My pregnant wife’s father and eight brothers beat her so brutally that our unborn child died, then stood outside her ICU room laughing while they told me I wasn’t powerful enough to touch them.

I didn't scream. I didn't throw a punch. Violence in a hospital hallway was for street thugs and desperate men.

I removed my encrypted phone from the inside pocket of my jacket.

I typed six words into a secure messaging application that connected directly to the underground nervous system of the city's real power.

Protocol Black. Execute every standing order.

Then I pressed send.

The first phone rang within fifteen seconds.

It was Vincent. He pulled his phone from his pocket, still smirking, and answered.

“What do you mean, frozen?” Vincent barked, his smirk vanishing instantly. “It’s a Cayman account! You can’t legally freeze that!”

Before he could finish his sentence, Marcus’s phone began to vibrate violently.

“Federal investigators?” Marcus yelled into the receiver, his face draining of color. “They’re in the lobby? Shred the documents! Shred everything!”

One by one, the brothers' phones lit up the dim hallway.

A third brother discovered his largest corporate investor had withdrawn all funding. A fourth was informed his private jets had been grounded by the FAA indefinitely.

Then, Richard’s phone rang.

The patriarch answered with a scowl, but as he listened, his shoulders slumped.

“The Governor is cutting ties?” Richard whispered, stunned. “He can’t do that. I bought his election!”

Through the massive glass windows of the hospital lobby below, a fleet of unbranded black SUVs pulled up, blocking the entrance completely. Men in dark suits stepped onto the pavement, forming a perimeter.

Nobody in the hallway was laughing anymore.

Richard slowly lowered his phone and stared at me, his eyes wide with a sudden, suffocating terror.

“What are you?” he choked out.