I looked at the bruising on her neck. I looked at the fear in her eyes.
Something inside me clicked. It was a sound like a safety catch being disengaged.
For twenty years, I had buried Sergeant John inside a garden of roses. I had locked him away because the world didn’t need him anymore. I had become the Quiet Neighbor because I wanted peace.
But Mark Sterling, the rich real estate developer who had married my daughter and promised to cherish her, had just made a fatal calculation error. He looked at a gray-haired man and saw a victim. He didn’t know he was looking at a dormant volcano.
“Sleep, honey,” I whispered, injecting a mild sedative from my kit into her arm. “You’re safe here.”
“He’s coming,” she slurred as the drug took hold. “He has a gun.”
“Let him come,” I said.
I waited until her breathing evened out. Then I stood up. I walked to the garage.
In the corner, behind a stack of fertilizer bags, was an old canvas tarp. I pulled it back. Underneath was my old Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Ash wood. Weighted.
I picked it up. I gave it a test swing. The air hissed.
I looked at my reflection in the dusty window of my truck. The eyes staring back weren’t the eyes of John the gardener. They were cold. They were dead. They were the eyes of a man who had hunted in the dark for a living.
I didn’t wait for him to come to me. That’s a defensive strategy. I was Special Forces. We don’t defend. We assault.
I got in my truck. I didn’t turn on the headlights. I knew the way to Mark’s mansion on the hill. I knew the way to hell.
Part 2: The Invitation
Mark’s house was a monstrosity of glass and steel, perched on a hill overlooking the town like a feudal castle. The lights were blazing.
I pulled my rusty Ford pickup into his pristine driveway, blocking his exit. I turned off the engine. The rain hammered against the roof.
I stepped out. I didn’t run. I walked. Slow. Deliberate. The baseball bat hung loosely at my side, hidden by the long trench coat I wore against the rain.
I walked up the stone steps to the massive oak front door. I didn’t ring the bell. I pounded on the wood with my fist—three hard, rhythmic knocks.
Inside, I heard shouting. Then laughter.
