The slap echoed through the diner like a gunshot, and for one frozen second, nobody moved.

"Down!" Mason roared.

In a fraction of a second, his combat reflexes took over. He grabbed Elena by the waist, sweeping her off her feet, and dove through the front door of the ranch house as a second round chewed through the doorframe, showering them in splintered pine.

They crashed onto the living room floor, Mason pinning Elena beneath his body, shielding her head and torso with his own bulk.

*Crack! Crack!*

Two more supersonic rounds punched through the front window, blowing the glass inward and destroying the framed family photographs on the mantelpiece.

"Marcus!" Mason bellowed into his tactical watch, his voice completely level despite the chaos. "Sniper on the ridge, three hundred yards out! North-northwest! Move Mia to the safe room at the estate now! Do not approach this position!"

"Mason!" Elena gasped beneath him, her hands clutching his shoulders. "Are you hit?"

"Negative," he snapped, rolling off her and staying low beneath the window line. He drew the SIG Sauer from beneath his jacket. "Bolt-action rifle. Large caliber, probably .300 Winchester Magnum. He’s adjusting for windage."

Another bullet ripped through the wall, punching a hole through the drywall right where Elena had been sitting ten seconds earlier.

"Julian," Elena whispered, her face pale with fury. "He’s not waiting for the board meeting."

"He knows he lost the board after Friday night," Mason said, crawling toward the hallway closet where he kept his military go-bag. "This isn't an intimidation tactic. This is an assassination."

He retrieved a matte-black tactical rifle—an AR-10 chambered in 7.62 NATO—and two magazines. He checked the action with a crisp *clack*.

"Stay behind the brick chimney," Mason commanded, turning to face her. "Do not move until I clear the ridge."

"Mason, don't go out there!" Elena grabbed his forearm, her fingers digging into his flesh. "He has the high ground!"

Mason looked down at her. In the shadows of the darkened living room, his eyes burned with the lethal clarity of a Navy SEAL returning to his element.

"He made a mistake," Mason said softly.

"What mistake?"

"He shot at my house. With you inside it."

Mason slipped out the rear kitchen door into the deepening darkness, disappearing into the Pennsylvania brush like a ghost.

***

High on the wooded ridge overlooking the Cole property, a professional hitman dressed in winter camouflage adjusted the scope of his suppressed Remington 700. He had been promised half a million dollars by Julian Vance’s intermediary to ensure neither Elena Wren nor the mechanic survived the night.

He scanned the shattered living room window through his thermal optics. Movement.

He rested his finger on the trigger.

A heavy hand clamped over his mouth from behind, and a blade pressed against the side of his carotid artery before he could even register a broken twig.

"Drop the rifle," a voice whispered in his ear, colder than the grave. "Or bleed out in the dirt."

The assassin tried to drive an elbow back, but Mason anticipated the strike. He swept the man’s legs, pinned him face-down in the mud, and drove his knee into the small of the sniper’s back, dislocating the man’s right shoulder with a sickening pop.

The assassin cried out into the dirt, his weapon tumbling down the incline.

Mason stripped the man’s sidearm, radio, and phone. He yanked the hitman’s head back by the collar.

"Who hired you?" Mason growled.

"Go to hell," the man hissed through gritted teeth.

Mason didn't argue. He leaned down, placing the muzzle of his pistol against the hitman’s kneecap. "You have five seconds before you learn what it feels like to live with a prosthetic, just like the woman you tried to murder. One. Two—"

"Julian Vance!" the man screamed, panic shattering his professional veneer. "Julian Vance! Through a shell broker in Jersey! We were supposed to hit the house tonight, make it look like a home invasion gone wrong!"

"Where is Julian right now?"

"At the Wren Innovations testing facility in King of Prussia! He’s breaking into the mainframe to pull the core algorithms before the board meeting tomorrow! He has six guys with him!"

Mason hit the man behind the ear with the butt of the weapon, knocking him cold. He zip-tied the hitman’s wrists and ankles to a tree trunk, retrieved the encrypted phone, and jogged back down the ridge.

When he burst back into the ranch house, Elena was standing by the chimney, holding a heavy tire iron she had found by the back door, her knuckles white.

Seeing him unharmed, the iron clattered to the floor.

"Mason!"

He caught her as she stumbled toward him, wrapping his arms around her waist. She pressed her face into his chest, trembling not from fear, but from the adrenaline of surviving.

"It's over," he murmured, his hand cradling the back of her head. "We have the connection. And Julian just walked into a trap."

She pulled back, looking into his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"He’s at your tech facility right now, trying to steal the neuro-core before dawn," Mason said, checking the tactical rifle’s battery. "Call Marcus. Tell him to mobilize the state police and the feds."

"What are you going to do?" Elena asked.