Sixty million dollars had just changed hands when baby crawled under my desk, grabbed the cuff of my trousers, and looked up at me with the exact gray eyes of my dead brother

The detonator didn't trigger an explosion.

It triggered a metallic, high-frequency screech that ripped through the narrow brick tunnel, shattering the overhead fluorescent bulbs in a shower of white-hot sparks.

From the shadows behind Julian, three figures in full tactical assault gear stepped out, their suppressed carbines coming up in a coordinated kill-box.

They were not Von Klaus’s mercenaries.

They wore the black-and-gold shoulder patches of Vance Capital Executive Security.

My own men.

"Sir," the lead operator said, his voice coming through the throat-mic with chilling familiarity. It was Miller—the very sergeant who had escorted our children to the bunker at Cold Harbor. "Step away from Mrs. Vance."

My heart froze. "Miller? What did you do to my children?"

"Your children are fine, Mr. Vance," Miller replied, his weapon trained directly on my forehead. "They’re sleeping comfortably in the guest suite of the *Gray Ghost* at Pier 54. Mr. Julian Vance paid us our pensions eight years ago. You just signed the checks."

The betrayal was a physical knife between my ribs. Julian had not merely survived; he had left sleeper cells within my personal security force—men who had sworn loyalty to the elder brother before I ever took the chairman's seat.

"Drop your weapons," Julian commanded, stepping behind the three operators, his burned face twisting into a triumphant, grotesque sneer. "Both of you. Now. Or Miller makes a phone call to the bridge, and your precious Toby takes a swim in the harbor."

I looked at Hannah.

Her face was dead white, but her eyes were twin furnaces of pure, lethal intelligence. She looked at me, her head tilting less than a millimeter toward the massive four-inch pressurized steam pipe that ran along the brick wall two feet above Julian’s head.

The pipe was marked with a yellow warning band: *HIGH PRESSURE — SUPERHEATED STEAM — 400 PSI*.

I didn't drop my gun.

I smiled.

"You always were a terrible judge of loyalty, Julian," I said.

"What?" Julian spat.

"You paid them with money," Hannah said.

Before Miller could pull his trigger, Hannah didn't fire at the men. She whipped her revolver upward and fired two heavy-caliber rounds straight into the brass pressure-relief valve of the superheated steam main.

The valve ruptured with a sound like a jet engine tearing apart at supersonic speed.

A wall of four-hundred-degree white steam exploded into the narrow corridor, instantly blinding the three operators and engulfing the entire ceiling in an inferno of scalding vapor.

Miller screamed as the superheated air cooked the skin of his face. The mercenaries fired blindly into the whiteout, their rounds ricocheting wildly off the brick walls and iron framing.

I lunged forward through the boiling fog, driving my shoulder directly into Miller’s midsection, tackling him into the concrete. The impact knocked the carbine from his hands. I brought the heel of my boot down hard across his jaw, shattering bone, and swept the weapon into my arms.

To my left, through the deafening roar of the hissing steam, I heard two distinct, rhythmic gunshots.

*Crack. Crack.*

Hannah emerged from the white vapor, her emerald gown ripped to the thigh, her bare feet bleeding from broken glass, her revolver smoking in her hand. Behind her, the second mercenary lay motionless on the wet flagstones.

"Where is Julian?" she demanded, wiping blood and condensation from her cheek.

I looked down the tunnel.

A heavy iron bulkhead door at the far end was swinging shut, its electronic locking mechanism cycling red.

"He's heading for the transverse road," I yelled over the roar of the pipe. "He's going to the pier!"