It wasn't a fight. It was a merciless slaughter. Clara used their own momentum against them, breaking arms, shattering knee joints with heavy stomp kicks, and smashing heads through heavy wooden furniture. Screams of pure agony filled the air, mixed with the sickening sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh. In less than ninety seconds, all twenty men lay broken, bloody, and lifeless across the ruined carpet. The air in the office was thick with the copper stench of fresh blood. Jax sat frozen behind his desk. His dark sunglasses had slipped halfway down his nose, revealing wide, trembling eyes filled with pure, paralyzing terror. His hands shook so violently he couldn't even grip the armrests of his chair. The two young women beside him were huddled on the floor behind the desk, sobbing silently, clutching their ears in horror. Jax looked at the middle-aged woman standing in the center of his ruined room. Clara’s coat was stained with blood. Her dark hair hung loosely ov

Jax dragged his broken, blood-soaked body across the floorboards, digging his fingernails into the wood as he pulled himself out of the ruined office. He moved like a dying animal, leaving a thick trail of blood behind him. He finally reached the end of the dark hallway, bursting into the main hall of the lounge. But instead of escape, he bumped straight into a pair of clean leather boots. Jax looked up through his one unswollen eye, gasping for air. Standing over him was Dorian. Dorian’s martial arts gi was barely wrinkled, his arms crossed casually over his chest as he looked down at the ruined gang leader. Jax’s face twisted in pure, pathetic desperation. He reached out with his one unbroken hand, grabbing the hem of Dorian’s trousers. "P-Please..." Jax wheezed, blood bubble-popping on his lips as tears cut clean tracks through the dust on his face. "Save me... please! That monster... she’s going to kill me! I don't want to die like this!" Footsteps echoed from the dark ha

Clara stepped closer to the trembling, bloody heap that was Jax, her eyes locking onto his swollen face with a terrifying intensity. "So where did you say you got this phone?" Clara demanded, her voice low and dangerous. Jax flinched, curling into a ball on the blood-soaked carpet, raising his one good hand in a frantic, pathetic plea. "A beggar! I swear to God, my men got it from a homeless beggar on the corner of Wale Street! He sold it for twenty dollars! I don't know where he got it! I swear that's all I know!" Clara’s jaw tightened. In her overwhelming rage and grief over Nancy, her hyper-attuned instincts had been clouded by the noise of her own racing thoughts. But suddenly, the back of her neck prickled. The subtle air pressure in the ruined lounge shifted. She had felt a strange, lingering presence earlier when she walked into the building, but her anger had muted her senses. Now, her inner alarm blared like a foghorn. Before she could pivot or draw her weapon, a col

Clara slowly closed her eyes. Deep inside her chest, a profound, heavy exhaustion washed over her. She had tried so hard for fifteen years to put the bloodshed behind her, to be the peaceful mother Nancy deserved. But these men refused to let her leave the darkness. When she opened her eyes, her pupils burned with a terrifying, bloodshot red light that made the air in the room suddenly feel ten degrees colder. "You are going to regret this," Clara whispered. Marcus's eyes widened in sudden, instinctual panic as he felt the sudden shift in atmospheric pressure. Realizing she was moving, he pulled the trigger! CLICK-BANG! Before the firing pin could even strike the bullet casing, Clara’s left hand flashed up like a whip! She slapped the side of Marcus’s pistol with blinding speed, knocking his hand away just as the gun discharged! The bullet fired harmlessly into the ceiling, showering plaster dust over them. In the same microsecond, Clara pivoted on her heel, sweeping her ri

Clara took a single step forward. The two soldiers flinched so hard the barrels of their rifles rattled. They took a panicked step backward, their boots skidding against the pavement, their fingers twitching dangerously against the triggers. "Listen to me," Clara said, her voice dropping into a flat, deadly seriousness that chilled the night air. "I will turn myself in. Once this is over, you can chain my hands, put me in a cage, and throw away the key. I will not resist you. I won't fight back." She pointed a blood-stained finger toward the dark city skyline. "But right now, my daughter's life is on the line," Clara continued, her brown eyes locking onto the lead soldier's terrified pupils. "Every second we waste standing here on this asphalt is a matter of life and death for my baby. I am leaving." Without waiting for their permission, Clara turned her back on their guns, walking calmly toward the dark blue van parked across the street. Dorian gave the two trembling soldiers a b