No caretaker had lasted more than three days with me after the accident, and I made damn sure of it

The wail of the sirens was followed instantly by the deafening roar of automatic gunfire ripping through the lower floor.

Matteo Rossi hadn't waited in Lake Forest to be executed. Knowing he was ruined, knowing his life was forfeit, he had pooled the remnants of his syndicate, hired thirty cartel-trained mercenaries, and launched a suicidal, all-out assault on my home.

Carmine’s voice crackled through the tactical radio mounted on the wall: *"Boss! North and east perimeters breached! They came in with a semi-truck through the security gate! We’re falling back to the second landing!"*

I rolled off Faith, dragging myself to my wheelchair with lightning speed. The romantic haze vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, tactical ice of a general under siege.

"Faith, listen to me," I barked, hauling myself into the seat. "The panic room behind the library. The code is 8-4-1-9. Go there, lock the reinforced steel door, and do not open it for anyone except me or Carmine."

"I’m not leaving you!" she yelled over the rising cacophony of shattering glass and heavy caliber fire downstairs.

"This isn't a debate!" I roared, pulling my customized Sig Sauer from the lockbox beneath the bench and tossing her a compact Glock 43. "Take this, get to the vault, and survive. If they get past me, you shoot anything that comes through that door until the slide locks back. Do you understand me?"

Faith caught the small gun. Her face was pale, but her hands were rock-steady. She nodded once, leaned down, kissed me hard on the mouth, and sprinted down the corridor toward the secret stairwell.

I locked my wheels into the auxiliary armored cage of the elevator, hit the button, and descended to the second floor.

When the doors opened, the corridor was choked with acrid white smoke. Two of my guards were down near the banister. Carmine was crouched behind a marble bust of Marcus Aurelius, firing controlled bursts from an MP5 submachine gun into the foyer below.

"Dominic! Get back in the lift!" Carmine screamed over the roar of the assault rifles. "There’s too many of them!"

"Conserve your brass!" I yelled back, wheeling behind the balustrade.

I looked down into the hall. Ten men in black tactical gear were advancing up the dual staircases, laying down covering fire while Matteo Rossi himself stood near the front door, wearing body armor, holding a combat shotgun, screaming orders like a raving lunatic.

"Find Carter!" Rossi shrieked. "Find him and bring me his head! Burn the rest of them alive!"

A sudden explosion rocked the east wing. A flashbang or grenade took out Carmine’s position. A shower of marble fragments peppered the air. Carmine took a burst of shrapnel to the shoulder, collapsing behind the ruined pillar, his MP5 clattering across the floor.

The two lead mercenaries surged up the right staircase, their barrels raised toward Carmine’s head.

I didn't think. I didn't calculate.

I raised the Sig Sauer with both hands, fired three rounds through the chest of the first shooter, then snapped the sights to the second man’s neck, dropping him before he could pull the trigger.

"Carter!" Rossi screamed from below, spotting me through the smoke. "He’s at the top of the stairs! Kill him!"

Six assault rifles swiveled toward my position. A hail of 5.56mm rounds chewed through the mahogany banister, sending chunks of wood tearing through the air. One round grazed my left bicep; another shattered the left wheel of my chair, sending the frame tilting violently to the side.

I tumbled out of the ruined chair, hitting the hardwood floor hard.

Downstairs, Rossi was laughing—a high, manic cackle. "He’s out of the chair! He’s crawling! Go up there and put the dog down!"

I heard heavy combat boots thudding up the stairs.

I looked at my legs. I looked at the ruined wheelchair five feet away. If I stayed on my stomach, I was dead. Carmine was unconscious, bleeding out ten feet away. Faith was in the panic room, but if they took the house, they’d bring blowtorches and thermite to the vault door.

*Monsters only control you if you run from the noise.*

Faith’s voice echoed in the chambers of my brain, louder than the gunfire, hotter than the blood running down my arm.

*You can move.*

I reached out, my fingers digging into the ornate ironwork of the balustrade. I pulled.

The pain that ripped through my lower spine was an atomic blast, tearing through scarred nerves, setting my thighs on fire. My vision whited out. I screamed—a raw, guttural, primeval roar that shook the rafters of the house.

I pulled again.

My right leg found the floor. The boot sole planted firmly on the oak.

My left knee locked into place.

I stood up.

My legs were shaking like saplings in a hurricane, the agony nearly blinding me, but the skeletal frame of my body held. I stood on my own two feet, towering over the top of the staircase, leaning against the banister with my left hip.

The two mercenaries reaching the top landing stopped dead in their tracks. Their eyes went wide beneath their ballistic goggles. To them, it was like watching a corpse rise from a coffin, draw a weapon, and point it at their souls.

Before they could recover from the sheer shock, I emptied the remaining seven rounds of my magazine into their chests. They rolled down the grand staircase, their dead weight crashing into the men behind them.

I dropped the empty magazine, slapped a fresh twenty-round extended mag into the well, racked the slide with one hand against my belt, and looked down at Matteo Rossi.

The combat shotgun dropped from Rossi’s hands, clattering uselessly against the bloody marble. His face was frozen in a mask of absolute, paralyzing horror.

"You..." Rossi choked out. "You’re walking..."

"I told you, Matteo," I said, my voice cutting through the smoke with the finality of a guillotine. "Ghosts are much harder to kill."

I leveled the barrel directly between his eyes.

I fired twice.

Matteo Rossi crumpled to the floor, dead before his knees hit the marble.

The remaining four hired mercenaries took one look at their dead employer, one look at the towering giant standing at the top of the stairs bathed in smoke and blood, threw their weapons onto the floor, and ran out into the night.

The silence returned.

My legs finally gave out. The neural circuit overloaded, and I collapsed back against the wall, sliding down into a sitting position on the top step.

From the far end of the hallway, the reinforced steel door clicked open.

Faith ran through the smoke, her eyes wild, the Glock still clutched in her hand. She took in the carnage, the bodies on the stairs, Carmine groaning as he struggled to sit up, and finally, she saw me sitting at the edge of the landing, bleeding, covered in soot, but alive.

She dropped the gun, fell to her knees beside me, and threw her arms around my neck, sobbing against my chest.

"You’re alive," she cried, her tears washing through the grime on my neck. "You’re alive."

I wrapped my arms around her, burying my face in her hair.

"I stood up, Faith," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I stood on my own feet."

She pulled back, looking at my face, then down at the stairs where the bodies lay, and then back into my eyes. She smiled through her tears, beautiful, radiant, unbroken.