8:07 a.m. – Bruce Household
Ryan Bruce woke up with a start, face-planted into a bowl of dry cereal he didn't remember pouring. His body ached from last night's impromptu motorcycle rodeo and bachelorette glitter battle.
His phone buzzed.
Emily: Talent show today. Don't forget. 10 AM sharp. Bring the camera. And coffee. Lots of coffee.
Ryan groaned into the cereal.
"Spy by night, PTA dad by morning. This is how legends die."
He peeled himself out of the chair, staggered upstairs, and found Holly and Faith in full pirate gear—bandanas, plastic swords, glitter eye patches.
Faith saluted him with a tiny saber. "CAPTAIN DADDY, REPORT FOR DUTY!"
"Arrgh," Ryan croaked automatically, half-asleep. "Permission to... brush my teeth first?"
"No time!" Holly barked. "The Talent Show Armada sets sail soon!"
Ryan sighed. Another normal day in the Bruce family.
9:52 a.m. – Willow Creek Elementary School, Auditorium
The parking lot was chaos. Minivans fought for space like gladiators. Moms armed with Starbucks cups marched children toward the entrance. Someone had already lost a trumpet.
Inside, Ryan navigated through a jungle of folding chairs and colorful balloons.
He spotted Emily near the front, waving.
"You brought the camera?" she asked.
Ryan patted his jacket and came up with... a toy walkie-talkie.
"...I'll use my phone," he said quickly.
Emily gave him a suspicious squint. "You look like you got hit by a hurricane."
He smiled, dazzling. "Parenting hurricane. Very classified."
Behind them, the principal tapped the mic, causing a deafening screech that made half the toddlers in the audience howl.
"Welcome, families! To the 8th Annual Willow Creek Talent Showcase!" she said way too enthusiastically. "First up—our kindergarten pirates!"
Ryan's internal alarms suddenly kicked in.
He wasn't just hearing toddlers. He was hearing... comms static.
Scrambled, faint, buried under the noise of kids and clapping.
His instincts prickled.
Somebody was here.
Someone besides glitter-covered parents and juice-boxed-out toddlers.
10:08 a.m. – Behind the Stage
Ryan slipped to the side of the stage, pretending to "find a better camera angle." Really, he was scanning the crowd.
And then he saw them.
Two men, seated near the back, dressed too normally.
Cargo jackets. Aviator sunglasses indoors.
One of them had an earpiece half-hidden behind his shaggy hair.
Ryan's mind raced.
Larsen's men. Here. Now.
And Holly and Faith were about to perform.
He clenched his fists.
I cannot start a brawl at an elementary school talent show.
I CANNOT start a brawl at an elementary school talent show.
...Unless he was very careful.
10:13 a.m. – Center Stage
A squeaky speaker crackled.
"Now presenting... Ms. Taylor's Kindergarten Pirates!"
The crowd cheered as Holly, Faith, and twenty other tiny pirates marched onto stage, swinging foam swords and singing off-key to an aggressively cheerful pirate song.
Ryan pressed record on his phone, half smiling, half scanning the auditorium.
One of the suspicious men stood up—pretending to tie his shoe. He wasn't tying anything.
He was scanning, too.
Looking for him.
Ryan's brain calculated options.
Fight?
Run?
Throw a child at them and hope for the best?
Then he saw Faith step forward — brave, tiny, and grinning wide — to sing her solo.
Ryan's heart squeezed.
No way in hell am I ruining this moment.
He set the phone on record, clipped it to the back of a chair, and casually moved through the side aisle.
Game face on.
Dad mode and spy mode, fully activated.
10:16 a.m. – Side Aisle, Willow Creek Auditorium
Ryan moved like a shadow, weaving between parents in folding chairs, pretending to clap and laugh along.
The two thugs were splitting up—one heading for the stage's side curtain, the other sneaking toward the backstage entrance.
No guns. Not here. Too risky for them, Ryan thought. Good. Makes it a fair fight.
He grabbed a discarded juice box from a nearby trash bin and chucked it like a fastball.
SPLAT!
It exploded on the first thug's shoulder.
The man turned instinctively—right into Ryan's elbow.
THUNK.
The thug crumpled quietly behind the snack table, face-first into a plate of mini-muffins.
No one noticed.
Parents were too busy clapping and recording blurry videos of their precious pirate angels.
Ryan straightened, grabbed a PTA volunteer badge off a chair, and slapped it onto his shirt. Instant camouflage.
The second thug was already at the side of the stage, reaching into his jacket.
Ryan cursed under his breath.
Without thinking, he grabbed the nearest object—a plastic sword from the kindergarten prop bin—and launched it across the room like a javelin.
THWACK!
The sword smacked the thug right in the ear.
He staggered back into a stack of chairs, causing a glorious, clattering collapse.
Every head in the auditorium turned.
Ryan instantly shouted, "SORRY! REHEARSAL ACCIDENT!"
Ms. Taylor, the frantic kindergarten teacher, gave him a thumbs-up from the wings. "Good save, Mr. Bruce!"
He smiled and gave a double thumbs-up back, sweating bullets.
Still undercover. Barely.
10:22 a.m. – Front Row, Emily's Seat
Ryan hustled back just in time to catch the end of Holly and Faith's performance.
Faith belted the last note of her pirate song with such gusto that one of her plastic teeth flew out into the third row.
The audience roared with laughter and applause.
Emily beamed, clapping wildly.
Ryan dropped into the chair beside her, panting.
"Good camera work?" Emily asked, handing him a juice box.
Ryan, still glitter-speckled from last night and now vaguely sticky from thrown juice, smiled tiredly.
"Best footage ever."
10:35 a.m. – Backstage
After the show, while hugs and cupcakes were being distributed, Ryan slipped backstage one last time.
The two unconscious goons had already been quietly dragged out by ONYX CORE's local cleanup crew — probably tipped off by his emergency code text during the musical number ("CODE TUTU: IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION").
He found a scrap of paper left behind in one of their jackets.
One word, scrawled in blocky, rushed handwriting:
VAULT.
Ryan's gut twisted.
Larsen wasn't done yet.
Not even close.
And next time...
There might not be a plastic sword to save him.
Back at the Bruce House – 12:05 p.m.
Faith and Holly sang pirate songs at the top of their lungs from the backseat.
Ryan drove one-handed, the other hand resting protectively over the hidden suitcase tucked into the trunk.
Emily glanced at him suspiciously. "You know," she said, "you act weirder every time you go to one of these things."
He grinned crookedly.
"Me? Weird? That's just... enthusiastic school spirit."
She raised an eyebrow but let it drop.
Because in this house?
A secret stays a secret.
Even when that secret is currently planning counter-strikes against a rogue agent trying to blow up your suburban life.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]