In the center of the vast, hollow warehouse, Alice stood trembling. The single hanging lightbulb above her flickered, casting long, monstrous shadows of Don Franklin against the crates.
"You're so quiet now, Alice," Franklin sneered, the barrel of the pistol glinting. "Where is that fire from before? Where is that 'crescent birthmark' pride?"
Suddenly, a muffled explosion rocked the building.
CRASH! THUD!
The heavy steel doors at the far end of the warehouse didn't just open—they were blown off their hinges.
"What the—?!" Franklin spun around.
The shadows came alive. From the rafters and the side entrances, black-clad tactical teams moved with terrifying precision. There was no talking, only the sound of suppressed gunfire—thud, thud, thud—and the screams of Franklin's mercenaries as they were systematically neutralized.
"DROP THE WEAPON!" a voice boomed through a megaphone, echoing like thunder.
Franklin's eyes went wide with panic. He recognized the efficiency. He recognized the gear. This wasn't the local police. This was the private army of the Villanueva Empire. Don Primo had arrived.
"STAY BACK!" Franklin shrieked.
Realizing he was surrounded and his men were being slaughtered, Franklin lunged forward. He grabbed Alice by her hair, yanking her small frame back against his chest as a human shield. In one swift, desperate motion, he pressed the cold muzzle of the gun hard against her temple.
"I SAID STAY BACK!" he roared at the approaching tactical team. "One more step and I'll paint this floor with her! I mean it! If I'm going down, she's coming with me!"
Alice's breath hitched. She could feel Franklin's heart racing against her back, his hand shaking with a coward's rage. Through the blinding tactical lights, she saw them—Kianna, Bryle, and a blood-stained Ruoxi emerging from the side corridor, frozen in horror.
The warehouse fell into a deathly, suffocating silence. The red laser dots from a dozen snipers danced across Franklin's chest, but his finger was already on the trigger.
"Alice..." Ruoxi whispered from the shadows, her hand gripping her side, her eyes filled with an agonizing helplessness.
Every breath Alice took felt like it could be her last as the cold steel of the muzzle bit into her skin. Don Franklin was unraveling, his eyes darting frantically between the tactical team closing in and the shadows where his mercenaries lay broken.
The Edge of the Abyss
"One more step and I'll do it! I swear!" Franklin screamed, his voice cracking with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. He moved Alice like a ragdoll, using her to shield his vital organs from the laser sights dancing across his body.
Alice's eyes were locked on Ruoxi. In the dim, flickering light, she saw her protector—pale, drenched in blood, but with eyes that burned like dying stars. Ruoxi wasn't looking at Franklin's face; she was watching his feet, timing his frantic, uneven breathing.
Ruoxi gave a microscopic nod to Bryle.
Suddenly, a heavy iron pipe clattered loudly against a metal crate on the far left side of the room. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the hollow space. For a fraction of a second—less than a heartbeat—Franklin's focus shifted. His head jerked toward the noise, and the pressure of the gun on Alice's temple wavered.
"Now!" Kianna screamed.
Ruoxi didn't run; she exploded forward. Ignoring the agony in her ribs and the blood loss that should have grounded her, she used the last of her strength to launch herself across the gap.
She didn't go for the gun first. She went for Franklin's arm.
With a guttural roar, Ruoxi slammed her body into Franklin's side, her hands locking onto his wrist like iron manacles. The force of the impact threw Franklin off balance. Alice felt the hair-trigger grip on her hair loosen, and she instinctively dropped to the floor, rolling away as Ruoxi twisted Franklin's arm upward.
BANG!
The gun discharged into the ceiling, the sound deafening in the enclosed space.
"ARGH!" Franklin howled as Ruoxi, despite her injuries, used a brutal joint lock to snap his wrist. The pistol clattered to the concrete.
Ruoxi didn't stop. She drove her knee into Franklin's stomach, sending the man sprawling backward into the light. But the effort cost her everything. As Franklin hit the ground, Ruoxi collapsed onto her knees, gasping for air, her hands pressed against her bleeding side as the world began to go dark.
"Alice... run..." she managed to choke out.
The Arrival of the King
Before Franklin could reach for a backup weapon or scramble away, the heavy thud of boots surrounded him. Dozens of tactical lights converged on his face, blinding him.
"Stay down, Franklin," a voice boomed—not from a megaphone, but from the throat of a man who had walked through hell to be there.
The tactical team parted like the Red Sea. A man stepped forward, dressed in a sharp black overcoat that seemed out of place in the grimy warehouse. Beside him was a woman whose elegance was matched only by the sheer ferocity in her eyes.
Don Primo. Lady Zavhana.
Alice looked up from the floor, her face smudged with dirt and tears, her heart pounding against her ribs. She didn't know these people. She didn't know why the man in the coat looked at her with a grief so profound it seemed to stop time.
"Franklin," Primo said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble. He didn't even look at the guards. He walked straight to his brother, who was cowering on the floor, clutching his broken wrist.
"Primo... wait... I can explain..." Franklin stammered, his bravado completely gone. "It was for the family! For the business! You were gone, and she... she was a liability!"
Don Primo didn't respond with words. He delivered a single, crushing blow with his fist that sent Franklin back into the dust. He then turned his back on his brother as if he were nothing more than a discarded piece of trash.
His gaze fell on Alice.
The silence in the warehouse was absolute. Lady Zavhana took a step forward, her hands covering her mouth, her tears falling freely now.
"Alice?" she whispered, the name sounding like a prayer.
Alice stood up slowly, her legs shaking. She looked at the powerful man and the beautiful woman, then back at Ruoxi, who was being tended to by Kianna and Bryle.
"Who... who are you?" Alice asked, her voice small and trembling.
Don Primo reached out, his hand shaking—the hand that had built empires, now trembling at the sight of a girl. He gently moved the hair away from her face, his eyes searching for the one thing the kidnapper had mentioned.
He saw the crescent birthmark.
"I am your father," Primo whispered, his voice breaking. "And we have come to take you home."