A Billionaire Dragged a Pregnant Woman by Her Hair at a Masquerade Ball—Until Her Sister Fought Back! But When a Golden Harp Crashed to the Floor, It Exposed a Locked Chest Hiding a Terrified 7-Year-Old Boy. What the Child Whispered Next Left Everyone Frozen in Horror!

"Sir! Incoming gunship, no transponder!" a mercenary shouted over the intercom, static bleeding into the channel. "They’re not Coast Guard! It’s the Syndicate’s Black Council! They know we retrieved the boy!"

The entire ship shuddered violently as an anti-ship missile skimmed the surface and detonated fifty yards off the starboard bow. The shockwave threw Lena and Rachel against the steel bulkhead. The overhead lights shattered, plunging the medical bay into flashing red chaos.

Lena didn't waste a heartbeat.

As the four guards momentarily lost their balance from the impact, Lena launched herself across the room. Her foot connected with the knee of the nearest mercenary, shattering the joint with a sickening crack. Before the man could scream, she grabbed his rifle barrel, pivoted behind him, and drove her elbow into his temple. The assault rifle was in her hands before his body hit the deck.

She spun, firing two double-taps into the chests of the remaining guards. They collapsed instantly in a spray of blood against the brushed steel walls.

Victor Vance dropped to one knee, drawing a snub-nosed revolver from his coat, but Lena closed the distance in a blur. She kicked the weapon from his grip, the gun clattering across the deck, and slammed the barrel of her captured rifle against Victor’s forehead.

"Move and you join Daniel," Lena growled in his ear.

"Lena! The lower vehicle bay!" Rachel cried out, shielding Grace as debris rained down. "There’s an amphibious transport! I saw the signs when they brought us in!"

"Get the boy!" Lena ordered.

Rachel hesitated for a fraction of a second, staring at the seven-year-old child who looked at her with alien detachment. But the maternal instinct won out. Rachel grabbed Oliver by the collar of his jacket, dragging him along. "Move, Oliver!"

"You cannot escape Manhattan," Victor coughed, blood trickling from his split lip as Lena dragged him to his feet as a human shield. "The city is locked down! The Black Council controls the bridges, the tunnels, the ports! If you take that boy to the Vance Tower, you are walking into an execution chamber!"

"Then we'll make sure you're the first one through the door," Lena snapped.

Dragging Victor through the smoking, violently rocking corridors, they reached the vessel's stern launch bay. Below them, a high-speed carbon-fiber tactical launch sat in a flooded well deck.

Above them, through the perforated blast doors, Lena could see the night sky over New York Harbor. The rain was falling in torrential sheets, cutting through the neon smog of the skyline. The Statue of Liberty loomed like a ghostly green sentinel in the mist, while the massive, dark monolith of the Vance Tower rose like an obsidian tombstone over Lower Manhattan.

A secondary missile struck the *Leviathan's* bridge tower. Metal shrieked. Explosions ripped through the upper decks.

"In the boat! Now!" Lena yelled, shoving Victor down the steel gangway ahead of them.

Rachel leaped into the rear cabin, clutching Grace and pulling Oliver down into the footwell. Lena threw Victor into the co-pilot’s seat, vaulted behind the helm, and smashed the emergency ignition. The twin 500-horsepower inboard engines roared to life, vibrating through the carbon hull.

With a crushing roar, the launch dropped into the churning harbor waters, tearing away from the doomed flagship just as a ball of orange fire consumed the *Leviathan's* superstructure.