The scream shattered the stillness of the underground garage.
“Help my mom! They hurt her!”
The child’s voice ricocheted off the cement walls, raw with terror. She was kneeling beside her mother’s motionless body, tiny hands trembling as they clutched at an expensive blazer now smeared with blood. A thin crimson line slid from the woman’s temple, pooling against the polished concrete beside a sleek luxury car.
Three men in dark suits stood in front of the vehicle, their expressions blank beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights.
“She needed to learn,” one of them muttered.
A new voice cut through the air.
“No. The only lesson here is what happens to cowards.”
A man in grease-stained coveralls stepped forward from the shadows. He carried a battered metal toolbox, which hit the ground with a sharp clang. Slowly, deliberately, he peeled off his gloves.
His hands were scarred. His eyes were colder than the concrete beneath their feet.
Five seconds later, the garage fell silent again.
All three men were down.
They lay twisted on the ground, stunned, breath knocked from their lungs, confusion frozen on their faces. None of them had understood how quickly it happened.
The mechanic didn’t spare them another glance.
He dropped to his knees beside the injured woman, movements calm, controlled. “It’s okay,” he said evenly. “I’ve got you.”
His fingers pressed firmly against the wound, stopping the bleeding with practiced precision. One hand never left her temple while the other reached into his toolbox, pulling out supplies with effortless efficiency.
The little girl sobbed beside him. “Mommy… please wake up…”
Sweat glistened along the man’s brow as he worked. Then the woman’s eyelids fluttered.
For a brief second, her gaze focused.
Recognition dawned.
Ethan Ward.
Thirty-eight years old. Former head of internal safety at Grant Tech Corporation.
The same company where Sophia Grant ruled as CEO.
The same Sophia Grant who had fired him two years earlier.
And now, the same Sophia Grant bleeding in his arms.
Ethan hadn’t paused when he heard the child’s scream. He hadn’t weighed the past. He hadn’t hesitated.
Assess. Act. Protect.
The instincts drilled into him during eight years as a Navy SEAL took over automatically. Rescue operations. Combat medicine. High-risk extraction. Those skills never left you.
He had carried them into civilian life, into corporate safety oversight—until the day everything collapsed.
Two years ago, an explosion ripped through the east wing of Grant Tech’s manufacturing facility.
