The billionaire's k!l-ler dog knelt before a starving girl—Then she whispered a name nobody recognized.

At ten o'clock that evening, Port Authority Pier 42 was draped in thick, ocean-borne fog. The giant container cranes stood out against the dark sky like ancient iron skeletons.

Inside the central control office atop the warehouse, Dominic Falco stood before a heavy steel server tower. A digital countdown timer on the main screen flickered in green numbers: 01:59:42.

"Two hours left," Falco muttered to himself, pacing the floor with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

"Boss!" a guard burst through the door, his face pale. "We have a movement at the gate! It's Cross! He's alone!"

Falco stopped pacing. A slow, cruel smile spread across his face. "Alone? Are you sure?"

"He drove a single black SUV through the main gate," the guard reported. "He walked out onto the dock floor. He's holding the silver compass."

"Search the perimeter! Check for his enforcers!" Falco ordered.

"We checked thermal optics, boss. No other vehicles, no perimeter teams. Just him."

Falco threw his empty glass into the trash bin. "He came to trade. He thinks he can buy his daughter's safety with the compass." He pulled a heavy revolver from his shoulder holster. "Bring him up. And kill him the moment he hands over the key."

Down on the concrete dock floor, surrounded by walls of stacked red and blue shipping containers, Holden Cross stood under a flickering halogen light. The cold wind whipped his long wool coat around his boots.

A dozen armed men emerged from the shadows between the containers, their weapons trained on him from every angle.

Falco stepped out onto the second-floor metal walkway overlooking the dock floor, leaning over the railing.

"You're a foolish man, Holden," Falco called down, his voice echoing through the hollow warehouse. "Ten years ago, you were the smartest player in the game. Now you walk into my slaughterhouse for the ghost of a woman who abandoned you?"

Holden lifted his right hand. Held between his fingers was the silver compass, its broken glass reflecting the yellow halogen light.

"I didn't come for Clara, Falco," Holden said, his voice calm and steady. "I came for what you took from her."

"You have nothing to bargain with!" Falco laughed mocking. "I have sixty men in this facility! You came alone!"

Holden offered a cold, thin smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Who said I was alone?" Holden asked softly.

He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers once.

From deep inside the maze of shipping containers behind Falco’s men came a low, rhythmic sound—a sound that made every guard’s blood run cold.

It wasn't a single growl.

It was the heavy, coordinated thud of four-legged beasts moving in unison through the dark.

Out from the shadows between the containers emerged not one dog, but six.

At the front of the pack stood Phantom, his body low, his amber eyes burning with terrifying focus. Flanking him were five elite attack Malinois and Rottweilers—the elite protection pack from the Cross breeding facilities, led by their master.

"Shoot them!" Falco shrieked from the balcony, his voice cracking with sudden panic. "Shoot the dogs!"