My Mute Daughters Finally Sang For The Housekeeper—Until My Oldest Pointed Down The Hall And Whispered: "Daddy, Mommy's Killer Is In This House."

The sound of heavy tactical boots descending the concrete basement stairs broke my concentration.

“He’s down in the server room!” Marcus’s voice echoed off the damp stone walls. “Flank the entrance! Don't let him touch the main terminal!”

There were two of them left: Marcus Vance and the third mercenary. Julian was likely cowering upstairs in the rotunda.

I moved with absolute tactical precision.

I took the primary external hard drives containing the dashcam footage and the Zurich wire transfers, slipped them into my tactical vest, and pulled two flashbang grenades from the mercenary’s vest I had stripped on the second floor.

I pulled the pins on both canisters.

I counted to two.

Then I hurled them through the server room doorway into the narrow concrete corridor.

BANG! BANG!

A blinding, multi-million-candela flash and a deafening 170-decibel shockwave ripped through the enclosed subterranean hallway.

Even through the heavy steel door, the concussive blast shook dust from the ceiling pipes.

Screams of agony and disorientation echoed through the corridor.

I stepped out of the server room with the 12-gauge leveled at waist height.

The third mercenary was on his knees, clutching his bleeding ears, completely blinded by the flashbang. I stepped past him, delivering a swift, neutralizing strike that put him down for the count.

At the end of the tunnel, Marcus Vance was already recovering—his Tier-1 training allowing him to shake off the disorientation faster than any civilian.

He raised his carbine, firing a blind burst down the corridor.

TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Rounds sparked off the concrete walls, one bullet grazing my left bicep, tearing through my shirt and searing the flesh like a hot iron.

I didn't feel the pain. Adrenaline had turned my nervous system to ice.

I returned fire. The heavy 12-gauge buckshot slammed into Marcus’s shoulder and chest plate, the kinetic energy throwing the two-hundred-and-twenty-pound mercenary backward against the concrete wall.

His carbine clattered to the floor.

Marcus slid down the wall, clutching his shattered collarbone, coughing blood onto the floor. His night-vision goggles had been blown off, revealing his scarred, weathered face.

I walked slowly down the corridor until the smoking barrel of my shotgun was resting directly against his forehead.

“Fourteen months, Marcus,” I said, my voice dead and cold. “You lived under my roof. You ate food bought with my money. You looked my daughters in the eye after you murdered their mother.”

Marcus spat blood onto my leather boots, a defiant, vicious sneer spreading across his lips.

“You were… too soft, Dominic,” Marcus wheezed, his voice bubbling with fluid. “Isabelle… Isabelle saw the world for what it was. She was going to tear down the whole empire over a few offshore accounts. Julian offered me twenty-five million. You would have done the same thing in my shoes.”

“No,” I replied, looking into the eyes of the man who had broken my family. “I wouldn't. Because unlike you, Marcus… I actually have a soul.”

“Go ahead,” Marcus hissed. “Pull the trigger. End it. But you won’t save the girls. Julian already called the gatehouse. The secondary perimeter team is moving on the master suite right now.”

“The secondary team isn't moving anywhere,” a calm, authoritative voice echoed from the top of the basement stairs.

I glanced up.

Standing on the landing, illuminated by the beam of a tactical flashlight, was Viktor Petrov—the head butler—flanked by six armed men in dark suits wearing the official badges of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And leading them was a senior Special Agent holding an active federal warrant.

“Federal agents! Drop the weapon, Mr. Romano! The property is fully secured!”

Viktor stepped forward, his face solemn, holding a handheld radio. “The outer gates have been breached by federal tactical units, Mr. Romano. Mr. Vance’s private mercenaries outside have already surrendered their weapons. Miss Grace transmitted the Zurich encryption files to the Department of Justice fifteen minutes ago from your panic room’s satellite link.”

Grace had done it.

While I was hunting the wolves in the dark, she had used the sovereign satellite channel to blow the whistle at the highest level of the United States government.

I slowly lowered the shotgun.

Marcus slumped against the wall, his eyes rolling back as the federal agents swarmed the corridor, pinning him to the floor and snapping heavy steel cuffs onto his wrists.

“Dominic Romano,” the lead agent said, looking at the blood on my arm and the carnage in the hallway. “Where is Julian Sterling?”