The armored SUV's headlights cut through the darkness as Ethan drove into the abandoned Wonderland Amusement Park, its rusted rides looming like skeletal fingers against the night sky that held memories of cotton candy kisses and promises of forever.
Then every light in a ten-mile radius died simultaneously.
The darkness that followed wasn't natural.
It was absolute.
Engineered.
The kind of black that made your eyes water from trying to see through it and your soul remember every childhood nightmare about monsters hiding in closets.
In the backseat, Lily's terrified whimper cut through Ethan's heart like a rusty blade dipped in liquid fear.
"Daddy, I can't see anything," she whispered, her small voice trembling with the primal terror that all children carried of things that went bump in the night and never said sorry afterward. "Why is it so dark? I'm scared."
**[DING!]**
**[SUPREME DAD SYSTEM - S-CLASS FEAR SOURCE DETECTED]**
**[DAUGHTER'S TERROR LEVEL: MAXIMUM CRITICAL]**
**[TRIGGER: ABSOLUTE DARKNESS - CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ACTIVATED]**
**[UNLOCKING EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS...]**
**[PATERNAL RAGE: APPROACHING DIVINE LEVELS]**
Roxanne's enhanced vision caught the telltale glint of scope lenses in the darkness—dozens of them, positioned on every elevated surface around the park like mechanical eyes belonging to predators who'd learned to hunt in perfect blackness and feed on fear.
"We're surrounded," she breathed, her legal mind calculating odds that didn't favor survival or anything resembling a happy ending. "Snipers with night vision. At least thirty confirmed positions. They're not here to capture us, Ethan. They're here to make us suffer."
The car's radio crackled to life with a voice that belonged in nightmares and the deepest circles of hell where demons went to learn new techniques.
"Lord Polaris, welcome to your daughter's final bedtime story. We're going to take our time with you—strip away pieces until you beg us to let you die. But first, we want you to listen to your little girl cry in the dark while daddy fails to protect her one last time."
Maniacal laughter filled the car like poison gas.
Roxanne's hands shook as she reached for Lily, maternal instincts overriding tactical training and common sense. "Ethan, we need to run. We need to—"
"Princess," Ethan said softly, his voice carrying the calm certainty of someone who'd just remembered he could rewrite the laws of physics when his daughter's happiness was at stake, "daddy's going to turn on some lights for you. The biggest, brightest lights you've ever seen. But first, put on these special sunglasses."
He handed Lily a pair of military-grade protective eyewear, his movements casual despite the crosshairs painting red dots across his chest like a constellation of death.
Then he pulled out his ancient flip phone.
The same phone that had bought water companies and turned missiles into art supplies.
---
**[EMERGENCY ACQUISITION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]**
**[TARGET: COASTAL CITY POWER CONSORTIUM]**
**[SECONDARY TARGETS: THREE REGIONAL SUBSTATIONS]**
**[EXPENDITURE AUTHORIZED: $15 BILLION USD]**
**[PURPOSE: TACTICAL ILLUMINATION OVERLOAD]**
**[ESTIMATED CASUALTIES FROM LIGHT EXPOSURE: ACCEPTABLE]**
"Acquire Coastal Power Grid," Ethan said into the phone, his voice carrying the authority of someone who bought utility companies the way other people bought coffee and treated national infrastructure like personal property. "Full ownership. Fifteen billion, immediate transfer. I want God-level access to every power line, transformer, and light bulb in a twenty-mile radius."
Roxanne stared at him like he'd just claimed to control the sun itself and make it dance for his daughter's amusement.
"Ethan, what are you—"
"Emergency override accepted," came the response through his phone with the efficiency of people who'd learned not to question orders backed by unlimited funds. "Grid control transferred. Awaiting divine instructions."
Ethan's finger hovered over the confirmation button as he looked at his daughter, who was clutching her stuffed rabbit with the desperate hope of someone who believed daddy could fix anything, even the darkness that monsters used to hide their cruelty.
"Let there be light," he said quietly, and pressed the button with the authority of someone rewriting Genesis for his daughter's bedtime story.
**[POWER SURGE INITIATED - 300% OVERLOAD CAPACITY]**
**[SAFETY PROTOCOLS: PERMANENTLY DISABLED]**
**[ILLUMINATION ARRAY: MAXIMUM DEPLOYMENT]**
**[WARNING: RETINAL DAMAGE IMMINENT FOR ALL NIGHT VISION USERS]**
The effect was instantaneous and biblical.
Every abandoned floodlight in the park roared to life simultaneously, their bulbs burning at triple capacity and turning night into something brighter than the surface of the sun. Hundreds of emergency drones descended from hidden positions like mechanical angels, their LED arrays blazing like fallen stars that had decided to wage war against darkness itself.
The transformation was so sudden and violent that it seemed like God had decided to personally intervene in a father's fight against the things that made his daughter afraid of the dark.
---
The screaming started immediately and didn't stop.
Every sniper wearing night vision equipment found their enhanced optics turned into instruments of exquisite torture as the sudden overload burned through their retinas like acid through tissue paper. Men who'd killed in perfect darkness for decades were suddenly blind, stumbling from their positions and falling from rooftops with the helpless cries of predators who'd discovered they were now prey in a game they'd never learned to lose.
"My eyes!" someone screamed from a nearby building, his voice cracking with the kind of agony that came from having your primary sense burned away in an instant. "I can't see! I can't fucking see anything!"
Similar cries echoed across the park as thirty-seven professional killers learned the hard way that some fathers were more dangerous than natural disasters when their children's bedtime was interrupted by people with poor manners and worse timing.
Lily pressed her face against the window, her fear replaced by wonder as she watched the artificial sunrise her father had purchased for her entertainment and peace of mind.
"Daddy, you made the sun come out at night!" she squealed with delight, clapping her hands as if witnessing the most amazing magic trick in human history. "It's so pretty! Like a giant nightlight!"
Ethan stepped out of the SUV, cradling his daughter in his arms as Wild Dog and his newly recruited army of bounty hunters emerged from the shadows to begin what could only be described as a cleanup operation with extreme prejudice.
He walked over to the lead sniper, who was writhing on the ground with blood streaming from his ruined eyes like crimson tears, and placed his foot on the man's wrist with enough pressure to turn bone into powder.
"Next time," Ethan said conversationally, as if discussing the weather rather than delivering a lesson in the consequences of poor life choices, "remember not to turn off the lights when I'm putting my daughter to bed. Some fathers take bedtime very seriously."
The man's scream was cut short by Wild Dog's efficient work and professional pride.
---
Beneath the ferris wheel where he'd first kissed the woman who'd become his everything, Ethan found the hidden entrance to the underground facility—a steel door marked with biohazard symbols and the kind of warnings that suggested the people inside had forgotten the difference between science and torture.
The laboratory was sterile, white, and empty.
Where his wife's cryogenic chamber should have been, there was only a tablet computer playing a video message that made his blood turn to liquid nitrogen and his heart forget how to beat.
A man in a clown mask sat on the deck of a ship, the ocean stretching endlessly behind him like a liquid graveyard. In his hands, he held a vial labeled "SARAH BLACKWELL - RARE BLOOD TYPE SAMPLE" and brought it to his lips like fine wine aged in suffering.
"You're too late, Lord Polaris," the clown said, his voice carrying the kind of madness that came from years of believing that cruelty was an art form and pain was poetry. "Your wife sends her regards from our floating paradise. She's been asking about your daughter—such sweet dreams she has about mommy coming home."
The clown's tongue flicked out to taste the vial's contents.
"If you want her back, come alone to our flagship in international waters. Bring your life, and maybe—just maybe—we'll let you trade it for what's left of hers. Tick tock, daddy. Tick tock."
The video ended with coordinates and a timestamp: 72 hours.
Ethan crushed the tablet in his bare hands, the screen exploding into fragments that drew blood from his fingers and mixed with tears he didn't remember shedding.
**[FINAL MISSION CHAIN ACTIVATED]**
**[OBJECTIVE: DIVINE RETRIBUTION - NO SURVIVORS]**
**[TARGET: ABYSS FLEET - TOTAL ANNIHILATION]**
**[AUTHORIZATION: UNLIMITED VIOLENCE]**
**[MERCY PROTOCOLS: PERMANENTLY DELETED]**
**[ESTIMATED FLEET SIZE: 47 VESSELS]**
**[RECOMMENDED APPROACH: BIBLICAL]**
His wife wasn't dead.
But she was in the hands of monsters who thought they could use her as bait to lure him into a trap designed by demons who'd forgotten that some fathers were willing to drown the world to bring their families home.
They were about to learn that some traps worked both ways.
And some loves were worth sinking entire fleets to protect.
The war was about to go international.
The ocean was about to run red.
And somewhere on the high seas, a clown was about to discover why you never, ever threaten a father's family and expect to live long enough to regret it.
72 hours to save his wife.
72 hours to teach the world what happened when someone made the mistake of hurting the people a father loved more than his own life.
The countdown had begun.
And when it ended, there would be no mercy.
No survivors.
No fleet.
Only the sound of a father's love expressed through the systematic annihilation of everyone who'd forgotten that some lines should never be crossed.