I froze in the middle of a crowded street when my eight-year-old son grabbed my hand and whispered, “Dad… that’s Mom.” Three years after I buried my wife, a homeless woman looked up from a piece of cardboard—and five quiet words from her lips shattered everything I believed about her death.

"Drop the drive, Ethan," Vance commanded, his voice devoid of any human empathy. "And perhaps I'll let your son live out his childhood in an orphanage instead of a cemetery."

Tessa stepped in front of me, shielding me with her own body. "Take me, Vance! You want the evidence, you want me dead—fine! Just let Ethan go. He knows nothing!"

"He knows too much now, my dear," Vance sneered, gesturing to his men. "Kill them both. Make it look like a tragic murder-suicide of a deranged, grieving husband."

Before the mercenary on the right could pull his trigger, a sharp crack shattered the night air. The man dropped instantly, a clean bullet hole through his chest. Marcus’s sniper rifle.

"Get down!" I screamed, tackling Tessa into the grass behind a large granite obelisk as a hail of suppressed gunfire erupted, chipping away pieces of the marble headstone above us.

Crack! Another mercenary fell.

"Flank them!" Vance roared, retreating toward his armored vehicle.

I looked at the silver drive in my hand, then at the mercenaries advancing on our position. Pure, unadulterated rage took over. These people had taken everything from us. I gripped the crowbar, and as the third mercenary rounded the obelisk, I swung it with all my might, catching him square in the jaw. He went down hard. I grabbed his dropped handgun—a weapon I had learned to use during my college years as a sport shooter.

I fired three rounds into the chest of the remaining mercenary who was charging toward Tessa. He crumpled to the ground.