I CAME HOME THREE DAYS EARLY TO CATCH THE TRAITOR INSIDE MY ORGANIZATION—BUT INSTEAD, I FOUND MY 17-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER BLEEDING BEHIND A LOCKED DOOR AND MY QUIET MAID DIGGING A BULLET OUT OF HER LEG.

At 2:00 a.m., the main power grid of the mansion was cut from inside the bunker, plunging the twenty-thousand-square-foot estate into absolute, suffocating darkness.

Above ground, Kozlov’s men shouted in confusion as their tactical flashlights clicked on, cutting thin beams through the pitch-black hallways. They didn't know that every corridor, every secret passage, and every ventilation shaft of the estate had been designed by me to serve as a killing floor.

Claire and I emerged through a concealed hydraulic panel behind a statue in the West Wing. We moved like twin shadows through the dark, wearing infrared night-vision goggles.

"Two guards at the end of the gallery," Claire whispered into her radio headset. "Moving toward the master suite."

"Take the left," I instructed. "I'll take the right."

We closed the distance silently. The two mercenaries never heard us coming. Claire dropped her target with a swift, silent knife strike to the throat, catching his rifle before it could hit the hardwood floor. Simultaneously, I wrapped my arm around the second guard's neck, snapping his spine with a clean, practiced twist.

We dragged the bodies into a linen closet, clearing the corridor in less than ten seconds.

"You move well for a CEO," Claire noted dryly as she looted the guard's extra magazines.

"I didn't start in a boardroom, Claire," I replied, checking the hallway corner. "I built this empire in the docks thirty years ago. I only put on a suit when the money got too big to carry in duffel bags."

Suddenly, the house radio on one of the dead guard's vests crackled to life.

"Team Leader, this is Julian," the CFO's nervous voice echoed over the channel. "We found the entrance to the wine cellar. Kozlov is setting C4 charges on the subterranean door right now. Get down here!"

My blood ran cold. The bunker door was titanium, but a concentrated C4 breach directly on the hydraulic hinges could compromise the seal, exposing Ava and Emma inside!

"We need to move," I said, breaking into a low sprint down the rear service stairs.

"Wait," Claire said, grabbing my shoulder. "If we rush the wine cellar directly, they'll pin us in the doorway with heavy suppressive fire. We need a diversion."

She reached into her tactical vest, pulling out two thermite grenades she had taken from the armory.

"I'll set the East Wing on fire," Claire said, a dark smirk touching her lips. "When the fire alarms go off and the sprinklers flood the upper floors, Kozlov will split his men. That's when we strike."

"That wing contains fifty million dollars in art," I noted.