The Las Vegas Mafia Boss Kicked His Housekeeper in Front of His Entire Family—Unaware She Was a Martial Arts Master. But After She Put Him on the Floor...

The climb up the thirty-four floors was pure physical agony.

The utility shaft was narrow, cold, and coated in decades of dry dust and grease. I used my elbows, knees, and back to wedge my body against the concrete walls, inching upward foot by foot in total darkness, breathing through my nose to keep from coughing.

Every muscle in my legs burned. The bruised knee Grant had kicked six hours ago throbbed with every thrust, but I ignored the pain, focusing entirely on the image of my father’s face in that hospital bed twenty-two years ago.

Never fight when you can walk.

Never stay when you can disappear.

But when they back you into a corner, Celeste—finish it.

At the thirty-fourth floor, a faint line of yellow light leaked through the iron ventilation grate of the central server room.

I paused, wedging my back against the shaft wall, listening intently through the metal louvers.

Inside the room, I heard the heavy hum of cooling fans, the sound of glass breaking, and Damon’s harsh, frantic voice snapping orders:

“Set the thermite charges on the main server racks! We leave through the roof helipad in three minutes!”

Through the grate, I saw Damon standing near the master server console, wearing his dark tuxedo, holding a heavy revolver. In the corner of the room, Lenora Voss sat tied to a chair, her mouth covered with heavy duct tape, her eyes wide with terror.

Suddenly, a massive explosion echoed from the front lobby thirty-four floors below—Grant and the FBI SWAT team had breached the front glass doors, launching flashbang grenades into the main atrium.

Damon’s two armed mercenaries ran toward the server room’s front glass doors, raising their carbines to cover the hallway.

Now.

I jammed my boots against the back wall of the utility shaft and kicked the iron ventilation grate with all my strength.

The grate blew inward with a loud metallic crash, striking the nearest mercenary squarely in the back of his head, sending him tumbling across the floor.

I erupted from the wall like a phantom, landing smoothly on my feet amidst the shattered metal.

Before the second mercenary could pivot his weapon, I closed the distance, grabbed the barrel of his carbine, and drove my forehead violently into his nose. He stumbled back, dazed, and I executed a sweeping leg kick that sent him crashing headfirst into the steel server rack, knocking him cold.

Damon spun around, his revolver raised, his eyes wide with absolute madness as he saw me standing in the middle of his server room.

“You!” Damon screamed, raising the gun toward my chest. “You impossible little bitch!”

He pulled the trigger.

I didn't try to dodge the bullet. I stepped inside the weapon’s angle of attack, pivoting my hips as the gun fired.

BANG.

The round scorched through the fabric of my thermal shirt, grazing my ribcage, but I was already inside his guard.

My left hand caught his gun wrist, twisting it outward with the exact same joint lock I had used on his nephew in the ballroom. The heavy revolver fell from his hand, clattering harmlessly across the floor.

Damon let out a pain-filled howl, trying to throw a wild right hook toward my jaw.

I ducked beneath his punch, stepped behind him, and drove a crushing knee into the back of his right leg.

Damon’s knee buckled.

He collapsed onto the hard, cold floor, landing flat on his back in the exact same position his nephew had occupied six hours earlier.

I stood directly over him, the razor-sharp titanium knife held firmly in my right hand, the point hovering two inches above his throat.

Damon lay on the floor, gasping for air, his aristocratic face covered in sweat and dust, staring up at me with pure, unadulterated terror.

“Do it...” Damon rasped, his chest heaving. “Kill me... finish what your father started...”

My hand trembled over his throat. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to plunge the blade down, to end the monster who had stolen my childhood, murdered my father, and hunted my sister.

Then, the heavy glass doors of the server room were kicked open.

Grant Voss burst into the room, flanked by six FBI tactical agents with their weapons raised.

Grant stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes taking in the scene—the two unconscious mercenaries, his mother tied in the corner, and me, standing over his uncle with a knife at his throat.

“Celeste...” Grant said softly, stepping forward, dropping his weapon to his side. “Don't.”

I looked at Grant, then down at Damon’s terrified face.

I remembered my father’s handwritten notebook resting in the mahogany box: “Do not seek revenge, my sweet girl. Use this truth only to protect your sister.”

I slowly drew a long, deep breath, feeling the cold air fill my lungs.

I closed the titanium knife with a quiet click and slid it back into my pocket.

“My father was better than you,” I whispered, looking down at Damon with absolute, cold contempt. “And so am I.”

I turned on my heel and walked over to Lenora, using my blade to quickly cut the heavy duct tape and ropes binding her to the chair.

Lenora threw her arms around my neck, weeping hysterically. “Thank you... oh God, Celeste, thank you...”

FBI agents flooded the room, pinning Damon to the floor, slapping heavy iron handcuffs onto his wrists, and dragging him away into federal custody.

Grant walked over to us, helping his mother stand, before turning his dark grey eyes toward me.

He looked at the graze on my ribs, the dust on my face, and the quiet dignity with which I held myself.

“You did it, Rowan,” Grant whispered, a genuine, breathtaking smile illuminating his sharp face. “You saved my family.”

“I saved my own family, Voss,” I corrected gently, stepping toward the large floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.

The morning sun was finally breaking over the desert mountains, casting a bright, golden light across the city, burning away the dark morning fog.

Grant stepped up beside me, resting his hand gently against the small of my back—a warm, protective presence that felt entirely solid.

“What are you going to do now, Celeste?” Grant asked softly. “The casino empire is clean. Damon is going to prison for the rest of his life. Your sister is safe.”

I looked out at the golden sunlight filling the sky, feeling the weight of eleven years of running finally lift off my shoulders forever.

“I think I’m done wiping floors,” I said, looking up into his eyes with a small, confident smile.

Grant smiled back, his fingers tightening gently against my waist. “Then how about a new job? I’m looking for a head of global security. The pay is exceptional... and nobody will ever kick your knee again.”