I swapped the batteries. The screen flickered to life.
Folder A1. File: Yesterday. Time: 19:42.
My thumb hovered over the play button. I have breached compounds with terrorists waiting on the other side, and my heart rate never went above sixty. Right now, it was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I didn’t want to hear her pain. But I had to.
I pressed play.
Static. The sound of a door opening. Not kicked in—opened with a key.
Then the voice. Smooth. Arrogant.
“Hello, sweetheart. Daddy’s home.”
It was Victor.
Then the sound of boots. Many boots. The heavy thudding of a pack entering the room.
“Dad?” Tessa’s voice. She sounded surprised, but not shocked. She sounded resigned. “I told you not to come here, Victor.”
“You don’t tell me where to go, Tessa,” Victor said. “We own this town. We own this street. And we own you.”
“I’m not signing the papers, Dad,” Tessa said. Her voice was shaking but strong. “I’m not letting you use Hunter’s name for your shell companies. He’s a soldier. He’s honorable. I won’t let you drag him into your filth.”
“Honorable,” a new voice scoffed. It was Dominic. I recognized the sneer. “He’s a grunt. A paid killer. We’re just giving him a reason to retire.”
“Grab her,” Victor commanded.
The recording dissolved into the sounds of a scuffle—a chair scraping, Tessa screaming. Not a scream of fear, but of fury. “Get off me! Get off!”
Then a sickening thud. The first hit.
I flinched in the dark dining room as if I had been hit myself.
“Hold her legs, Mason. Grant, get her arms. Don’t let her move.”
I paused the tape. I couldn’t listen to the rest. Not yet. I had heard enough to know the truth. The police report was a lie. The robbery was a fairy tale. This was a family meeting.
I put the recorder in my pocket and stood up. The sadness that had been weighing on my chest evaporated. In its place, something cold and hard settled in. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt since my last tour in the mountains. Clarity.
I walked out of the dining room and into the garage. Most suburban dads have a garage full of lawnmowers and rakes. I had those things, too. But behind the pegboard where I hung my wrenches, there was a false wall. I pushed the hidden latch. The pegboard swung open.
Inside was a heavy steel safe. I spun the dial. Left, right, left. Click.
The door swung open. Inside wasn’t a collection of hunting rifles. It was my past. It was the things the military let me keep and the things I had acquired on my own.
I took out my plate carrier. No ceramic plates in it right now, but the pouches were ready. I took out a set of zip ties—the heavy-duty kind used for flex-cuffs. I took out a KA-BAR knife, the blade black and non-reflective.
I didn’t take a gun. Not yet. A gun is loud. A gun is quick. A gun is mercy. Victor and his seven sons didn’t deserve mercy. They deserved to feel every second of what was coming.
I looked at my reflection in the small mirror mounted inside the safe door. My eyes looked different. The blue was gone, replaced by a dark, dilated pupil. The husband was asleep. The Delta operator was awake.
I needed to know where they were. I needed to track the pack. And I knew exactly who the weak link was.
Mason. The youngest. The one shaking in the hospital. The one who held the coffee cup like it was a grenade. He was the one who held her legs. He was the one who watched.
And tonight, he was going to be the first one to speak.
—————
I closed the safe, grabbed a black hoodie, and walked out into the night. The silence of the house didn’t bother me anymore because I knew, very soon, the silence would be broken by the sound of Mason screaming.
I drove to a 24-hour hardware store three towns over. I walked the aisles under the buzzing fluorescent lights, looking like any other contractor fixing a leak. I bought a roll of heavy-duty plastic sheeting, a box of industrial-strength zip ties, a staple gun, and a hammer. A heavy, claw-style framing hammer. I weighed it in my hand. It felt balanced. Solid.
“Have a good night,” the sleepy teenager at the register mumbled.
“It’s going to be a long one,” I said.
I drove back toward the city. I knew where the Wolf Pack would be on a Friday night. After a big win—and to them, silencing Tessa was a win—they always went to the same place: The Velvet Lounge, a high-end private club downtown that Victor owned.
I parked my truck two blocks away in the shadows of an alley and waited.
At 02:45, the door opened. Laughter spilled out onto the street. Dominic and Grant walked out first, loud and stumbling. Then came the others. They were high on adrenaline and expensive liquor. But one was trailing behind.
Mason.
He wasn’t laughing. He looked sick. He waved off the offer of a ride in the limo.
“I’m going to walk a bit, clear my head,” I heard him say.
“Suit yourself, baby brother,” Dominic cheered. “Don’t have nightmares!”
The limo pulled away. Mason stood alone on the sidewalk. He lit a cigarette, his hand shaking so badly he dropped the lighter twice. He started walking down Fourth Street, heading toward the quieter part of town.
Perfect.
I moved out of the shadows, walking with a silent, rolling gait that made no sound on the pavement. I closed the distance. Fifty yards. Thirty. Ten.
He stopped at a corner, waiting for the light to change. There were no cars. Just him and the ghosts he was trying to drink away. I stepped up right behind him. I could smell the scotch sweating out of his pores. I leaned in close, my lips almost touching his ear.
“Thirty-one,” I whispered.
Mason froze. He went rigid as a statue. The cigarette fell from his fingers. He slowly turned his head, his eyes wide, bloodshot, filled with primal terror. He recognized me instantly.
“Hunter,” he stammered. “I… I didn’t…”
I grabbed his wrist. I didn’t squeeze hard—just enough to hit the pressure point. I twisted. He gasped, dropping to one knee.
“We need to talk about your sister,” I said softly. “And you’re going to tell me everything, or I’m going to start counting.”
I pulled him into the darkness of the alley. The hunt had officially begun.
