PEOPLE DISAPPEARED FROM MY WORLD FOR ONLY TWO REASONS. THEY BETRAYED ME. OR THEY WERE AFRAID OF ME.

The rain had turned into a torrential downpour by 11:30 PM.

My convoy of black SUVs idled three blocks away from Pier 49. The old shipyard was a sprawling labyrinth of rusted shipping containers, decaying cranes, and shattered glass. It was where my father had built his empire. It was where Elias had died.

It was fitting that it would end here.

I sat in the mobile command unit with Brendan, staring at the blueprints of the shipyard spread across the table.

“Silas has twenty men on the perimeter,” Brendan reported, tapping the thermal imaging screen. “Heavily armed. They’re expecting you to walk through the front gate with a briefcase, boss. They’ve got snipers on the gantries.”

“Let them watch the front gate,” I said, stripping off my overcoat and strapping a Kevlar vest over my chest. I slid two extra magazines into my belt.

“If we breach by force, they’ll execute Tessa and the boy before we get to the main warehouse,” Brendan warned.

“We aren't breaching from the street.” I pointed to the water on the blueprint. “The old smuggler tunnels. My father built them in the seventies. They flood at high tide, but tide is out. They lead straight beneath the main warehouse floor.”

Brendan stared at me. “You want to go in through the floorboards?”

“I’m going in through the floorboards,” I corrected him. “You and the men will hit the front gate at exactly midnight. Make it loud. Make it spectacular. Pull every gun they have toward the street.”

“And you?”

“I get my family back.”

Family. The word tasted strange, but absolutely right on my tongue.

I left the truck and moved through the shadows alone. The rain masked the sound of my footsteps. I found the rusted grate near the shoreline. It took all my strength to pry it open.

The tunnel smelled of rotting seaweed and decades of stagnant water. I waded through waist-deep muck, my flashlight off, navigating strictly by memory. Twenty-three years ago, Elias and I had used this exact tunnel to escape a raid.

Ten minutes later, I was directly beneath the main warehouse. Above me, I could hear the heavy thud of boots on steel grating. Voices.

And then, a sound that made my blood freeze.

A child, crying softly.

“Shut the kid up,” a rough voice barked above me.

“Don't you yell at him,” a woman’s voice snapped back. Fierce. Unbroken. Tessa.

“Quiet, sweetheart,” Silas drawled. “Marcus will be here in five minutes. Once he hands over the deed, I’ll let you watch him die. Then I’ll figure out what to do with the brat.”

I found the maintenance hatch above my head. I placed my hands flat against the cold iron.

I waited.

At exactly midnight, the night erupted.

Outside, a deafening explosion shattered the silence. The warehouse walls shook as Brendan and my men blew the front gates off their hinges. Automatic gunfire tore through the rain.

“They’re hitting the front!” someone screamed above me.

“Hold the line!” Silas roared. “Two of you, stay with the hostages! The rest, to the doors!”

Footsteps pounded away from my position.

I pushed the hatch open.

I rose from the floor like a ghost returning from the grave, water dripping from my clothes, my gun already raised.

Two of Silas’s thugs were standing over two figures tied to steel chairs.

They never even saw me coming.

Pop. Pop.

Silenced shots. Both men dropped to the concrete before they could unholster their weapons.

I stepped fully into the dim light of the warehouse.

Tessa was tied to the chair, her face bruised, her lip split. Beside her, my son was sobbing, his small hands bound with zip ties.

Tessa looked up. Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

“Marcus,” she breathed.

I rushed forward, pulling a combat knife from my boot. I cut the boy loose first. He practically collapsed, terrified. I caught him. I looked into his eyes—my eyes—and brushed the tears from his cheeks.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I’m your…” I choked on the word. “I’m here.”

I turned to cut Tessa’s binds.