Get away from me!"

I stepped through the smoke, completely unbothered by the bullets splattering against the plaster walls around me. I kicked his rifle out of his hands, slammed him against the heavy oak dining table, and drove my combat knife straight through his hand, pinning him to the thick wood.

Michael shrieked in agonizing pain, thrashing violently as blood spattered across his face.

"Please! Daniel! Please!" he begged, his bravado vanishing in an instant as he looked into my eyes and saw a man who had nothing left to lose. "It was just business! I'll give you the money back! All of it! The Caymans, the accounts—it's all yours!"

I leaned down, pressing my face inches from his.

"You tried to kill my wife," I whispered, my voice chillingly soft. "You tried to murder my daughter before she took her first breath."

"I was jealous!" Michael sobbed, tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks. "You had everything! The power, the respect... her! She loved you, Daniel! She looked at you like you were a god, and you didn't even appreciate it!"

I pulled a small silver recorder from my pocket—the recorder Michael had used to orchestrate his bribes—and tossed it onto his lap.

"The federal agents are five minutes behind us, Michael," I said quietly. "They're not here to arrest me. They're here because I sent them your entire private ledger from your tablet twenty minutes ago. You're going to spend the rest of your life in a small, dark cell, thinking about the empire you tried to steal."

I pulled my knife out of his hand with one swift motion.