After spending $110,000 supporting my family, I returned from a 21-day Navy mission to find my father giving my $4 million Lake Tahoe villa to my sister—but one message from my attorney was about to turn their champagne celebration into a nightmare.

I didn't flinch. I kept my breathing steady, measuring the distance between myself, Julian, and the four guards forming his protective perimeter. The hangar was vast, but every structural corner offered choke points and cover if I could create an opening.

"You won't shoot Clara yet," I said calmly, crossing my arms over my chest to conceal the subtle shifting of my weight. "And you certainly won't shoot me. You don't just want the drive, Julian. You need the encryption seed. The abort sequence I keyed into that warhead locked the master network. Without my biometrics, your offshore listening posts are blind, and Fleet Command is already triangulating the telemetry from the seismic spike."

Julian’s eyes narrowed slightly. The polished composure slipped for a fraction of a second, replaced by the lethal fury of a cornered predator. He knew I was right. In naval combat, a blind submarine is nothing more than an expensive coffin.

"You always were the stubborn one, Marcus," Julian said, his voice dropping an octave. "The dutiful sailor. Working yourself to exhaustion, sending your Navy paychecks home to pay off Arthur’s debts, while he plotted to sign away your inheritance behind your back. Did you really think service and honor meant anything in the real world?"

"It meant I learned how to identify a traitor before he pulls the trigger," I replied.

Julian chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Noble. But completely irrelevant at four thousand feet below sea level. Search him."

Two guards stepped forward, lowering their weapons slightly to pat down my combat harness. It was the tactical mistake I had been waiting for.

As the first guard reached out, I drove the heel of my palm upward beneath his chin, snapping his head back with a sickening crunch. Before the second guard could react, I seized his rifle barrel, wrenched it violently downward to break his trigger finger, and drove a savage knee into his solar plexus.