She turned and walked down the corridor without looking back. Tyler watched her disappear around the corner and then dropped his face into his hands.Across town, the Cole Clinic sat quiet in the late afternoon light. The front room was clean and spare, the shelves lined with medicine jars that Helen Cole had labeled by hand years ago. Ethan sat behind the wooden desk going through a stack of procurement documents Victoria had sent over that morning.The front door opened and Doctor James walked in. He was a thin man in his early sixties with wire rimmed glasses and a perpetually worried expression. He had been Helen Cole's colleague at the Chicago Medical Association for fifteen years before her death, and he was one of the few people in the city who had genuinely mourned her passing."Ethan, I found it," Doctor James set his bag on the examination table and pulled out a folder of handwritten notes. His fingers were shaking slightly. "The Green Phoenix Vine. I have been tracing it th

The main hall of the Thompson mansion was built to intimidate. Thirty foot ceilings. Italian marble floors polished to a mirror shine.Oil paintings of Thompson ancestors lining the walls in heavy gold frames, each one staring down at visitors with the same expression of inherited superiority.A crystal chandelier the size of a small car hung from the center of the ceiling, scattering light across the room like frozen fireworks.Nine men sat around a long mahogany table at the far end of the hall. They were the heads of the nine major pharmaceutical companies in Chicago, and every one of them was smiling.Wine glasses glinted in the chandelier light. Cigar smoke curled toward the ceiling. The mood in the room was the kind of relaxed, confident atmosphere that only comes when powerful men believe they have already won.Thompson Sr. sat at the head of the table. He was a lean, silver haired man in his seventies with deep set eyes and a face that looked like it had been carved from the s

"And the Japanese warrior you pinned your hopes on," Ethan continued, "Ian Watanabe. He is dead. I killed him last night at the Harlow estate. His body is already being processed by the coroner's office. The hundred warriors he brought with him are also dead. Every single one."The room went silent. Thompson Sr.'s face drained of color. The nine bosses stopped smiling. Preston Wells set his wine glass down very slowly."You are lying," Patterson's voice came out uncertain. "Watanabe had a hundred trained fighters. There is no way...""Call him," Ethan's voice was flat. "Call Ian Watanabe right now. Any of you. Pull out your phone and dial his number. I will wait."Nobody moved. Nobody reached for a phone. The silence in the room was so thick it felt like it had a physical weight pressing down on everyone's shoulders.Preston recovered first. He straightened in his chair and adjusted his cuffs with the precise, rehearsed motions of a man rebuilding his composure brick by brick."Even i

The doors at the side of the hall burst open and a man walked in who made the room feel smaller just by existing.Mason Grant was six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds of muscle wrapped in a black tactical jacket.His head was shaved clean, his jaw was thick enough to stop a punch, and his eyes had the flat, dead quality of a man who had seen things that would give normal people nightmares for the rest of their lives.A former special forces operative who had deserted his unit during a classified operation overseas, Mason had spent the past decade selling his skills to the highest bidder.Preston Wells paid him three hundred thousand dollars a year to stand outside doors and look terrifying.Mason did not ask questions. He did not wait for instructions. He saw Preston's shredded pants, he saw Ethan standing in the middle of the room, and he charged.His right fist came forward with the speed and force of a man who had killed people with his bare hands and saw no reason this time

Ethan watched the nine bosses lean back in their chairs with smug, self satisfied grins spreading across their faces like oil on water.Something had shifted in the room the moment the steward mentioned Sophia's name and the Harlow Capital investment, and the shift did not make sense to him.These men had been terrified thirty seconds ago.Mason Grant was crawling out of the room on his hands and knees.Preston Wells was standing in the middle of the hall holding his shredded pants together like a man who had just been stripped naked in church.And now, suddenly, they were laughing again. Celebrating. Acting as though someone had just handed them a winning lottery ticket.Ethan's eyes narrowed slightly. He did not know what conclusion they had jumped to, but whatever it was, they had jumped to it with the enthusiastic stupidity of dogs chasing a car they could never catch.Preston was practically vibrating with excitement.He had found a replacement pair of pants from a coat closet ne