Chapter1

Five years ago, my fiancée and a chaebol heir broke my ribs and threw me into the sewer like trash.

Five years later, they implanted a neurotoxin bomb into the back of my sister's neck, forcing me on all fours to crawl between the security guards' legs into their engagement banquet at a Manhattan penthouse hotel.

My ex-fiancée poured champagne over my wounds, while the chaebol heir ground caviar into the muddy water with his leather shoes, forcing me to lick it clean like a dog.

The room full of Wall Street elites laughed at my humiliation, thinking I was still the same bottom-tier temp worker from back then.

They had no idea that through my micro-earpiece, a heavy armored division was already on standby under the cover of night.

When the confirmation came that the bomb had been defused, I slowly stood up straight.

Outside the window, engines roared. Ten heavy Black Hawk helicopters tore through the curtain of rain, their heavy machine guns instantly shattering the banquet hall's reinforced glass.

Looking down at the chaebol heir who was now slumped in the muddy water, I drew my sidearm: "The debt from five years ago—today, I'm collecting it with your family's lives."

——

Brooklyn's torrential rain slammed down like countless steel awls against my grease-stained mechanic's uniform. The rough fabric clung to my skin, radiating a bone-piercing chill.

"Commander, the Reaper Heavy Armored Division is in combat position. Awaiting your orders." Adjutant Marcus's deep voice came through the micro-earpiece, cutting through the noise of the rainy night.

Cold rain ran down my forehead, pulling at the old wounds deep in my chest. It had been pouring on that night five years ago, too. On a luxurious penthouse terrace in Manhattan, Victor and Elena broke three of my ribs. That woman used to be my fiancée, yet that night, she clung to Victor's arm and watched as his bodyguards tossed me from that height into a muddy sewer like a bag of trash.

The engine shutting off snapped me back to reality. The pickup was parked below my slum apartment building. Just as I pulled the keys from the ignition, a bloodcurdling scream tore through from a dim second-floor window.

It was Lily's voice.

The sound slammed into my nerves like a sledgehammer. I kicked the truck door open, boots splashing through puddles, and smashed open the dilapidated iron gate to the stairwell. Clearing a flight of stairs in three bounds, I drove my heel forward. The solid wood apartment door shattered under my kick, sending splinters and rusty hinges flying.

The cramped living room reeked of cheap tobacco and blood. Three burly men in black trench coats had Lily pinned hard against the floor. A heavy tactical boot was ruthlessly grinding down on her slender fingers, the joints letting out a sickening creak. Another man, sporting a scar across his cheek, held a gleaming combat knife in a reverse grip. The blade was pressed tight against Lily's cheek, drawing a shallow line of blood.

"Please, my brother will be back with the money soon..." Lily was deathly pale. Tears mixed with dust left muddy tracks down her face, her body trembling uncontrollably from the pain.

The blood in my veins instantly ignited. The two-hundred-pound brute closest to the door registered the sound of the shattered wood and started to turn, reaching for his gun.

My knee was already tearing through the air, slamming brutally into the side of his spine. A sickening crunch echoed through the room. I seized his right arm and, using his own forward momentum, snapped it backward.

Before he could even scream, I grabbed him by the collar and punted him away like a ruptured sandbag. His massive body crashed through the living room window, plummeting straight down into the storm outside.

Stepping over the wreckage, my fingers snapped out like iron pincers, bypassing the scarred man's slashing blade to lock securely around his throat. The arrogance left his eyes in an instant. His hands clawed desperately at my arm, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.

The muscles in my fingers tightened. Half an inch more pressure, and his cervical spine would be pulverized.

At that hair-trigger moment, a ghostly blue light suddenly flickered across the living room's peeling walls.

A holographic projector had been discreetly mounted on top of the old TV in the corner. Through the interwoven light, Victor's face appeared on the wall. He was wearing a bespoke suit, idly swirling half a glass of red wine.

"Long time no see, my little sewer rat. Your moves are as sharp as ever." Victor adjusted his cufflinks and snapped his fingers.

A picture-in-picture close-up popped up in the bottom right corner. Fastened to the pale skin of Lily's nape was a metallic, spider-shaped device. Several micro-probes had already pierced her skin, and a red indicator light was blinking rapidly in time with her pulse.

"A heartbeat-linked neurotoxin bomb," Victor's voice echoed from the speaker, laced with undisguised mockery. "If you so much as harm another hair on my men, or if Lily's heart rate exceeds one hundred and sixty beats per minute... Bang. The neurotoxin will sever her brain stem in zero point one seconds."

My fingers, clamped around the scarred man's throat, froze dead in their tracks.

I stared dead-eyed at the projection on the wall, biting my lip until the taste of iron filled my mouth. My fingernails dug so deeply into my palms that they broke the skin; warm blood dripped through my fingers to splatter against the floor. Forcing my momentum to a dead halt sent violent spasms rippling through my arm muscles.

The scarred man seized the opportunity to thrash violently, slipping from my grasp. He gasped for air, rubbing the dark bruises on his neck, before spinning around to grab Lily by the hair, dragging her brutally out the door.

"Brother!" Lily cried out in pain, but she immediately bit down hard on her lip, fighting with everything she had to keep her heart rate from spiking.

I stood rooted to the spot like a stone statue. As I watched my sister get shoved into a heavily armored bulletproof vehicle downstairs, rage incinerated my insides, yet my legs felt like lead, unable to take a single step forward.

The armored vehicle's engine roared to life, cutting through the heavy rain. On the wall, Victor raised his wine glass in a mock toast to the camera.

"Tonight at eight o'clock, Manhattan InterContinental Hotel. My engagement banquet."

He leaned into the lens, his eyes brimming with provocation. "I want to see you crawl into that banquet hall on all fours, like a real dog. Be even one second late, and I'm sending your sister to meet God."

The projector clicked softly and powered down. The only sounds left in the room were the howling wind and rain outside the window, above a floor covered in chaotic footprints.

I stood there in silence, looking down at the bleeding crescent marks in my palms. Rain lashed in through the shattered window, washing over the bloodstains on the floor and blurring them into wide pools of dark crimson.

Slowly raising my hand, I tapped the encrypted channel on my earpiece.

"Orders," my voice rang out in the empty room, suppressing a storm violent enough to level the entire city.

"Deploy Alpha Team. Mobilize the underground's elite bomb disposal unit. Maintain a covert lock on that armored vehicle at all times. Until we have absolute certainty, no one makes a move to alert them."

"Copy that, Commander," Marcus replied instantly, before adding, "Does your itinerary need to be altered? Regarding Manhattan..."

I tore off the filthy mechanic's jacket and tossed it aside into the wreckage of the living room. My gaze pierced through the torrential rain, locking onto the brilliant sea of neon lights over Manhattan. The debt from five years ago, combined with tonight's sins—it was time to settle the score once and for all.

"No. We stick to the original plan." I turned and strode out into the rainy night. "To Manhattan."