My sister-in-law threw boiling mushroom soup at my face during Thanksgiving, unaware I was a former MMA champion and the ceiling camera was recording.

By eleven o’clock that night, our house was fortified like an embassy.

Evander had hired a private security detail to patrol the perimeter of our property, their black sedan parked conspicuously at the end of the cul-de-sac. The police department had placed our address on high-priority watch following the incident at the gym, and Richard Sterling had already been brought in for questioning regarding the intimidation attempt.

Inside, the house was dark, save for the soft blue glow of the security monitor sitting on the kitchen island.

Evander lay asleep in our master bedroom upstairs, physically and mentally drained by four days of relentless legal warfare. I, however, couldn't sleep. The fighter's sixth sense—the prickling heat at the back of your neck when danger enters your space—kept me pacing the ground floor.

I poured a glass of water and walked over to the surveillance console.

The screen was divided into eight quadrants: front porch, driveway, back patio, side garden, garage interior, and three downstairs living zones. Everything was still. The rain that had started around dusk fell in steady, rhythmic sheets, drumming against the double-paned glass.

Then, Camera 4 flickered.

It was the back patio camera, angled toward the sliding glass doors that led out to the covered deck.

I leaned in, my heart rate instantly dropping into the calm, hyper-focused thirty-eight beats per minute of pre-fight entry.

A shape moved through the heavy rain.

It wasn't a burly bouncer like the ones Richard had hired. It was slender, shrouded in a dark, oversized rain slicker with the hood pulled tightly over the face. The figure moved with erratic, jittery steps, stopping at the edge of our patio table.

The private security sedan out front hadn't sounded an alarm; whoever this was had come through the dense wooded ravine behind our fence, cutting through the thorny brush where no patrol car could drive.

The figure reached into a deep canvas duffel bag slung across their chest.

They didn't pull out a crowbar. They didn't pull out a rock.

They pulled out a heavy, red plastic jerrycan.

I watched through the monitor as the gloved hands unscrewed the yellow spout. The figure began dousing the wooden deck planks, the outdoor furniture, and the base of our sliding glass door with accelerant. The pungent fumes of gasoline seemed to drift through the glass even before I could smell them.

Then, the figure pulled back their hood.

A lightning strike cracked across the stormy sky, illuminating the face on the 4K display in stark, ghostly white.

It wasn't Serafina. Serafina was wearing an ankle monitor in a penthouse downtown.

It was Delphine.

Her face was twisted into a hideous, feral mask of manic fury, completely devoid of sanity. She dropped the empty gas can onto the soaked cushions of the patio sofa, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a heavy brass emergency road flare.

With a violent twist of her wrist, she struck the cap against the base.