Chapter 10 - The New Dawn
Two years later.
It was a beautiful August morning. The humidity had broken, leaving a crisp, salty breeze blowing off the Atlantic.
I stood on the back deck of our new home, sipping black coffee—not from a travel mug in a frantic rush, but from a ceramic cup, watching the sunrise. I had recently been promoted to Captain in the Navy, my career thriving now that the dead weight of a sociopath was no longer dragging me down.
The sliding glass door opened, and my mother walked out. She looked vibrant, healthy, and entirely at peace. She was holding a pair of gardening shears and smiling.
"The hybrid teas are blooming," she announced proudly.
"I'll come help you cut them in a minute, Mom," I smiled back.
I looked out over the water. David was currently sitting in a six-by-eight concrete cell, a number instead of a name, completely forgotten by the world he had tried to conquer.
He thought he could strike an old woman in the dead of night and erase her for a paycheck. He thought my uniform was just a costume.
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He was wrong. He attacked my family. So I brought the full, crushing weight of a war upon him.
And looking at my mother smiling in the morning sun, I knew with absolute certainty: we had won.
