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I pull on silk pajamas and walk through the apartment barefoot. The city is already moving beneath the windows. Time waits for no man, but I knew this already.

And then I see him…

Mackensie is in my kitchen.

He has an espresso waiting as if this is his place and I have only just been allowed to live in it. That should irritate me. But it doesn’t. Not even close.

Hardy aside, Mackensie is the only man who can come up from the armored floor below without a call.

Face recognition.

Steel.

A system that would cook anyone else who tried the same stairs.

Mackensie earned that access the old way. Blood and time.

“You’re early,” I say.

He holds the cup out. I take it. The first sip is perfect.

“Damn,” I chuckle. “You sure you never trained as a barista?”

“Pffft, you flatter me,” Mackensie laughs.

We walk into the living area with the paintings watching us like they always do.

“What brings you?” I ask.

Mackensie does not sit until I do.

“Word came last night,” Mackensie says. “Maxim and Nikolai are held over on the West Coast. There is a siege on one of their warehouses.”

I look at him over the rim of the cup.

“How serious?”

Mackensie’s mouth flattens…

“Fatally so,” he says. “If it runs much longer. That is my opinion. They can hold a day. Maybe two. After that the math turns. They need bodies. They need someone who can arrive clean and leave a mess.”

I drink.

The espresso is bitter in the best way.

Maxim and Nikolai asked me for time. But today they are trapped in a building that may become their coffin.

I could let it happen.

A weaker man would call it balance.

But I am not that man.

“Send men,” I say. “Gunmen. And one general. Private jet. Immediate.”

Mackensie nods once. No argument. He already knew I would not sit on this.

“If they live because I sent help,” I say, “they may remember what loyalty looks like. They may decide I am worth standing with when I come for the Lucci.”