You never touch a dangerous mob boss,

At 3:12 AM, the electrical grid of downtown Chicago flickered once, twice, and then collapsed into absolute, suffocating darkness.

From the thirty-fourth floor of the Cross penthouse, the glittering canyon of skyscrapers was swallowed whole by an ocean of blackness, leaving only the jagged flashes of lightning to illuminate the rain-lashed concrete below. Simultaneously, the emergency generator in the building’s basement let out a sickening mechanical groan, followed by a concussive, subterranean CRACK that shook the entire tower on its foundations.

The gas main in the service alley had just been detonated.

"Primary power is down!" Viktor shouted into his radio headset, his voice competing with the blare of auxiliary emergency sirens. "Backup battery arrays are at forty percent! Thermal feeds just went black—they've deployed wide-band frequency jammers across the entire block!"

"Movement on the roof!" a technical operator screamed, staring at a battery-operated portable monitor. "Six... eight... twelve fast-ropes deploying from an unlisted Sikorsky UH-60! They’re on the helipad!"

Damen didn't waste half a second. He swept Leo into his left arm, pulling the boy tight against his tactical vest, while his right hand clamped around Elena’s wrist.

"Viktor, initiate Protocol Omega!" Damen commanded, his voice cutting through the panic like an iron blade. "Take the technical staff through the southern fire escape! Draw their primary assault team toward the retail concourse! Michael, clear the service elevator!"

"The elevator has no power, Damen!" Elena cried out, stumbling as another concussive blast rattled the panoramic windows behind them.

"The service shaft doesn't need power," Michael said, stepping to the rear utility closet and kicking the louvered steel door off its hinges with a single, devastating blow.

Behind the utility racks was a heavy, counter-weighted manual cargo hoist—an old freight platform installed during the building's construction in the nineteen-thirties, connected to heavy steel cables that dropped directly through the building's central core into the subterranean canal tunnels seventy feet below street level.

Michael grabbed a heavy titanium crowbar from his belt, jammed it into the manual brake mechanism, and threw his entire weight onto the lever.

The steel cable groaned, rust flaking from the drums as the counterweights disengaged with a concussive metallic screech.

CRASH.

Above their heads, the reinforced glass skylight of the penthouse shattered inward.

A shower of crystalline safety glass rained down into the salon like an avalanche of diamonds. Four tactical operators clad in matte-black composite body armor, wearing panoramic night-vision goggles and carrying suppressed carbines, dropped through the vaulted ceiling on high-speed descent lines.

"TARGETS IDENTIFIED! NEUTRALIZE THE MALE CARRIERS!" a voice barked through a digitized tactical respirator.

Before the lead mercenary’s boots even touched the parquet floor, Michael moved.

The older twin didn't seek cover; he closed the distance with the blinding, explosive speed of a cornered predator. His left hand whipped forward, grabbing the barrel of the lead operative's carbine, redirecting the suppressed burst into the ceiling plaster with a muffled thump-thump-thump. In the same unbroken fluid motion, Michael drove his combat blade upward, burying five inches of high-carbon steel through the soft tissue beneath the mercenary's ceramic chin guard.

The man went limp instantly, his heavy body crashing to the floor as Michael stripped the tactical shotgun from his chest rig, spinning around to face the remaining three intruders.

BOOM.

The twelve-gauge tactical shotgun roared in the enclosed room, the concussive blast blowing the second mercenary backward through the shattered glass railing of the terrace, sending his body plummeting thirty-four stories into the dark street below.

Beside the cargo shaft, Damen leveled his M4 carbine with his right hand, supporting the forearm on his left wrist while holding Leo securely against his ribs. He squeezed the trigger in three measured, surgical bursts: Crack-crack... crack-crack... crack-crack.

The two remaining mercenaries took high-velocity rounds through their center chest plates, the kinetic force slamming them back against the mahogany dining table before they collapsed into the puddle of rainwater.

Leo buried his face into Damen’s neck, his small hands clutching the mob boss’s tactical collar, letting out a muffled whimper.

Damen didn't flinch. He leaned down, pressing his lips against the boy’s soft hair, whispering with a tenderness that defied the carnage around them: "I've got you, little wolf. Uncle Damen has you. Look at the lights."

"Get on the platform! NOW!" Michael roared, ejecting an empty shotgun shell and chambering another heavy slug.

Elena leaped onto the wooden platform of the manual cargo hoist, her knees scraping against the rough timber planks. Damen stepped on beside her, gently handing Leo into her arms, before turning back to face the broken doorway of the salon.

More boots were pounding down the hallway—at least a dozen men, their heavy tactical gear clattering against the walls as flashlights bounced through the smoke.

"Michael, get on!" Damen yelled, reaching out his hand toward his brother.

Michael stood at the edge of the shaft, looking back at the dark hallway, his gray eyes burning with the cold, unyielding light of an ancient sacrifice.

He didn't take Damen's hand.

With a swift, violent kick, Michael struck the emergency release pin on the manual brake housing.

CLANG.

The heavy steel cable snapped free from the drum. The cargo platform plummeted downward into the pitch-black elevator shaft, dropping at terminal velocity as the air rushed past Elena’s ears in a deafening, freezing roar.

"MICHAEL!" Damen screamed, his hand clawing at the empty space above them as the floor vanished.

Above their heads, framed against the burning amber light of the shattered penthouse, Michael Cross raised his shotgun with both hands, slamming a fresh drum magazine into the receiver.