The Coda Club was no longer a sanctuary; it was a slaughterhouse of red neon and flying glass.
Ren lunged for the back exit, the duffel bag—filled with the three million euros they'd just traded the Stradivarius for—clutched to his chest.
Brazil. Mia's future. Jace's way out.
Everything—inside one bag.
But as he reached the steel door, a shadow detached itself from the smoke. It wasn't a "cleaner"—it was Vance, his father's personal enforcer.
"Going somewhere, little Maestro?" Vance didn't use a gun. He swung a heavy iron pipe, catching Ren across the ribs.
Ren collapsed, the air leaving his lungs in a sickening wheeze. He tasted copper. Through the haze of pain, he saw Jace across the room, pinned behind a marble pillar, trading fire with three men.
"JACE!" Ren's voice was a ragged shred.
Jace's head snapped around. He saw Vance dragging Ren by the collar, the heavy knife at Ren's throat. Jace's eyes didn't just go cold—they went hollow.
"Jace, look at me!" Vance shouted, his grin a jagged line of malice. "The Titan wants his son back. Drop the gun, or I open his throat right here."
Jace stood up from behind the pillar. He wasn't hiding anymore. In that moment, he had a clear shot at Arthur's lead lawyer on the balcony—the man who held the keys to Jace's freedom. One bullet and Jace's legal record would be wiped clean forever.
Revenge and Freedom were right there.
But then he looked at Ren. Ren was shaking, his eyes wide and wet, his hand reaching out toward Jace as if he were the only light left in a dying world.
"Choose, Drummer," Vance hissed. "The kill... or the boy?"
Jace didn't hesitate. He let his Glock clatter to the concrete floor.
"Jace, no!" Ren sobbed.
"I don't care about the record, Ren," Jace said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he walked into the open, a wide-open target. "I only care about you."
Vance laughed, but before he could plunge the knife, Jace became a storm. He slammed into Vance with the force of a freight train. It wasn't a clean fight. It was a physical war. Jace took a blade to the shoulder just to get a hand around Vance's throat.
"Jace, behind you!" Ren screamed.
A second cleaner was leveling a shotgun at Jace's back. Ren looked at the duffel bag in his hands—the three million euros. Their only hope.
With a scream of pure agony, Ren didn't run. He swung the heavy bag of cash like a flail, hitting the gunman with the full weight of the money. The bag burst. Three million euros in untraceable bills exploded into the air like confetti, fluttering through the red strobe lights and the smoke.
Their future was literally flying away in the wind, but the gunman was down.
Ren stood there, gasping, surrounded by millions of useless scraps of paper. He had thrown away their fortune to save Jace's life.
Jace stood up, blood dripping from his shoulder, looking at the money littering the floor. He didn't look angry. He looked awestruck.
"We have nothing now, Jace," Ren whispered.
"Nothing left".
The tears finally falling as the police breached the front doors. "The money is gone. We're going to die here."
Jace grabbed Ren's face, his bloody thumbs wiping away the tears.
"That was just paper, Ren."
"You're the only thing in this world I can't lose."
Outside, the first flash-bang of the police breach detonated, turning the world into a blinding, silent white.