My husband’s family never knew I had once been an MMA champion. At my mother-in-law’s BBQ, my brother-in-law poured beer over my head. My husband stood up and told him to apologize to me. He laughed, shoved my husband, then punched him in the mouth. He told me to sit down because it didn’t concern me. Then he grabbed my wrist... and that’s when my sister-in-law started screaming.

The industrial rail yard was a graveyard of rusted boxcars, towering overhead cranes, and decaying gravel tracks. Rain drummed against the corrugated tin roof of the old locomotive maintenance shop, creating a deafening white noise that masked every small sound.

I stood on the catwalk twenty feet above the grease-stained floor, my breath steady, the night air chilling the skin of my forearms.

Down below, headlights swept across the cracked concrete as the black Mercedes Sprinter rolled through the open bay doors. The engine cut off. The headlights remained on, cutting two blinding tunnels of white light through the darkness.

Four doors slammed in unison.

Four men stepped into the light. At the front was Marco Rossi—six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, dressed in an expensive charcoal trench coat that barely concealed the submachine gun slung across his chest. Behind him were three seasoned enforcers: men with scar tissue over their eyebrows and the wide, heavy stances of underground brawlers.

"Elena!" Marco’s voice boomed off the iron rafters, echoing through the empty building. "Come on down, girl. Victor is willing to forgive the Reno contract if you come back quietly. He’s opening a new promotion in Macau. He needs a headliner. You sign a five-year exclusive, and your pretty little husband gets to keep his teeth!"

From the shadows behind a dead diesel generator on the ground level, Ryan didn't make a sound. He was holding his position exactly as I had instructed: guarding the retreat route, eyes locked on the perimeter.

"Victor doesn't own me, Marco," I called down from the catwalk. My voice cut through the rain. "He lost his claim the night he tried to drug my hydration bottle before the Reno title bout."

Marco looked up, tracking my voice. His men immediately raised their tactical shotguns, sweeping the iron grating above. "That was business, Elena! Victor had four million riding on the Russian! You were supposed to take a dive in the third round!"

"I took her head off in the second," I answered coldly.

"And that cost us five million dollars!" Marco roared. "Which means you owe Victor your life!"

"Come collect it."

I dropped.

I didn't take the stairs. I vaulted over the catwalk railing, caught a hanging steel hoist chain with both hands to break my fall, swung through the air, and planted both boots squarely into the chest of the enforcer on the far left.

The impact drove him backward into the front bumper of the Sprinter with a sickening crunch. His shotgun clattered across the pavement. Before he could slide to the ground, I snatched the barrel of his dropped weapon, spun, and drove the heavy steel stock into the jaw of the second enforcer. Teeth and blood sprayed across the hood.

"Light her up!" Marco bellowed, unholstering his submachine gun.

The third man lunged with an open-hand tackle, trying to pin me to the concrete. He was heavy, easily two hundred and forty pounds, but his center of gravity was too high. I dropped my hips, slipped under his outstretched arms, and threw a savage left liver shot followed by an overhand right that cracked his skull against the van's steel quarter panel. He crumpled into an unconscious heap.

Thirty seconds. Three men down.