The sound of glass breaking was what Lian remembered most. Not the gunfire, not the shouts, but that sharp, delicate sound that didn’t belong in a home. It came from the kitchen window, then another from the living room, then silence, heavy and waiting.

  Kai had been asleep on the couch, his hand dangling over the side, a toy robot half-buried under his palm. Their mother was in her study, and their father had just stepped out to answer a call. Ordinary things, quiet things. The kind of night that shouldn’t have meant anything.

  Lian stood in the hallway, frozen, because something about that silence didn’t feel right. Then her mother’s voice came, low and quick. “Lian, get your brother. Now.”

  It wasn’t panic she heard—it was precision. Her mother never panicked. That scared Lian more than anything.

  She ran to Kai, shook him awake. He blinked up, confused, still half in dreams. “What’s going on?”

  “Get up. Don’t talk.”

  The back door creaked. Footsteps, slow and careful. Lian’s heart went wild in her chest. She pushed Kai under the couch, pressing a finger to her lips before she moved toward the corner of the living room.

  Her mother stepped out from the study holding the old revolver her father never let her touch. Her hair was pulled back tight, her movements calm. She looked like someone who had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

  “Get out of the house,” she said. “Take your brother and run to the alley. Don’t look back.”

  Lian wanted to ask what was happening, but the words caught in her throat.

  The front door burst open. A man stepped through first—black tactical gear, mask, rifle. Behind him, two more. They didn’t shout. They didn’t threaten. They just moved, smooth and cold, like this wasn’t the first home they had done this in.

  Her mother fired once. The sound cracked through the house. One of the men fell.

  Then everything became noise.

  Lian grabbed Kai and pulled him out from under the couch. He was crying silently, clutching her sleeve. She dragged him toward the kitchen, toward the back door. She could hear her mother shouting—something, maybe her name—but she couldn’t make out the words over the gunfire.

  In the kitchen, the floor was covered in glass. Lian’s feet slipped, but she kept going. A hand grabbed her from behind, fingers like iron around her arm. She turned and bit, hard, tasting blood that wasn’t hers. The man grunted and let go, just enough for her to push Kai through the open window.

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  “Run,” she said.

  He hesitated, eyes wide, terrified.

  “Go!”

  He scrambled out. Lian turned back—and saw her mother fall. A shadow moved behind her. The revolver hit the floor.

  Something broke inside her. She didn’t remember screaming, but her throat hurt later, so she must have. She didn’t remember picking up the gun, either. But she remembered firing it until the chamber clicked empty.

  By the time she climbed out the window, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely grip the sill. Kai was waiting by the alley, hugging his knees, small and pale under the streetlight.

  “Mom?” he whispered.

  Lian couldn’t answer. She took his hand, pulled him up, and they ran.

  They didn’t stop for a long time.

  When they finally did, it was behind a dumpster near an old noodle shop a few blocks away. Lian sat down hard, breathing fast. Kai was trembling, his lips blue from the cold. She wrapped her arms around him.

  “We have to go back,” he said finally, voice breaking. “We have to help them.”

  Lian shook her head. “They’re gone.”

  He didn’t believe her. She didn’t either. Not yet.

  They stayed there until dawn. The sirens came first, then flashing lights. They watched from across the street as people in uniforms went in and out of what used to be their home. No one looked in their direction.

  When the ambulance doors shut, Kai turned away. Lian kept watching. She wanted to see their faces. She wanted to know who had done it.

  She didn’t know yet that those faces belonged to LSK.

  She only knew that the world had split open that night.

  Later, someone would find them—a contact of their father’s, a man with tired eyes who said he owed the family a debt. He took them to a safehouse in Kowloon, gave them food, told them to keep quiet.

  Lian didn’t sleep for three days.

  Kai tried to ask questions. “Why did they come for us? What did we do?”

  She didn’t have answers. Only the sound of glass breaking in her head, over and over.

  By the fourth night, she found a small pistol in a box under the cot. She picked it up and held it for a long time, staring at her reflection in the metal.

  The man who’d brought them there came in and watched her. “You shouldn’t hold that unless you mean to use it.”

  “I do,” she said.

  He studied her face. “You’re too young to talk like that.”

  She didn’t look away. “I’m not young anymore.”

  He sighed, sat beside her. “Your parents were good people. They were trying to build something to protect others. That’s why they were killed. The men who did it… they don’t stop.”

  Lian said nothing.

  “They’ll come for you eventually,” he added. “If you want to live, you need to learn how to disappear.”

  She looked down at the gun again. “No. I’ll learn how to find them.”

  He didn’t argue after that.

  Years later, when Kai built his first tracker and Lian took her first job in the shadows, neither of them ever spoke of that night again.

  But every time Lian heard the sound of glass breaking, her heart still froze the same way.

  It was the sound of everything ending.

  And the beginning of what they were about to become.