The most feared man in the city came home early and found his housekeeper’s three-year-old daughter standing on a stool, scrubbing one of his custom-made shirts with freezing water because she believed her sick mother would be fired if it stayed dirty. Everyone expected me to explode in anger, but one heartbreaking sentence from that little girl ripped open a past I had spent my entire life trying to bury.

I slammed my foot aggressively on the gas pedal, ignoring every single red light and speed limit in the city. The abandoned eastern shipping yards finally appeared in the distance, bathed in cold, eerie moonlight. I killed my headlights completely and let the heavy SUV roll silently to a stop behind a massive wall of rusted shipping containers. I strapped a tactical vest over my ruined dress shirt and loaded three extra magazines into my pockets. I moved like a ghost through the thick, salty fog rolling off the dark ocean water. I silently eliminated three Rossi guards patrolling the perimeter, snapping their necks before they could make a single sound. I reached the massive, decaying warehouse that matched the background of Harland's taunting video message. I slipped through a broken side window, landing completely silently on the damp concrete floor inside. The center of the warehouse was illuminated by a single, harsh halogen spotlight hanging from the rusted rafters. Harland was pacing nervously back and forth, constantly checking the heavy gold watch on his wrist. Clara and Nora were still tied to the metal chairs, looking completely exhausted and terrified in the harsh light. I stepped out of the dark shadows, raising my heavy pistol and aiming it directly at Harland's chest. I told him in a calm, lethal whisper that his time was officially up and he was going to die. Harland froze completely, dropping his cell phone onto the concrete floor in sheer panic. I took a slow, calculated step forward, demanding that he hand over the chemical antidote immediately. Harland began to laugh hysterically, holding his hands up in a gesture of completely fake surrender. Suddenly, blinding industrial floodlights clicked on from every single corner of the massive warehouse. I squinted against the intense, searing brightness, my gun remaining perfectly steady. Dozens of heavily armed Rossi mercenaries stepped out from behind the rusted machinery, aiming their weapons directly at my head. Antonio Rossi casually walked out of the blinding light, clapping his hands together in mock applause. He smiled a cruel, deeply wicked smile and pulled a small, glowing blue vial from his tailored jacket pocket. Antonio casually revealed that Harland had actually injected little Nora with the exact same lethal poison just ten minutes ago.