"Two years after a sniper’s bullet stole the use of my legs, everyone inside my estate learned to fear me—nurses quit, therapists fled, and armed men lowered their eyes when I entered a room. Then a new maid named Emma walked into my private wing, looked straight at the man everyone called a monster, and said, ‘Do you want me to stop working? Because if I stop, I don’t get paid.’ But when I woke up in the middle of the night to find someone lying beside me in my bed, my hand went straight to the gun beneath my pillow—and froze."

The trap was set.

According to the false manifest leaked by the rat within Daniel’s inner circle, a massive cash handover was supposed to take place inside an abandoned railway warehouse near the Pilsen district.

Daniel didn’t send his enforcers. He went himself.

Seated in his heavy-duty motorized tactical chair, accompanied only by Luke and four loyal guards, Daniel rolled into the cavernous, dimly lit warehouse. The damp concrete smelled of rust, engine oil, and impending violence.

Ten minutes later, the corrugated metal doors rattled open.

Marcus—the captain who had slammed his fist on the war room table earlier that evening—stepped out of the shadows, flanked by six armed mercenaries from the South Side syndicate.

Marcus looked down at Daniel, a sneer twisting his familiar face.

“Well, well, Danny,” Marcus laughed, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. “You really thought you could run an empire from a wheelchair forever? You’re a relic. The city belongs to the South Side now.”

Daniel sat completely still, his hands resting calmly on his lap. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look angry. He just looked deeply, profoundly disappointed.

“Marcus,” Daniel said softly. “Twelve years. I pulled you out of a gutter on the West Side. I gave you money, power, and respect. And you sold our routes to a bunch of South Side thugs for pocket change?”

“Pockets change?” Marcus spat, leveling his pistol directly at Daniel’s chest. “I got tired of kissing the ring of a man who can’t even stand up to piss! Say goodbye, Danny.”

Marcus’s finger tightened on the trigger.

CLACK.

Before Marcus could fire, the heavy overhead lights of the warehouse suddenly flickered and died, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

Before the South Side thugs could even raise their weapons, red laser sights flickered to life from the rafters above, painting a dozen crimson dots across their chests.

From the shadows, Luke’s voice rang out, cold as ice: “Drop your weapons, or you die where you stand.”

Marcus spun around in panic, realizing too late that they had walked directly into a counter-ambush.

Daniel slowly pressed a button on his armrest. A small, concealed spotlight mounted above his chair clicked on, bathing Marcus in blinding white light.

Daniel rolled his chair forward two agonizingly slow feet, stopping just inches from the trembling traitor.

“You’re right about one thing, Marcus,” Daniel whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal calm. “I can’t stand up. But I don't need legs to crush you.”

Before Marcus could raise his gun, Daniel lunged forward with terrifying upper-body strength, grabbing Marcus by the collar of his jacket, slamming him hard against the concrete floor, and wrenching the weapon out of his grip with ruthless efficiency.