The crunch of bone breaking was a sound I had heard dozens of times during my four years as a Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) instructor at Quantico, but hearing it inside a luxury honeymooon suite felt eerily distant.

Disembarking a luxury cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic isn't easy, but for a trained Marine, international waters offer opportunities. Using the hitman's satellite phone and emergency maritime credentials I managed to commandeer from the ship's bridge through a mixture of stealth and social engineering, I arranged for an offshore extraction via a private boat owned by an old military contact.

By sunrise, Gregory and I were back on the mainland, tucked away in an underground safehouse in downtown Miami. Gregory was bound to a chair, completely humbled, while I paced the room, plotting my next move.

I couldn't just run. If I ran, the Hartmans would hunt me down, ruin my reputation, and use their legal team to frame me for domestic assault or worse. The only way out was forward: I had to dismantle the Hartman empire before they realized I was no longer playing the victim.

I reached out to my former commander, retired Master Sergeant Marcus Vance (no relation, but a man I considered a father figure). Marcus ran a high-end private intelligence firm in Tampa. Within three hours of my call, Marcus arrived at the safehouse, his rugged face lined with deep concern as he took in the scene: his former star instructor holding a billionaire heir hostage.

"Ashlynn," Marcus said, leaning against the doorframe with a sigh. "When you told me you were getting married, I thought you were settling down to plant roses."

"The roses had thorns, Marcus," I said dryly, tossing him the hitman's encrypted satellite phone. "Hartman Logistics is moving illicit cargo through European ports using my company's credentials. They tried to execute me on the ship."

Marcus caught the phone, his expression instantly hardening. He connected it to a portable diagnostic device. "If Victor Hartman is involved, you're poking a hornet's nest. The man owns half the judges in South Florida and quarter of the port authorities in South America."

"Then we take away his ownership," I replied. "I need access to the central server at Hartman Towers in downtown Miami. The hard evidence of their smuggling operations is stored on an isolated network."

"That building is a fortress, Ashlynn. Armed security, biometric scanners, private guards."