She Wore No Jewelry to My $10 Million Gala—Then She Whispered, “There’s Someone You Haven’t Noticed.”

The server room erupted into a deafening storm of lead and shattered glass.

"Behind the server stacks!" I roared, grabbing Mara’s tactical vest and pulling her behind a row of heavy, steel-encased mainframes as heavy rounds punched through the metal casing, sending showers of blue sparks flying into the air.

Mara returned fire with lethal accuracy, dropping two gunmen who attempted to flank our left side. "Dante! The virus didn't fail—it triggered an emergency lockdown! The master files are being routed to Vance’s private yacht at Navy Pier!"

"He's fleeing to international waters!" I yelled over the gunfire.

"We have to blow the blast doors!" Mara pulled a brick of C4 plastic explosive from her tactical pack, slapping it against the titanium door frame and arming the five-second detonator. "Fire in the hole!"

We dove behind the central console as the explosion tore through the reinforced hinges with a blinding flash, blowing the heavy blast door off its track.

We sprinted through the smoke into the executive penthouse corridor.

Donald Wexler was frantically attempting to enter the private elevator with a titanium briefcase containing the backup drives.

When he saw us emerging from the smoke, his face twisted in horror. He reached for a pistol in his coat, but I crossed the distance in three strides, disarming him with a savage strike to his wrist, followed by a devastating right hook that sent him crashing over his glass desk.

I pressed the barrel of my gun against his forehead. "Where is Vance going?"

"Navy Pier... Dock 42!" Wexler sobbed, spitting blood. "The yacht leaves in ten minutes! Please, Dante... it was Vance! He threatened my family!"

"You should have thought about family ten years ago," I growled, knocking him unconscious with the butt of my rifle.

We took the express elevator down to the basement garage, where my backup armored supercar was waiting.

We tore through the snowy Chicago streets at 120 miles per hour, sirens wailing in the distance as the entire city became a battleground.

When we arrived at Navy Pier, the scene was pure chaos. Finn’s strike team was pinned down behind shipping crates by heavy machine-gun fire coming from a luxury 150-foot superyacht that was already untying its mooring lines.

Vance was standing on the upper aft deck, holding an assault rifle, preparing to cast off into the stormy waters of Lake Michigan.

"He's escaping!" Finn yelled into the comms, ducking as rounds chewed up his cover.

"Not tonight," I said.

I looked at Mara. "Can you make that jump?"