You’re lying! You hurt me every day!” Four-year-old Sophie Bennett’s scream shattered the silence inside her family’s luxurious Malibu beach house.

Ethan stood in front of the reinforced window of the ninth-floor hospital room, his body shielding the glass completely. His heart pounded like a war drum in his chest, but his face remained a mask of iron.

"Kane!" Ethan barked quietly, holding his phone out to the detective.

Kane rushed over, read the text message, and instantly pulled his radio. "Code Red! All units, we have an active sniper threat outside the West Pavilion! Lockdown ninth floor immediately! Get SWAT on the perimeter!"

Sirens began echoing through the hospital hallways as the emergency lockdown protocols engaged. Heavy steel fire doors slammed shut across the corridors. Armed LAPD officers flooded the ninth-floor lobby, pulling drawn sidearms, taking defensive positions by the elevators.

Officer Miller quickly pulled the heavy blackout blinds shut over the room’s windows, then helped Ethan slide Sophie’s hospital bed away from the glass toward the reinforced interior bathroom wall.

Sophie woke up from the commotion, her big hazel eyes wide with confusion and terror. "Daddy? What's happening? Is the bad lady back?"

Ethan dropped to his knees beside her bed, taking her tiny, trembling hands in his. He forced a soft, warm, completely confident smile onto his face.

"No, baby," Ethan whispered smoothly, kissing her forehead. "The bad lady is in jail. Daddy is just playing a special game with the police officers to make sure you have the quietest sleep ever. Do you remember the game where we hide in the fortress?"

Sophie nodded hesitantly, clutching her small teddy bear. "The superhero fortress?"

"Exactly," Ethan said gently, wrapping his arms around her, sitting on the floor with his back against the solid concrete wall, pulling her securely against his chest. "Daddy is your superhero, Sophie. Nothing in this world can hurt you through me."

Outside the hospital, heavy rain began to fall, slicking the streets of Los Angeles.

Detective Kane stood by the door, his earpiece buzzing with live chatter from the SWAT tactical team positioned on the roofs of adjacent buildings.

"We located the sniper perch, Mr. Bennett," Kane reported quietly ten minutes later, his face dripping with sweat. "It was set up in an abandoned parking structure three hundred yards west. But the suspect is gone. He used a remote-controlled trip-pod rifle mounted with a thermal scope and a cellular trigger."

"Carter," Ethan growled. "He's trying to force a plea bargain for Vanessa before she talks to the District Attorney."

"He's desperate," Kane said. "And desperate men make fatal mistakes. We're moving you and Sophie to a secure federal safehouse in the Hollywood Hills right now via an underground medical tunnel."

"No," Ethan said coldly, standing up, his eyes flashing with tactical calculation. "A safehouse is a defensive trap. If Carter knows we're hiding, he'll keep hunting us. He'll hit my office, my employees, my family friends."

"What are you suggesting, Bennett?" Kane asked, frowning.

"We use the bait he wants," Ethan said flatly. "Me."

Ethan pulled out his phone and showed Kane a new text that had just arrived from Arthur Pendelton: