The library in my Malibu estate was a piece of peace.

  Outside, the Pacific Ocean was pitch black. Inside, the only light came from the reading lamp and the glow of the tablet screen.

  I turned a page of the first edition Dante's Inferno I was reading. My eyes, however, flicked to the tablet.

  It was displaying a live telemetry feed from 10880 Malibu Point. I wasn't supposed to have access to JARVIS's internal servers, but Tony's firewalls were designed to keep out hackers, not someone who had watched the movies and knew the backdoor overrides he hadn't patched yet.

  On the screen, a wireframe model of the Mark II suit was ascending rapidly.

  Altitude: 40,000 feet. Speed: Mach 1.2.

  "He's pushing it," I murmured, taking a sip of tea.

  I watched the temperature gauge on the screen plummet. Tony was testing the high-altitude capabilities. I knew what was coming. The icing problem.

  Altitude: 85,000 feet.

  The telemetry flickered. The suit's systems were freezing up.

  System Alert: Ice accretion. Control surfaces unresponsive.

  I didn't panic. I didn't reach for the phone. I sat perfectly still, watching the data stream turn red. This was the necessary failure. If he didn't crash tonight, he would freeze to death fighting Obadiah later.

  "Come on, Tony," I whispered. "Deploy the flaps manually."

  A few seconds of static. The altitude dropped like a stone. Then, the sensors flared back to live. The ice broke. He leveled out.

  I exhaled slowly, the tension in my shoulders easing. He was alive. He had learned the lesson.

  Click.

  The sound was soft. Almost imperceptible. It came from the hallway leading to the library.

  I didn't turn around. I carefully marked my page in Dante and closed the book.

  "The security system didn't trigger," I said, my voice calm, addressing the empty room behind me. "Which means you had an access code. Obadiah really is getting desperate."

  Four men stepped out of the shadows.

  They were dressed in tactical black, wearing balaclavas. They moved with the silent, fluid grace of professionals. Ten Rings. Not the desert scavengers Tony dealt with, but the high-end contractors. The kind you sent to kidnap a billionaire shareholder to leverage a vote.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The leader raised a suppressed pistol, aiming it directly at the back of my head.

  "Mr. Raizel," the man said. His accent was Eastern European, thick and cold. "Stand up. Slowly. Hands where I can see them."

  I stayed seated. I picked up my teacup. It was a delicate porcelain piece from the Ming Dynasty.

  "You're tracking mud on the Persian rug," I said. "It's silk. Blood is difficult to get out of silk."

  The leader stepped closer, the gun barrel inches from my head. "This is not a negotiation. Stand up, or I put a bullet in your damn spine and drag you out."

  "You have thirty seconds to leave," I said, taking a sip. "If you leave now, you keep your lives. If you stay, you give me no choice."

  The leader chuckled. It was a dry, humorless sound. He signaled the other three men. They spread out, surrounding the desk. They were efficient. They checked the corners. They were ready for bodyguards.

  They weren't ready for me.

  "Grab him," the leader ordered.

  Two of the men lunged forward, reaching for my arms.

  I sighed. It was a genuine sound of disappointment. I really wanted to finish that chapter.

  I didn't stand up. I didn't look at them. I simply lifted my left hand, fingers slightly curled, and flicked my index finger toward the man on my right.

  Thrum.

  The air pressure in the room spiked instantly. It wasn't magic, not in the way Dr. Strange used magic. It was biological authority. I manipulated the blood.

  The man on the right stopped mid-step. His eyes bulged. He didn't even have time to scream. The blood vessels in his entire body ruptured simultaneously under a localized, crushing gravity.

  Pop.

  He didn't fall. He simply... evaporated. The high-pressure implosion turned his physical form into a fine, red mist that settled instantly onto the floorboards. No body. No mess. Just silence.

  The other three men froze. The leader stared at the empty space where his partner had been a second ago. His brain couldn't process it.

  "What..." the leader stammered, the gun shaking in his hand.

  I turned my chair slowly to face them. My eyes were glowing. Not the soft red of the gala, but a deep, crimson abyss. The Adrian Raizel was gone. This was the Noblesse.

  "I told you," I said softly. "The rug."

  The leader panicked. He squeezed the trigger.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The bullets flew. They were subsonic rounds, designed to be quiet.

  I raised my hand, palm open. The bullets didn't hit a force field. They hit a wall of condensed air and stopped dead, hovering three inches from my face.

  I looked at the lead spinning in the air. "Rude."

  I clenched my fist.

  The bullets crumbled into dust.

  Then, I looked at the remaining three men. I didn't feel anger. I felt... boredom. They were ants biting at a statue.

  "Kneel," I commanded.

  It wasn't a suggestion. The word carried a psychic weight that slammed into their nervous systems. All three men dropped to their knees, their bones cracking against the hardwood floor. The guns clattered from their hands.

  They couldn't breathe. They were clawing at their throats, their faces turning purple.

  "Tell whoever sent you," I said, leaning forward slightly, "that Stark Industries is under new management. The kind that doesn't negotiate with terrorists."

  I paused. "Actually... don't tell them. Dead men tell no tales."

  I snapped my fingers.

  Snap.

  The pressure wave hit them. All three men vanished into the same red mist.

  Silence returned to the library.

  I picked up a napkin and dabbed a microscopic speck of red from the edge of my desk. I tossed the napkin into the wastebasket.

  I turned back to the tablet.

  On the screen, the Mark II was crashing through the roof of Tony's Malibu mansion, taking out a grand piano and a Shelby Cobra.

  Impact detected. Suit integrity: 12%. Pilot status: Alive.

  "Messy," I critiqued, picking up my book again. "But he stuck the landing."

  I reopened Dante's Inferno.

  The carpet would need to be professionally cleaned tomorrow. I'd have to deduct it from the security budget.