Chapter 5 - The Reckoning
Dock 42 was a graveyard of rusting vessels and forgotten dreams. The rain had started again, washing the city in a veneer of grime. I found the yacht—an absurd, gleaming thing in the middle of the rot—and stepped aboard.
Rachel was there, sipping wine, looking as pristine and untouchable as the day I left. She didn't look like a woman who had left two children to starve. She looked like a woman who was waiting for her next conquest.
When she saw me, her wine glass shattered against the teak deck.
"How?" she gasped, her eyes darting toward the shore.
"The war taught me one thing, Rachel," I said, stepping into the cabin. "It taught me how to find people who don't want to be found. It taught me how to track a rat through a desert."
She tried to run, tried to scream, but the crew I’d hired from my old unit was already flanking the docks. She was trapped. I laid the papers on the table. The confession was already written; all she had to do was sign.
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"If you don't sign this, Julian gives you to the people you’ve been double-crossing," I said. "You think you’re smart? You’re just a pawn in a game you don't understand. Sign, and you disappear. Don't, and you face the debt."
She signed, her hand shaking, her eyes devoid of remorse. She didn't care about the kids. She didn't care about the home. She only cared that she had lost.
