Twenty-two powerful guests watched me slap the most feared man in Chicago after he grabbed my wrist and ordered me to sit beside him. Everyone thought I had just humiliated Damian Romano in his own mansion, but two seconds later, a bullet ripped through the chair meant for me, and I realized his terrifying behavior was the only reason I was still breathing.

Tyler’s eyes darted frantically, panic finally overriding his arrogance. He realized he had walked into a meticulously designed kill box. But he was too arrogant, too committed to the payout from the Volkov syndicate, to simply surrender.

"You think a sniper scares me?!" Tyler screamed, completely unhinged. He violently shoved Sarah to the ground, raising his revolver, aiming it directly at my chest. "I die, you die with me!"

He didn't get the chance to pull the trigger.

The deafening, thunderous roar of Damian’s heavy sniper rifle shattered the freezing night air.

The high-caliber round didn't strike Tyler in the head. Damian was a master tactician; he knew a headshot carried a massive risk of a reflexive muscle spasm that could cause Tyler to pull the trigger on his own weapon.

Instead, the massive bullet struck Tyler directly in his right shoulder.

The impact was catastrophic. The armor-piercing round tore through bone and muscle, completely severing Tyler’s arm from his torso in a violent explosion of red mist. The heavy revolver spun harmlessly into the dark, freezing waters of the lake.

Tyler collapsed onto the wet concrete, screaming in absolute, unimaginable agony, clutching the ruined, bloody stump of his shoulder.

I didn't freeze. The hesitation that had defined my entire life was completely gone.

I sprinted forward, grabbing a sobbing, terrified Sarah by the arm and dragging her forcefully behind the cover of a rusted steel shipping container.

"Stay down!" I ordered her, pulling the 9mm pistol from my pocket and keeping it trained on the clearing.

"Target neutralized. Ground team, move in," Damian’s calm, lethal voice crackled in my earpiece.

Within seconds, Gabriel and a dozen heavily armed Romano loyalists emerged from the shadows of the containers, securing the perimeter with brutal efficiency.

Damian descended from the crane tower, walking slowly across the wet concrete. He didn't look at the screaming, dying man on the ground. He walked directly to the shipping container where I was shielding Sarah.

He dropped his heavy sniper rifle, pulling me fiercely into his arms. The smell of gunpowder and rain wrapped around me.

"You did perfectly," Damian whispered into my hair, kissing the top of my head with desperate, profound relief.

We walked back out into the clearing. Tyler was bleeding out rapidly on the ground, gasping for air, staring up at us with wide, terrified eyes.

"Please," Tyler choked out, choking on his own blood. "Help me."

I looked down at the man who had broken my wrist, who had hunted me across the country, who had tried to murder my best friend for a paycheck. I felt absolutely no pity.

"You don't get to ask for help, Tyler," I said coldly.

Damian drew his pistol, leveling it effortlessly at the dying man’s head.