"My mafia husband told his friends I was completely disposable. So I left my ring on his nightstand and emptied his secret account before sunrise."

Ava sat at a polished mahogany desk, her fingers flying across the keyboard of her laptop. On the dual monitors before her, complex financial graphs, real-time stock tickers, and encrypted shipping manifests scrolled past in a blur of green and red code.

The door opened softly, and Victor walked in holding two cups of steaming black coffee. He set one down beside her hand.

"You've been working for ten hours straight, Ava," Victor said, leaning against the edge of the desk. "Take a break. According to our intelligence, Elias hasn't mobilized a strike team. He's playing a defensive game. He’s trying to freeze our secondary accounts in Chicago."

Ava didn't stop typing. "Elias doesn't know how to play defense. He’s a predator. If he’s holding back, it means he’s setting a trap."

"Let him trap us," Victor chuckled, a rich, confident sound. "With the forty-two million you liberated, we’ve already bought controlling shares in three of his major logistics hubs on the south side. By tomorrow morning, his shipping containers won't even be able to dock in the city."

Ava finally stopped typing. She leaned back in her chair, looking at Victor with a calm, analytical gaze. "You think this is about money, Victor. You think this is a corporate takeover."

"Isn't it?"

"Elias doesn't care about the money," Ava said softly, a shadow crossing her features. "To a man like that, money is just ammunition. What hurts him is the insult. The fact that I slipped through his fingers without asking permission. When he comes, he won't come with lawyers. He’ll come with a wrecking ball."

"Let him try," Victor said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he adjusted his glasses. "My security forces outnumber his local detail three to one. This house is a fortress."

Before Ava could reply, a sudden, sharp alarm shrilled through the room.

The dual monitors on the desk flickered, turned completely black, and then flashed a single red word across the screens: BREACH.

Victor cursed, slamming his coffee cup down. He rushed to the wall-mounted security panel. The exterior cameras showed something impossible. There were no black vans. There was no army of armed enforcers storming the gate.

Instead, a single black town car had calmly driven past the outer security perimeter, its headlights cutting through the falling snow. The car stopped right in front of the grand entrance steps.

Only one man stepped out of the vehicle.

Elias Kwon.

He wasn't wearing a tactical vest. He wasn't holding a rifle. He wore a dark wool overcoat, his hands thrust casually into his pockets, walking alone through the snow toward the front doors of Victor’s stronghold like a king walking through his own backyard.

"How did he bypass the electronic jammer?" Victor hissed, frantically tapping the security console. "That system is military-grade!"

Ava stood up slowly from her chair, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked out the tall second-story window down into the courtyard.

Elias stopped beneath the porch light. He didn't look at the security cameras. He tilted his head straight up, locking his dark, piercing eyes directly onto the second-floor window where he knew she was standing.