1 The night before the mission, Elara, my ever-composed wife, couldn’t sleep. I knew she still had feelings for the man who killed my family. I gave her a choice: leave the mission and sign the divorce papers, or cut him out of her life forever. She spent the night violently punching the gym bags. By morning, she was bruised and hoarse but resolved. “I’m with you,” she vowed. “I’ll see this revenge through.” The firefight was intense. We were about to win—until she pressed her gun to my temple. Her hands shook as she cried, “I know he killed your family… But they’re gone! Why can’t you let it go? I love him. Please, let him go.” Furious but helpless, I watched him walk away unharmed, smirking. Within minutes, I became the joke of my own team. Then came the final blow: photos of Elara and Adrian getting married, spread across every news feed and dark web forum. That was when my heart turned to stone. If you insist on crushing my last shred of dignity, don’t blame me for what happens next. … Staring at their retreating figures, something inside me snapped. “Elara, how could you?” The words ripped from my throat, raw and full of hate. “What about my parents? They died protecting you from that monster! Have you forgotten that?!” She flinched, her steps faltering. When she turned back, her eyes were bloodshot, her voice a fragile whisper. “Caleb, Mom and Dad wouldn’t want this! They wouldn’t want to see you consumed by this hatred!” “Let Adrian go,” she pleaded. “Isn’t that a way of letting yourself go, too?” Thirty minutes. That’s all it took. The dark web forums exploded. “Elara Thorne Betrays Mercenary King for His Sworn Enemy.” 【Can’t believe the great Caleb Thorne can’t even control his own wife. Watched her run off with his nemesis? How’s he ever going to show his face again?】 【Talks a big game, acts all tough, but turns out he’s just another lovesick fool. Pathetic.】 【Hey Thorne, you give me that disputed territory on the Serrovian border, and I’ll send you two hundred women to help you get over her.】 Overnight, I went from being the most feared name in the private military world—a god of war—to a global punchline. The entire underworld was laughing at my expense. I stared at the screen, each taunt a fresh log on the fire of my rage. But before I could even formulate a response, Elara provoked me again, this time publicly. She posted on a high-profile forum, a beacon of sanctimony: 【An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. I am willing to broker a peace summit between the two leaders to end this needless bloodshed.】 She even had the audacity to tag me and Adrian. The fury that shot through me was blinding. How dare she? How dare she presume to forgive the man who slaughtered my parents on my behalf? And yet… I agreed to the meeting. How else was I going to personally send that fucking pair to hell? The forums erupted once more. 【HOLY SHIT! Thorne is actually going? Is there no limit to how much of a doormat this guy can be?】 【LMAO, is this a throuple situation now? One big happy family?】 【Two warlords fighting over a woman. This is the dark web’s reality TV show of the year!】 I said nothing. I simply had my tech division lock onto the IPs of the three loudest commentators. That night, three precision-guided missiles found their targets. The resulting fireballs turned a thirty-mile radius into a scorched wasteland, a barren scar on the earth where nothing would grow for a decade. 【So you can dish it out but you can’t take it? Real classy, Thorne!】 【Got the balls to bomb random posters but not your actual enemy? What a coward!】 I didn’t respond. Results were always more persuasive than rhetoric. The day of the “peace talk,” Elara specifically requested I come alone. I agreed. But not before positioning a thousand of my best soldiers in concealed positions around the summit location. One word from me, and they could assemble and overwhelm the site in under sixty seconds. When Elara saw me, she forced a smile and rushed forward, ready to play peacemaker. “Caleb, Adrian knows he was wrong. He’s here today to personally apologize to you.” Adrian stood, offering a deep, formal bow. “Thorne. I’m sorry.” A cold, humorless laugh escaped my lips. “You think three empty words are enough to pay for the lives of my parents?” Elara’s face hardened. She grabbed my arm, her voice sharp. “Caleb! We came here to talk, to make peace! What the hell is this attitude?!” I shoved her away, the back of my hand connecting with her cheek in a sharp crack. “For what he did,” I snarled, “the only outcome is one of us in a body bag.” Seeing me strike her, Adrian immediately moved to shield her, his voice a low threat. “Caleb Thorne, my men swept this place. You came alone. Today, you either accept my apology, or you don’t leave here alive.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud, a harsh, grating sound. I raised a hand, pointing languidly toward the window. “Open your eyes, you idiot. There are at least a hundred rifles aimed at your heads right now. If I so much as twitch a finger, you’ll both be turned into human confetti.” Their faces went pale. A quick, panicked scan of the surrounding rooftops confirmed I wasn’t bluffing. Adrian scoffed, trying to regain his composure. “So what? If I’m going down, taking the great Caleb Thorne with me is a fair trade. We die together! Then you can have a happy little reunion with your useless parents.” He dared. He dared to mention my parents again. The rage I had suppressed for so long finally detonated. My fist crashed into his face with the force of a battering ram. I felt his nose give way with a sickening crunch. A second later, he wiped the blood from his lip, a savage grin spreading across his face as he launched a heavy kick at my chest. I dodged, grabbing him and slamming him to the floor. In one fluid motion, I drew my combat knife and pressed the blade to his throat. “You want to die with me?” I whispered, my voice deadly calm. “Dream on. I’m sending you to hell first.” I pressed the blade down. A line of crimson welled up along the steel. “Caleb! Don’t, I’m pregnant…” Elara’s voice shattered the moment. She threw herself at me, pushing me back and shielding Adrian with her own body, her voice trembling. “I don’t want my child to grow up without a father… Please, let him go… I’m begging you!” The words hit me like a physical blow. I stumbled back, collapsing into a chair, the world spinning around me. A child. They had a child. Tears streamed down Elara’s face, but all I could see was the ultimate betrayal. Five months? Was that all it took? Five short months for her to completely turn, to beg me to forget the murder of my parents, to spare the life of her new lover. But why should I? We were married for three years, and we never had children. She was the one who said she didn’t want to be “trapped by a baby,” confined to a home. She wanted to fight by my side, to be my equal, a legend in her own right. And now? Now she was telling me she was carrying the child of the man who destroyed my world? How could she? In that moment of stunned silence, Adrian saw his chance. He lunged, wrenching the knife from my grip and pressing it back against my own neck. “Let us walk out of here, right now, or I’ll send you to see your parents!” I stared into his eyes and smiled, a chilling, dead thing. “The entire foundation of this building is wired with explosives. Enough to level this whole city block.” “The moment my heart stops,” I informed him, “a dead man’s switch will turn a fifty-mile radius into a smoking crater.” Elara’s face was a mask of horror, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. “Caleb, you’re insane… We came here to talk. You gave us your word!” My word? She had the nerve to speak to me of broken promises? “Elara, you are the most despicable thing I have ever known.” Before the words even left my mouth, I snapped my head to the side, breaking his hold and twisting the knife back into my hand. The blade sliced my palm open, blood dripping onto the floor, but I felt nothing. Expressionless, I raised my bloodied hand and gave a sharp, almost imperceptible signal. The doors and windows shattered inwards as nearly a hundred of my elite soldiers stormed the room. In seconds, all of Adrian’s hidden guards were dragged out, disarmed and subdued. I shook the blood from my hand and tossed a single sheet of paper onto the table in front of Elara. A divorce decree. “Sign it,” I ordered. “Don’t dirty my family’s name any longer.” But instead of signing, she snatched the paper and ripped it to shreds. “No,” she said, her voice shaking with a twisted sort of defiance. “I won’t. Mom and Dad treated me like their own daughter. They’re barely cold in their graves and you’re already throwing me out? Aren’t you afraid of what they would think?” She knew. She knew how much my parents had adored her. And she was using their memory as a shield for her and her monster. “A backstabbing, ungrateful bitch like you?” I spat. “My parents would be celebrating the fact that I finally see you for what you are. And don't you dare think that marriage certificate is some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card…” Before I could finish, Adrian started barking like the dog he was. “Thorne, if you lay another finger on Elara, I’ll kill you!” “Are you still not clear on the situation here?” I looked at the pathetic, struggling pair, a wave of nausea washing over me. The next second, one of my men sent Adrian to the floor with a brutal kick to the ribs. I walked over slowly, grinding the sole of my boot into his chest. My second-in-command handed me a dagger. “Alright,” I said, my voice deceptively calm. I took the dagger. “Then I’ll start with you.” I dug the tip of the blade under his fingernail. Adrian screamed. “This is what you did to my father, isn’t it?” One by one, I pried off all ten. Then, I moved the dagger towards the palm of his hand. Suddenly, a gunshot echoed through the room, and a searing pain exploded in my shoulder. The dagger clattered to the floor.
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