“Mom, you need to come… his family hurt me.” A U.S. Marine Colonel raced to the emergency room to shield her daughter. But when one of the state's most elite dynasties attempted to bully her into submission, they realized a second too late that they had cornered the wrong mother.

Rats will always turn on each other when the ship begins to sink.

Inside the La Jolla estate, the tension had reached a breaking point. The FBI had frozen the corporate accounts. The stock price of Sterling Real Estate had plummeted by sixty percent.

Pierce paced the marble floors of the living room, pouring himself a massive glass of bourbon. "We're dead. The feds are going to raid this house by tomorrow. I'm taking the Gulfstream and flying to non-extradition territory. Dubai, maybe."

"You're not going anywhere!" Eleanor shrieked, her hair disheveled, her silk robe stained with spilled wine. "We stand together! We fight this!"

"Fight this with what, Mother?!" Pierce roared. "Julian's accounts are at zero! My name is on a federal kidnapping warrant! It's over!"

Julian sat on the sofa, staring blankly at his phone. "It was supposed to be easy. She was just a quiet, obedient girl. I didn't know her mother was a... a monster."

Pierce turned his rage onto his brother. "This is your fault! You couldn't keep your hands off her! You couldn't just play the perfect husband! Now we're all going to federal prison because you couldn't control your temper!"

Pierce lunged at Julian, grabbing him by the collar of his designer shirt and throwing him over the glass coffee table. The table shattered. Julian scrambled backward, his face bleeding from a cut on his cheek.

"Stop it! Both of you!" Eleanor screamed, trying to pull them apart.

But Pierce shoved his mother aside. "I'm calling the US Attorney. I'm cutting a deal. I'll give them the cartel ledgers, I'll give them everything you and Julian did, if they grant me immunity for the mercenaries."

Julian’s eyes widened in betrayal. "You would sell out your own family?"

"I would sell my soul to stay out of a federal penitentiary!" Pierce spat.