SHATTERED TIES ACROSS THE GLASS TOWER

Ethan lunged forward, the zip-ties tearing into his flesh as a primal roar tore from his throat. The two mercenaries slammed him brutally onto the deck, pinning his head against the cold fiberglass.

"Touch her again and I will tear your throat out with my bare teeth, Victoria!" Ethan snarled, his face pressed against the deck, blood trickling from his lip.

Victoria didn't flinch. She slid the knife back into her boot, waving her hand casually to the men holding Lily. "Load them into the chopper."

"Ethan!" Elena sobbed as she was forced into the hoist harness, her hands bound. She looked back at him, her eyes pleading with all the love and agony of the past six years. "Save our daughter!"

"I will find you!" Ethan shouted against the roar of the helicopter blades. "Elena, look at me! I will find both of you!"

Lily was secured beside Elena. As the winch began to pull them upward into the sky, the little girl looked down through the rotor mist. Her small voice was lost in the deafening thunder of the aircraft, but Ethan read her lips through the glare of the spotlight:

*I believe in you, Daddy.*

The helicopter ascended into the grey clouds, banking sharply south toward the mainland before disappearing into the fog.

The remaining mercenary on the boat pulled a radio from his vest. "Package secured. Commencing transport for the principal."

He hauled Ethan roughly to his feet and shoved him toward an inflatable Zodiac boat idling near the stern, piloted by another masked operative. Ethan was shoved into the rubber floor, his face bruised, his body aching from the old gunshot wounds that flared with every jolt of the boat.

They brought him ashore at a private, abandoned industrial wharf near Portland. Waiting beneath the rusted floodlights was a black luxury sedan with heavily tinted windows and diplomatic license plates.

The mercenary sliced Ethan's zip-ties with a tactical knife and opened the rear door of the sedan. "Get in. Your flight to Teterboro leaves in twenty minutes."

Ethan rubbed his raw, bleeding wrists. He stepped toward the car, but stopped, noticing a faint reflection in the driver's side mirror.