My wife had 27 broken bones, a fractured skull, and barely survived—but when my billionaire mother-in-law told me I was just a disposable soldier, she had no idea who she had just declared war on...

"Back off, Kane," I said, my rifle leveled at the bridge of his nose. "Your perimeter team is dead. Your hit on Catherine failed to keep the ledger hidden. It's over."

Kane chuckled, a low, rasping sound that echoed through the humming server banks. "Over? Son, you have no concept of how the world actually turns. Catherine was an arrogant, greedy socialite who thought she was untouchable. When she got sloppy and let you tear her empire down, she became a liability. But me? I don't build houses of cards. I built the foundation."

He glanced at the terminal behind him. The progress bar showed **TRANSFER 89% COMPLETE**.

"Four hundred million dollars is moving to accounts you can never trace," Kane said smoothly. "And once this yacht is scuttled with all of you chained inside, your father’s legacy will be rewritten. A dishonored general whose disgraced son went rogue, slaughtered Catherine Vance, and died like a pirate in international waters."

"You talk too much, Victor," I said.

Kane fired.

I twisted, the heavy slug grazing my tactical vest, and threw my body forward into a savage tackle. My rifle clattered across the steel deck as we crashed into the control console. Sparking wires showered the room in violent flashes of white and blue light.

Kane was seasoned, brutal, and fighting for his survival. He drove a vicious knee into my gut, breaking my grip, and swung a heavy steel fire extinguisher toward my skull.

I ducked beneath the arc, the metal whistling past my ear, and drove a crushing right cross into his jaw. The blow snapped his head back, his teeth spraying across the deck, but he lunged forward like a rabid animal, catching me in a bear hug and driving me backward into the server rack.

Glass shattered. Electric shocks surged through the back of my neck.

"You're just like Marcus!" Kane roared, his thumbs pressing into my throat, cutting off my air. "Too righteous to survive! Too weak to do what was necessary!"

My vision began to tunnel. Dark spots flared before my eyes.

*“Alex!”* Rosalie’s voice cut through the haze.

Through the fog of suffocation, I saw Rosalie didn't use her gun—she couldn't without the risk of hitting me. Instead, she picked up a severed high-voltage power conduit dangling from the shattered panel.

She drove the live electrical cable straight into Kane's exposed tactical rig.

Twenty thousand volts surged through Kane’s body.

A deafening crackle of electricity illuminated the room. Kane shrieked, his muscles seizing violently as blue sparks cascaded across his frame. The crushing grip on my throat vanished instantly.

He collapsed backward onto the floor, smoking, convulsing, his eyes rolling into the back of his head before going completely limp.

I fell to my knees, gasping for air, clutching my burning throat.

Rosalie tossed the wire aside, dropped to her knees beside me, and pulled my face into her hands. "Alex! Look at me! Are you with me?"