632 A six-year-old girl carrying one infant and pushing another in a broken stroller offered me every coin she had to buy formula, never knowing I was Milwaukee’s most feared crime boss—and I never imagined that saving those three children would eventually bring my oldest enemy back from the dead.

The pain in my shoulder was a dull roar, but I refused the morphine the paramedic tried to give me inside the estate’s medical room. The bullet had passed clean through the flesh of my shoulder, missing the bone. Within an hour, I was back on my feet, wrapped in heavy bandages, holding a sleeping Mason while Victor reported the perimeter status.

"He escaped into the Blackwood Forest reserve," Victor said, pulling up a satellite map on the tactical monitor. "He has an old underground bunker system left over from the Cold War near the northern ridge. Our drones picked up heat signatures moving into the bunker ten minutes ago."

Hannah was brought into the room in a wheelchair, escorted by our private medical transport. When she saw her children unharmed, she broke down in tears, pulling Sophie into a fierce embrace.

Sophie looked up at me, seeing the blood staining my white shirt under the bandages. She walked over, her small hand reaching out to touch my arm.

"You got hurt because of us," she whimpered.

I dropped to one knee, ignoring the burning agony in my leg, and looked her dead in the eye. "I got hurt protecting my family, Sophie. And there is nothing in this world more important than that. Do you understand me?"

She nodded, wiping a tear with her small sleeve.

I stood up and turned to Hannah. "Marcus ends tonight. Not just for me, but so you and these kids never have to look over your shoulder again."