“MY MOM IS SICK, SO I CAME TO CLEAN FOR HER,” THE MAID’S SIX-YEAR-OLD WHISPERED—THEN THE FEARED MAFIA CEO CLAIMED THEM BOTH BEFORE HIS ENEMIES COULD TAKE HER CHILD

While Sophie rested on Mercer Island, the war for Seattle exploded into the open.

At 2:00 AM on a foggy Thursday, Marcus led a strike team to the storage facility near Pier 54 where David Miller’s old belongings were kept. Ethan wanted that storage locker emptied and secured before Dominic Moretti’s men could lay a finger on it.

The rain fell in heavy, rhythmic sheets as Marcus unlocked the rusted padlock of Locker 114.

Inside sat three dusty cardboard boxes.

Marcus stepped inside, holding a flashlight. He tipped open the first box, revealing old baby clothes, a faded photo album, and a small wooden jewelry box containing an cheap brass watch.

"Is this it?" a soldier asked, holding a tactical rifle near the door. "No hard drives? No crypto keys?"

Marcus opened the second box, pulling out a stack of old accounting ledgers. He flipped through the yellowed pages. Deep inside the hollowed-out spine of an old tax binder, his fingers caught on a small, rectangular piece of black plastic.

A high-security industrial flash drive.

"Jackpot," Marcus muttered. "David Miller was smarter than Dominic thought."

Before Marcus could slide the drive into his tactical pouch, the night sky shattered.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

High-powered sniper rounds tore through the metal door of the storage unit, instantly killing the guard standing at the threshold.

"AMBUSH!" Marcus screamed, dropping to the concrete floor as a barrage of automatic gunfire tore through the corrugated steel walls. "COVER THE EXIT! GET THE PACKAGE OUT!"

Outside, four black vans had surrounded the storage facility, spilling out twenty heavily armed Moretti mercenaries wearing night-vision goggles.

Marcus keyed his tactical radio, dodging a spray of glass and metal shrapnel. "Ethan! They caught us! Pier 54! They’ve got heavy weaponry!"

Back at the Mercer Island mansion, Ethan was standing in the tactical command center in his basement. The moment Marcus’s voice came over the speaker, Ethan’s face turned to pure ice.

He hit the master red button on the console.

"Activate Command Protocol Alpha," Ethan growled into his microphone. "Deploy the strike choppers. I'm coming down there myself."

Ten minutes later, a heavy armored black helicopter descended through the fog over Pier 54 like a dragon coming out of the clouds.

Mounted on the side doors were twin heavy machine guns.

Ethan Cole stood in the open doorway of the chopper, wearing a black tactical suit, holding a high-caliber assault rifle.

"Light them up," Ethan commanded cold-bloodedly.

The machine guns erupted, pouring a wall of lead down onto the Moretti vans below. Explosions tore through the asphalt, setting two vehicles ablaze and scattering the attackers in pure, blind terror.

The chopper hovered ten feet above the pier. Ethan unhooked his harness and jumped straight onto the wet concrete, stepping through the smoke and fire like an unstoppable force of nature.

He marched into Locker 114, where Marcus was kneeling behind a steel beam, blood dripping from a graze on his shoulder.

Marcus held up the black flash drive, panting heavily. "Got it, boss."

Ethan took the small drive, looking down at it in the flickering firelight of the burning vans outside.

"Where is Dominic?" Ethan asked softly.

"He wasn't here," Marcus gasped, clutching his shoulder. "He sent his lieutenants... Ethan, Dominic isn't after the money anymore. This was a distraction!"

Ethan’s blood ran dead cold. "What did you say?"

"Dominic knew we’d follow the storage locker!" Marcus yelled over the sound of crackling fires. "He used his main force to draw your tactical squads away from the island!"

Ethan’s phone exploded with frantic, high-frequency alarm chimes from the Mercer Island security network.