My son texted me a week before New Year's Eve: “Dad, don't come. It's dangerous.”

The crowd upstairs began to chant. Ten... Nine... Eight...

Sabrina leaned closer to Wyatt, her eyes cold and dead, devoid of any human empathy. She raised her hand to slap him, trying to force a pen into his trembling, bruised fingers.

I stepped out from behind the heavy steel shelving unit.

I didn't say a word. Decades of loading freight and wrestling steering wheels across icy highways had left me with a grip like industrial steel.

Before her hand could strike my son's face, I caught her wrist in mid-air.

Sabrina gasped, spinning around. The sheer shock on her face was almost comical. She looked at my faded flannel shirt and my grease-stained jeans, her aristocratic features contorting in disgust and sudden terror.

"Abraham?" she stammered, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper so her guests wouldn't hear. "How did you get in here? Get out before I call the police!"

"Call them," I said, my voice dangerously low. I tightened my grip until I heard the bones in her wrist grind against each other.

She let out a sharp squeal of pain, dropping the pen.

"Let go of me, you crazy old man!" she hissed, trying to pull away. "You have no idea what you're interfering with."

"I know you're trying to steal companies that don't even belong to him," I whispered, stepping closer, towering over her. "And I know you just made the biggest mistake of your miserable life."

With a swift, calculated motion, I twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her face-first against the concrete wall. She struggled, but she was no match for me.

I pulled a heavy zip-tie from the utility shelf nearby—part of Wyatt's workshop supplies—and bound her wrists tightly behind her back.

Upstairs, the crowd roared. Happy New Year! The ceiling shook with their cheering and jumping.

Down here in the dark, I shoved a dirty rag into Sabrina's mouth and secured it with a strip of duct tape I found on the workbench. She thrashed wildly, her eyes wide with a sudden, dawning panic.

I dragged her away from my son and tied her securely to a heavy steel pipe on the opposite side of the room. She was entirely trapped, forced to watch me tend to the husband she had tried to destroy.

I knelt back down beside Wyatt. He was breathing heavily, tears of relief cutting through the grime on his face.

"Dad," he choked out. "You shouldn't have..."

"Quiet now, son. I've got you," I said softly, stroking his matted hair.

I pulled out my phone again, but this time I wasn't recording. I bypassed the local police entirely.

I dialed a private number I hadn't used in five years. It belonged to Marcus, the former Special Forces operative who now ran the security division for Heartland Freight Systems.

"Mr. Yates," Marcus answered on the first ring, his voice crisp.

"Marcus, I'm at my son's house in Chestnut Hill," I said, my voice steady but laced with a quiet fury that Marcus immediately recognized.

"I need a discrete medical trauma team here in ten minutes. Back alley entrance. And Marcus?"