Dom triggered the device.
The cameras died. Lightning flashed. Thunder covered the sound of our doors opening.
We moved as one.
Dom hit the gate's electronic lock with a bypass. It clicked open. We poured through. Silent. Fluid. A well-oiled machine designed for violence.
The mansion rose ahead. Three stories of stolen opulence. Floodlights cutting through the storm. Windows glowing gold. Beautiful in the way poison sometimes was.
Marcel had built his kingdom on our blood.
Tonight we'd drown him in his own.
“Split here,” Dom said. Hand signals in the dark. “Luka and Troy, east wing. Dmitri, secure the exits. Viktor and Sebastian, main hall.”
Everyone nodded. No questions. We'd been over the plan a dozen times.
We scattered like ghosts.
Viktor and I approached the main entrance. Marble steps. Massive doors carved with the Devereux crest. All that nobility and grace built on murder.
Viktor tested the door. Locked. Of course.
I pulled a pick set from my belt. Worked the mechanism while Viktor covered me. Thirty seconds. The lock clicked.
We entered hell's foyer.
The interior was obscene. Chandeliers dripping crystal. Floors polished to mirrors. Blood-red carpet running down a hallway that looked like it belonged in a palace.
My palace.
He'd stolen this too. Taken everything that should've been ours and made it his.
“Two ahead,” Viktor whispered. “Ballroom entrance.”
I saw them. Guards in tactical gear. Professional. Alert.
Viktor moved left. I went right. We flanked them like we'd been doing this together for years instead of months.
The first guard never knew what hit him. Viktor's blade found his throat before he could raise his weapon. The man went down gurgling.
The second turned toward the sound. My arrow took him through the eye. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
We dragged the bodies behind a marble column. Kept moving.
The ballroom opened like a cathedral. Thirty-foot ceilings. More chandeliers. Windows tall enough to let in the lightning.
And mercenaries. Lots of them.
They saw us the same moment we saw them.
Everything exploded.
Gunfire erupted from three directions simultaneously. Muzzle flashes strobed like dying stars. The ballroom transformed into a killing floor in the space between heartbeats. Bullets tore through air thick with chandelier crystal and ancient dust, chewing marble into powder, shredding priceless tapestries into confetti.
Viktor dove left behind an overturned banquet table. I went right, rolling behind a marble pillar as wide as my torso. Glass rained down in deadly cascades, each shard catching firelight and turning the air into a storm of daggers.
“Five on the balcony!” Dom's voice crackled through the comm, nearly drowned by gunfire.
