My truck broke down, so I came home 6 weeks early and found my son Tyler missing. My wife claimed he was at an “enrichment program.” One hour later, I found him trapped inside a 95°F greenhouse, underweight and begging me not to leave. Then he told me about another little boy.

We scrambled to the floor as glass rained down on the living room. Sarah screamed, pulling Lauren behind the kitchen counter.

I peeked over the windowsill. Outside, a black SUV was parked on the curb. Two men in dark suits, the same 'security' Voss employed, were walking toward the porch. One of them had a heavy metal baton; the other had a crowbar.

"Lauren!" one of them shouted. "Mr. Voss wants you to come back to the office. You’re violating your contract. Don't make this difficult!"

"They followed her," I realized, my blood boiling. "They must have put a tracker on her car."

"What do we do?" Sarah whimpered, clutching her phone. "I'm calling the police!"

"The police are ten minutes away," I said, looking around the room. "They'll be inside by then."

I stood up, grabbing a heavy wooden dining chair. "Stay down," I told Lauren and Sarah.

The front door splintered as the man with the crowbar kicked it in. He stepped into the hallway, his face cold and determined. But he didn't expect me.

I swung the wooden chair with all my strength, catching him squarely in the chest. The chair shattered, and he flew backward off the porch, crashing into the bushes.

The second man lunged at me with the baton. I ducked under his swing, drove my shoulder into his midsection, and slammed him against the hallway wall. He gasped, dropping the baton. I grabbed him by the collar and threw him out the open door, landing him next to his partner.

"Get out of here!" I roared, standing on the porch, my chest heaving, the broken leg of the chair held like a club. "If you come back, I won't stop at a chair!"

The two men scrambled up, bruised and bleeding. They looked at me, then at the sound of distant sirens—Sarah’s call had gone through. They realized they had lost the element of surprise. They ran back to the SUV, threw it into reverse, and sped away, leaving a trail of rubber on the asphalt.