THE UNDERESTIMATED UNDERWORLD KING

PULLED THE TRIGGER

Marcus Reid's face filled the screen, and for the first time in three years, Dante wanted to kill someone with his bare hands.

"Hello, Phantom!" Marcus's grin was manic, unhinged. "Surprise! You think you're the only one who gets to make plans? Who gets to be ten steps ahead?"

The rage that flooded Dante's veins was arctic. Not hot. Not explosive. Cold enough to freeze blood.

"Marcus." His voice could have etched glass. "If she dies, I'll make your death last weeks."

Marcus laughed. It started confident but cracked at the edges, betraying the fear underneath. He was still a man playing at being dangerous, still underestimating what real danger looked like.

"Big talk from a guy who's eight minutes away!" Marcus gestured grandly at Sophia's chamber. The water was at her chest now, rising with mechanical inevitability. Her hands pressed against the glass, breath coming in panicked gasps. "I made a deal, Dante! A real deal with real players! The Syndicate gets you, I get Hayes Corp, and I get Scarlett back! Everybody wins!"

"Except Sophia," Dante said.

"Except Sophia," Marcus agreed, like he was discussing weather. "But hey, collateral damage, right? You taught me that. All those missions. All those people who died so the mission succeeded."

Sophia's fist slammed against the glass. Once. Twice. The water climbed to her shoulders. Her eyes—Leonard's eyes—found the camera with desperate hope.

Dante's jaw locked so tight his teeth should have shattered.

"Vincent," he spoke into his comm with surgical precision, "trace that transmission. Isabella, I need satellite positioning NOW."

"Working on it, Boss," Vincent's voice crackled back. "Signal's bouncing through twelve countries, but I'll crack it."

Behind Dante, Scarlett was screaming. "What's happening? Who is that girl? Why does she matter more than—"

She might as well have been talking to a wall. Every molecule of Dante's attention was fixed on the screen, on Sophia, on the water that would steal her last breath in—he checked his watch—three minutes and forty seconds.

Marcus leaned closer to his camera, face distorting slightly with the wide-angle lens. "So here's the thing, Phantom. You've got another choice to make. Chase me and maybe save this brat, or finish whatever you're doing there. But you can't do both. You're good, but you're not in two places at once."

"Yet," Dante said.

The single word made Marcus's smile falter.

Movement in Dante's peripheral vision. The Viper left her secret room and emerged from the warehouse shadows like something that lived in nightmares.

Twelve operatives flanked her, weapons trained with professional discipline. Her platinum hair caught the emergency lighting, and the snake tattoo on her neck seemed to writhe.

"You're not leaving at all," she said. Her voice was silk over steel. "I'm killing you here myself."

Dante smiled.

It was the smile that made grown men reconsider their life choices. The smile that promised things worse than death.

"When you want to kill the Phantom, you shouldn't have made any mistakes. But no, you already made three fatal mistakes tonight."

The Viper's operatives shifted, uneasy. She held up a hand, curious. "Do tell."

"One." Dante's fingers tapped his thigh—casual, almost bored. "You assumed flooding would trap me."

"It should have. The math was perfect."

"Two." His hand moved to his earpiece, barely visible. "You assumed I came alone."

The Viper's eyes narrowed. "Your backup is—"

The warehouse windows exploded inward.

Not from gunfire. From shaped charges placed hours ago, timed to Dante's signal. Glass became a lethal storm, and through the gaps, ropes dropped like spider silk.

Eight figures in black tactical gear descended with the fluid precision of a choreographed kill.

Team Shadow.

Vincent's voice came through every comm in the building—not just Dante's, but the Syndicate's radios too. He'd hacked their frequency.

"I've brought Team Shadow, Boss. It's time to show them hell."

The gunfight that erupted was over before it qualified as a battle.

Dante moved first. His suppressed pistol coughed twice, dropping the operatives closest to The Viper. His team fanned out with practiced efficiency—no communication needed, just the fluid synchronization of people who'd worked together for years.

The Syndicate operatives were good. Professional. Trained.

They weren't good enough.

Dante crossed twenty feet in three seconds. A guard swung his rifle around. Dante's hand caught the barrel, redirected it toward the ceiling. His elbow struck the man's temple with the sound of a wet branch snapping. The guard dropped like his strings had been cut.

Another operative fired. Dante was already moving, the bullets carving air where he'd been a heartbeat ago. He rolled, came up inside the shooter's guard, and his knife found the soft tissue between ribs. Quick. Clean. Quiet.

The Viper reached for her sidearm.

Dante's hand was faster. He stripped the weapon from her grip in a motion so fluid it looked rehearsed, then twisted her arm behind her back. The barrel of his gun kissed her temple.

"Tell your people holding Sophia," he said into her ear, loud enough for her earpiece to pick up, "release her or I paint this warehouse with your brain."

The Viper's laugh was strained but genuine. Blood ran from her split lip where she'd bitten through it during the disarm. "You won't kill me. You need me to—"

Dante adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullet destroyed her kneecap. The scream that tore from her throat was primal, animal. She collapsed, Dante's grip on her collar the only thing keeping her from hitting the floor.

"Wrong," he said conversationally, as if he hadn't just shattered her leg. "I need you alive. I never said anything about comfortable."

Around them, the last Syndicate operatives were making the intelligent choice. Weapons clattered to concrete. Hands rose.

Vincent emerged from the shadows, rifle still raised. "Clean sweep, Boss. No casualties on our side. Three wounded on theirs. The rest surrendered."

Dante threw The Viper toward his second-in-command. She landed badly, her destroyed knee preventing her from catching herself. Her scream echoed off the warehouse walls.

"Extract everything she knows," Dante ordered. "Names. Locations. Account numbers. Everything. Use whatever methods necessary."

"Copy that." Vincent's expression didn't change. They both knew what "whatever methods necessary" meant.

Dante was already moving toward the exit. Each step was measured, controlled. Inside, his chest was a war zone. Sophia had maybe two minutes of air left. Maybe less if panic made her breathe faster.

He'd covered ten feet when The Viper's voice cut through the chaos.

She was laughing.

Actually laughing, even as Vincent's team secured her, even as blood pooled beneath her ruined knee.

"You still don't understand," she gasped between bouts of pain-edged mirth. "You think you're so smart, Phantom? You think you've won?"

Dante stopped. Didn't turn. Just waited.

"Marcus isn't working FOR us," The Viper said. Each word was victory despite her situation. "We're working for HIM."

The warehouse fell silent. Even the wounded stopped groaning.

Dante's head turned, slow as winter. "Explain."

"The Syndicate?" The Viper's grin was blood-stained and terrible. "We're contractors. Marcus Reid is the CLIENT. Has been for six months. He hired us to destroy you, to take Hayes Corp, to remove every obstacle between him and what he wants. And what he wants, Phantom, is EVERYTHING you have."

Somewhere in the warehouse, water dripped. The sound was obscenely loud in the silence.

"So go ahead," The Viper continued. "Run to save your precious Sophia. Chase Marcus across the city. Waste time. Because while you're playing hero, he's already three moves ahead. He's BEEN three moves ahead. Since before you even knew he was a threat."

Vincent's voice was small in Dante's earpiece. "Boss? I've got Sophia's location. But the signal's moving. They're transporting her. If we don't move NOW—"

Dante was already gone.

The door swung on its hinges. Beyond it, the night swallowed him whole.

Behind him, The Viper's laughter followed like a curse.

And somewhere in the city, a girl who'd never hurt anyone in her life had ninety seconds of air left in a glass cage.

The clock was ticking.

And for the first time in years, Dante wasn't sure he could beat it.