The warehouse air hung heavy with the copper tang of blood and the faint hum of the laptop's dying battery. Ruoxi lowered her pistol, her ears still ringing from the gunfire, her chest tight with the adrenaline that hadn't yet ebbed. Bodies littered the floor—Xia Zhenguo's assassins, their black masks cracked and lifeless, sprawled in pools of crimson. She stepped over one, her boot nudging a fallen blade, its edge glinting in the dim light filtering through the shattered skylight.
Jiang Yukang stood a few paces away, mask in hand, his breathing steadying as he wiped a streak of blood from his cheek. The man who'd just torn through trained killers like paper was her husband—yet in that moment, he felt like a stranger. His hazel eyes flicked to her, sharp and unreadable, and she couldn't shake the image of him moving through the fray, a shadow of death cloaked in precision. The masked kingpin. Her ally. Her enigma.
