When a celebrity stylist cut through a homeless woman's matted hair, a sharp metallic clink exposed a secret that was buried ten years ago.

The steel doors opened into the dimly lit foyer, but no one stepped out.

Instead, a black cylindrical canister rolled across the parquet floor, leaving a hissing trail of white, acrid smoke.

"Flashbang—cover your eyes!" Adrian roared, diving across the kitchen island and tackling Wren to the hardwood floor just as the room detonated into a blinding sunburst of light and a concussive roar that shattered the crystal pendant lights overhead.

Wren’s ears rang with a deafening whine, but her instincts took over before her sight could return. On the streets, when an ambush happened under a highway bridge, you didn't freeze—you moved.

Through the drifting smoke, two silhouettes swept into the room, tactical vests strapped tight, silenced submachine guns raised to shoulder height. They weren't street thugs; they were Vance’s private clean-up crew, ex-military contractors trained to leave zero witnesses.

*Pfft-pfft-pfft.*

Rounds tore into the marble kitchen island, sending chips of stone spraying across Wren’s hair. Adrian leaned out from the corner of the cabinets, firing three precise shots. The lead operative took two rounds to the center chest plate, stumbling backward, while the third round caught him in the throat. He collapsed hard against the entryway console.

The second operative pivoted instantly, spraying the cabinet line with suppressed fire. Wood splintered, glass wine bottles shattered from the racks above, raining dark merlot and shards across the floor.

Adrian tried to shift his weight to return fire, but a violent spasm tore through his stitched ribcage. He choked on a breath, his hand slipping in the spilled wine and blood, the handgun clattering across the floorboards.

The remaining hitman saw the opening. He stepped over his fallen partner, his weapon raised, leveling the barrel straight at Adrian Kane’s forehead.

"Mr. Vance sends his regards, Kane," the man muttered, finger tightening on the trigger.

He never pulled it.

From the blind spot beneath the counter, Wren lunged.

She didn't fight like a trained soldier; she fought like a cornered animal defending its den. She drove the heavy chef’s knife straight through the top of the operative’s tactical boot, pinning his foot to the hardwood floor with sickening force.

The man howled in shock and agony, his aim jerking toward the ceiling as a burst of suppressed rounds chewed into the plaster crown molding. Before he could recover, Wren grabbed a shattered wine bottle from the floor and drove the jagged glass into his exposed forearm, tearing the tendons that held the submachine gun.

The weapon dropped.

Adrian didn't waste the second she bought him. With a feral growl, he launched himself forward from the floor, wrapped both hands around the operative’s tactical collar, and drove the man’s skull backward into the edge of the granite island with the force of a battering ram.

The operative went limp and dropped to the floor like a sack of wet sand.

Silence crashed back into the penthouse, broken only by the heavy, ragged breathing of two survivors.

Smoke drifted slowly out the shattered patio doors into the cool Manhattan night. Adrian leaned back against the counter, his shirt drenched in fresh blood where his sutures had torn open. He wiped a streak of blood from his forehead and looked down at Wren.

She was still on her knees, her hands covered in wine and blood, her chest heaving, the wild blue eyes wide and unblinking.

"You stabbed him through the boot," Adrian wheezed, a faint, disbelieving smirk touching his pale lips.

"He was going to shoot you," Wren said simply, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, leaving a smear of red across her cheek. "I owe you ninety thousand dollars. I pay my debts."

Adrian let out a ragged, painful chuckle that ended in a cough. He reached out and grabbed her trembling hand. "You don't owe me a single cent, Wren. Not anymore."

He dragged himself upright, wincing as the pain tore through his ribs, and walked over to the unconscious hitman. Adrian rifled through the man’s tactical vest, pulling out a secure satellite phone. The screen was still glowing with an encrypted text message sent three minutes earlier:

*Target location confirmed. Erase Kane. Bring the girl’s body to the Brooklyn shipyard. Vance is waiting.*

Adrian stared at the message, his jaw tightening into steel.

"He thinks we're trapped in this tower," Adrian said, tossing the phone onto the floor and crushing it beneath his heel. "He thinks I’m bleeding out and you're terrified."

"Are we?" Wren asked, looking up at him.