The young hostess at the front desk blanched under Colin Drake’s aggressive glare. “Do you know who this is?” Colin repeated, his voice carrying clearly over the soft jazz playing in the foyer.

Mason’s heart stopped for a single fraction of a second.

He dialed Elise’s phone immediately. It went straight to voicemail.

He ran to his pickup truck, jammed the key into the ignition, and sped toward Elise’s suburban house six miles away.

When he arrived, the front door was kicked off its hinges.

Mason pulled a hidden tactical knife from under his steering wheel, moving through the front doorway with lethal speed, checking every corner of the house.

In the living room, Elise was tied to a chair, a bruised cheek swelling near her eye, her mouth covered with duct tape.

Mason rushed over, cutting the ropes with a quick flick of his blade, pulling the tape away.

"Elise! Are you okay? Where is Sophie?" Mason asked, his voice trembling with a rare, terrifying panic.

"Mason... I'm sorry," Elise sobbed, clutching her bruised arm. "Four men in black suits... they had guns with suppressors. They knocked me down and dragged Sophie out the back door... They said to tell you Victor Kross sends his regards."

Mason stood up slowly. The air around him seemed to drop ten degrees. The quiet, gentle waiter who carried plates and joked with customers was completely gone.

In his place stood the deadliest operative the United States military had ever produced.

Mason walked out to his truck, opened the lockbox buried beneath the bed of his truck, and pulled out a heavy black leather bag he hadn't opened in three years.

Inside lay two customized Suppressed Glock 19 pistols, tactical body armor, night-vision goggles, and a encrypted radio transmitter.

He pulled the tactical vest over his black shirt, holstered the pistols, and checked the magazines with cold, rhythmic efficiency.

He picked up his phone and dialed General Vance one last time.

"Vance," Mason said, his voice dropping into a register that made the military director freeze. "Victor Kross took my daughter. They are at Jace Rourke's private training facility on the east side of town."