"Holy shit! What the hell was that?!" barked one of the mercenaries outside the heavy, reinforced steel door, his voice muffled by panic.

Inside the pitch-black, fortified panic room of the Ashford estate, Aria huddled into a tight ball on the floor, her hands shaking as she stared up at the glowing bank of security monitors. The screen displaying the west perimeter wall was a chaotic blur of fire, thick black smoke, and raining shrapnel. But right through the center of the inferno, she saw him. Moving like a grim reaper through the smoke, rifle raised, was Alexander.

A sob of pure, breathless relief escaped her lips. "Alex..." she whispered, a sudden wave of hope washing over her terrified mind. He had come for her. For a fleeting second, surrounded by the cold concrete walls, she felt safe. She believed everything was going to be fine.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A heavy, metallic rattling vibrated right through the reinforced frame shattering her illusion of safety.

"Open the damn door, you little bitch!" a voice screamed from the hallway outside, accompanied by the heavy thud of a tactical boot kicking the steel plate. "Your guards are all dead! There’s nowhere left for you to run!"

"Hey! Shut the fuck up and check your comms!" another mercenary shouted from further down the corridor, his footsteps approaching at a frantic sprint. "The perimeter team just got obliterated! Someone just hit the front gate with an anti-armor rocket!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" the first man fired back, his tone shifting into a mix of disbelief and rage. "Who the hell is it? Is it the local cops? The military?!"

"No! It’s a single shooter! He’s tearing through our fire teams like they’re nothing! Thompson and Miller are already down, and the entire courtyard is burning!"

"Fuck this shit!" the mercenary by the door growled, his knuckles white as he slammed his weapon against the wall. "To hell with the contract! I’m not leaving empty-handed. If we can’t take her alive, I’ll just take her corpse back to the boss. At least that way we get a partial payout!"

"What are you doing?!"

"Get the breaching gear out of the bag right now!" the mercenary commanded, his voice dripping with venomous desperation. "Pack the C4 charges right along the main hinge line and blow this fucking door off its frame! Do it now before that monster gets inside the house!"

Behind the burning chassis of the SUV, Alexander tracked the rhythm of the suppressing fire. The moment the heavy cadence broke into a ragged staccato as the mercenaries paused to reload, he lunged out from his cover.

He raised the HK416 and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. Three sharp cracks echoed across the courtyard. The first round pierced the throat of the mercenary calling out targets; the next two caught the remaining perimeter guards directly in the chest, dropping them onto the blood-stained grass.

The courtyard was clear, but the threat was moving inward.

Alexander sprinted toward the main entrance, his boots pounding against the grand marble steps. Just as he breached the shattered glass doorways, two mercenaries waiting in ambush inside the foyer opened fire.

BANG! BANG!

A high-caliber round slammed with the force of a sledgehammer into the center of Alexander’s chest. The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs, but his tactical under-armor vest held, absorbing the kinetic energy and stopping the bullet from tearing through his heart. He didn’t even stumble. Grimacing through the sudden, bruising pain, he raised his rifle and ripped a continuous burst of automatic fire through both men, painting the white marble walls crimson.

He vaulted over their collapsing bodies and moved toward the grand staircase leading to the upper levels.

"Up here! He’s on the stairs!" a voice screamed from the balcony above.

Before Alexander could raise his barrel, a mercenary leaning over the wooden banister fired blindly down the stairwell. The bullet caught Alexander at a sweeping angle along the side of his face. The sheer force of the kinetic strike tore his protective ballistic mask off his face, the round grazing his jawline and leaving a deep, bloody friction burn that made his mouth and cheek burn like hell.

Spitting a mouthful of hot blood onto the steps, his dark eyes burning with an lethal fury, Alexander gripped his weapon and charged up the remaining steps into the gunfire.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" the mercenary on the upper balcony screamed, his voice cracking with desperation as he shoved a fresh magazine into his rifle. "What the hell are you doing here?! Don’t you know this is an official operation sanctioned by the Steel Wings group?! Making yourself our enemy is a death sentence, you fucking idiot!"

Alexander didn’t answer. He squeezed the trigger of his HK416, but the weapon only let out a metallic click. A piece of debris from the shattered staircase had jammed the bolt carrier group tight.

Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, he tossed the useless rifle over the banister and reached behind his back, ripping the Benelli M4 tactical shotgun from its sling. He charged up the remaining steps, pumping heavy 12-gauge buckshot into the drywall to force them back, using the thick wooden pillars of the railing as temporary cover.

BOOM! BOOM!

The blasts tore the drywall to shreds, but as he reached the top landing, a hidden shooter tucked into a side room fired a tight, three-round burst. One of the high-velocity rounds tore through the fleshy meat of Alexander’s left shoulder.

The brutal shock of the impact made his hand lose its grip, the Benelli M4 clattering uselessly against the hardwood floor boards.

Grimacing through the searing pain, Alexander threw his frame flat onto the floor, rolling across the polished wood just as a hail of automatic gunfire chewed up the space he had occupied a moment prior. He slid behind a marble decorative planter, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

Blood soaked through his dark jacket from his shoulder, and his torn cheek burned like fire. With his left arm temporarily useless, he reached into his hidden waistband holster with his right hand, drawing the silenced Sig Sauer P320 9mm. He checked the sight line, his dark eyes narrowing into a cold, calculating glare as he prepared to finish the slaughter.