"Hey, Farrah! Open up! I know you're in there!" A heavy boot slammed against the rusted iron door of the condemned Brooklyn apartment, bending the metal frame inward with a screech. On the threadbare living room rug, two-and-a-half-year-old Clemmy Bond flinched. Her tiny shoulders shook, and the red crayon slipped from her fingers, snapping in half on the floorboards. Tears welled in her eyes as she reached out with hands covered in purple frostbite sores to pick up the broken pieces. On the folding cot nearby, twenty-four-year-old Farrah Mathis forced her eyes open. A hundred-and-four-degree fever burned through her veins, turning her face chalk-white. "Clemmy, don't be scared. Come to Mommy." Farrah's voice scraped her dry throat like sandpaper. She threw off the faded blanket, stumbled off the cot, and lunged across the room. She pulled her frail daughter behind her back just as her vision went black at the edges. Clemmy's small fists bunched tightly into the hem of Farrah's shirt, anchoring Farrah to the floor. Crash! The deadbolt tore out of the rotting wood. The iron door slammed against the wall, shaking loose a shower of peeling plaster. Freezing rain and wind howled into the cramped room as Caiden Robles, the son of Farrah's adoptive mother, stomped inside in muddy sneakers, reeking of cheap whiskey. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the mother and daughter huddled on the floor. "Quit playing dead!" Caiden roared. "Today's payday, isn't it? Where's the money? Cough it up today or I'll tear you apart!" Spotting nothing on the rickety table, Caiden swept his arm across it. The only drinking glass in the room shattered against the floorboards. A jagged shard sliced across Farrah's cheek, drawing a bright red line against her pale skin. Farrah bit her bloodless lip until it tasted like copper. "Caiden! Every cent of that money went to Clemmy's pneumonia inhalers! There isn't a single dollar left in this house!" As her adoptive brother stomped closer, Farrah spread her arms wide, shielding her trembling child behind her thin frame. At the words "not a single dollar," Caiden's face twisted with fury. He lunged forward, grabbed Farrah's soaked collar, and backhanded her across the face. Weakened by the raging fever, Farrah hit the floor hard. Her skull cracked against the wooden edge of the baseboard with a sickening thud. Stars burst across her vision, and for a moment the room went dark at the edges—but she did not pass out. She lay there gasping, her cheek pressed against the cold floorboards, blood trickling from her split lip. "Bad man! Don't hit Mommy!" Clemmy's high-pitched cry pierced the room. Moving on short, unsteady legs, the toddler stepped in front of her fallen mother and spread her thin arms wide. Tears spilled down her chubby cheeks, but she glared up at her vicious uncle, her little chest heaving. Caiden sneered down at the toddler. "You little bastard, we don't even know who your father is, and you're barking at me before you're even weaned?" He reached down with a nicotine-stained hand, grabbed the back collar of Clemmy's frayed sweater, and hoisted her straight into the air. Clemmy kicked her legs helplessly above the floor. The tight wool choked her throat, turning her soft face a dark, suffocating red. Still groaning on the floor, Farrah dragged herself forward. Her bloody fingers clawed at the cuff of Caiden's jeans. Caiden spat on the floorboards and drove his heavy heel straight into Farrah's bruised shoulder, kicking her aside. Carrying the thrashing toddler in one hand, he strode over to the broken eighth-floor window. Rain lashed against his grinning face as he shoved Clemmy right out over the stone sill into empty air. "Give me the money, or I let go and send her straight to hell!" Farrah's fingernails tore against the splintered wood, leaving bloody streaks as she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Let her go! Please let her go! I'll borrow it! I'll trade my life for it!" Outside the window, the gale tore at Clemmy's wet collar. A dark green jade pendant carved with dragons slipped out from her shirt, dangling from a red cord. Caiden's eyes lit up with greed. "Imperial green jade! So you were hiding the good stuff!" He reached out with his free hand and yanked hard on the red string. The cord snapped, but the jade stayed whole. Clemmy reached out to grab it, her worn sweater tore at the seam, and Caiden's wet palm slipped. The tiny body plummeted straight down into the pitch-black rainstorm eight stories below. In the split second she fell, the loose jade pendant flared with a blinding dark-gold light shaped like a coiling dragon, wrapping the falling toddler inside a warm, glowing cocoon.

The dark-gold current wrapped around Clemmy like a giant hand, slowing her fatal drop through the storm, though the sheer force of the fall still battered her tiny frame. Down on the muddy street corner, a deafening boom echoed above the thunder. The reinforced roof of a custom bulletproof Maybach parked at the curb caved straight in. Thick armor plating buckled into a deep crater, and spiderweb cracks shot across every bulletproof window. In the driver's seat, Arthur Hayes, a retired special forces veteran and head bodyguard, whipped out his tactical pistol. "Ambush! Protect the Patriarch!" The heavy rear door slid open without a sound. Ellwood Bond, the retired patriarch of the Bond financial empire, stepped out into the pouring rain wearing a black cashmere coat and gripping a solid gold cane carved with nine dragons. Ellwood raised a hand to halt Arthur's aim, his sharp eyes locking onto the caved-in roof. Lying in the center of the dented steel was a two-year-old child in a blood-soaked sweater, her face as white as paper. A thin trail of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth, and her chest barely moved. Only the dark-green jade resting against her heart gave off a faint golden glow. Arthur gasped, lowering his gun. "Dear God... it's a kid! Did she fall from the building?" Ellwood's boots froze in the muddy puddle. The pale streetlight cut through the rain, illuminating the toddler's face. The curve of her brow and the exact structure of her jaw were an exact match to childhood photos of his second son, Harvy Bond, who was currently lying in a coma on life support. The Wall Street tyrant, a man who controlled half the nation's economy without blinking, felt his hands shake uncontrollably. Ignoring the filthy rainwater, Ellwood reached out with trembling fingers and gently brushed the blood-matted baby hair away from the child's forehead. His gaze dropped to the dark-green dragon jade pendant resting against the child's chest, smeared with blood. Ellwood dropped to one knee in the mud and lifted the bloodstained jade from the child's chest. His breath stopped dead in his throat. He rubbed his rough thumb across the back of the stone, feeling the microscopic engraving of nine hidden dragons—a secret mark known only to the direct ruling heads of the Bond family. A roar tore from the old man's chest, splitting the quiet night. "Arthur! Forget the ambulance! Have the escort convoy clear the roads and drive at full speed to St. Luke's First General Hospital!" Ellwood's eyes turned bloodred. "Activate the Bond family's highest medical clearance! If anyone delays us by a single second, I'll have their head!" Shaken to his core, Arthur barked orders into his encrypted earpiece, mobilizing the three full-size Cadillac escort SUVs parked behind them. Without caring about the blood soaking into his priceless coat, Ellwood leaned over the dented roof and lifted the toddler into his arms. He held her against his chest as if she were spun from glass. In the depths of her shock, Clemmy's pale lips parted in a faint whimper. "...Hurts... Mommy..." Her cold, tiny hand twitched in the air before her fingers curled weakly around the silk lapel of Ellwood's suit jacket. Feeling that tiny tug against his chest, the iron-fisted patriarch felt hot tears spill down his weathered cheeks. "Don't be scared, little one. Grandpa is right here. Even if the Grim Reaper himself shows up tonight, I'll use everything the Bond family owns to buy your life back!" Seconds later, the black convoy tore down the rain-slicked expressway with sirens wailing, slicing straight toward Manhattan's medical district. Inside the underground VIP emergency tunnel of St. Luke's First General Hospital, the hospital director and thirty top surgical specialists stood in dead silence, dragged from their beds by the midnight code-red alert. The Maybach screeched to a halt. Ellwood stepped out carrying the bloody child and bellowed at the pale director. "Lock down the entire floor! Don't ask a single useless question—just keep her alive!" Ellwood yanked up his coat sleeve and shoved his bare forearm into the director's face. "Draw my blood! Open the top genetics lab and get me a rush DNA report before her surgery ends!" As the red light above the emergency operating room Doors snapped on, Ellwood slumped back against the cold tile wall, his fist clenched so tightly around the bloodstained dragon jade pendant that its carved edges pressed into his palm.

On the top-floor VIP isolation wing of St. Luke's First General Hospital, the sharp smell of rubbing alcohol mixed with the suffocating tension rolling off Ellwood Bond. His personal assistant, Richard Sullivan, hurried past two rows of armed guards, holding a black classified folder sealed with wax in both hands. Ellwood didn't wait for Richard to bow. He snatched the folder and ripped the security seal open with vein-roped fingers. His gaze dropped straight to the final conclusion line at the bottom of the page. The rush sequencing from the American Genetic Bio-Lab read: Sample A (Ellwood Bond) and Sample B (Patient Clemmy) confirmed as direct lineal second-generation blood relatives. Match probability: 99.99%. With his eldest son Bede missing overseas for twenty years and his second son Harvy lying brain-dead in a coma, this piece of paper hit the old man's chest like a bolt of lightning. "God hasn't abandoned the Bond family! Harvy's bloodline isn't broken!" Ellwood slammed the tip of his gold cane against the floor tiles, sending a sharp echo down the hallway. He spun around, his eyes blazing. "Put this entire top floor under martial lockdown! Bring in our private security contractors. Anyone who steps foot in here without my written order is to be shot on sight!" He jabbed a finger at Richard. "Get Aries on his private line right now! Tell him to drag himself out of whatever woman's bed he's in and get over here!" At that exact moment, inside a private dining room at a three-Michelin-star French restaurant on Fifth Avenue, Ellwood's youngest son, Aries Bond, was lazily swirling champagne in a crystal flute. Across the table sat Cher Mitchell, an influencer who played the pure society darling online. Dressed in a white lace dress, she leaned forward with a sweet smile. "Aries, did you really talk to that Hollywood director about giving me the lead role?" Aries offered a careless smirk, his fingers brushing the black obsidian stud in his left ear. "Long as it makes you happy, dropping twenty million bucks is nothing." Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone on the tablecloth buzzed. The red caller ID flashed: The Old Man. Aries swiped the screen and held it to his ear. A roar loud enough to burst his eardrum blasted through the speaker. "You useless brat! Get your ass to the top-floor ICU at St. Luke's Hospital in ten minutes! If you're one second late, I'll freeze every trust fund under your name and strike you from the family register!" Click. The line went dead. The lazy smile vanished from Aries's face. Since his second brother Harvy's fatal car crash, his father hadn't used that tone once. "Sorry, top-level family emergency. Eat by yourself." Aries grabbed his trench coat, stood up, and tossed a limitless black Centurion card onto the table without looking at Cher. Cher's gentle expression cracked. She lunged across the table and grabbed his sleeve. "Aries! How could you do this to me and leave me here all alone..." Aries yanked his arm free, his green eyes turning ice-cold. "Know your place. I don't have time to play house with you right now." Ignoring her gasp, Aries strode out of the restaurant, jumped into his red Ferrari in the pouring rain, and floored the gas pedal all the way to the metal. Twenty minutes later, Aries sprinted out of the hospital elevator and froze at the sight of twenty armed Blackwater mercenaries lining the corridor. Pale-faced, he ran to the end of the hall where his father stood. "Dad! What happened? Did something go wrong with Harvy's life support?" Without a word, Ellwood shoved the crumpled DNA report straight into his youngest son's chest. Aries looked down at the "99.99% relationship match" and the attached photo of a baby girl who looked just like Harvy. His voice cracked. "Harvy... has a daughter out there? And she's two and a half?" Ellwood pointed a shaking finger at the surgical tray holding the bloody nine-dragon jade. "Your brother wore that jade against his skin for twenty years. You tell me if it's real!" Right then, the heavy lead doors of the operating room hissed open. The chief surgeon stumbled out soaked in sweat, pulled down his mask, and looked at them with dead eyes. "Mr. Bond... the child's heart has stopped completely. We are calling the time of death." Aries felt the blood rush to his head with a deafening roar. He lunged forward, grabbed the chief surgeon by the collar, and slammed the renowned doctor straight against the tile wall. "You let my niece die? I'll tear this hospital to the ground! Get back in there and bring her back! If she doesn't wake up, your whole family is getting buried with her!"