Captain Lucius David had seen the worst of humanity during his twenty-three years in law enforcement. Three tours in Afghanistan before that had prepared him for violence, but nothing truly prepared a man for the bureaucratic nightmare of a divorce, especially when your ex-wife remarried a man who smiled too much and drank too little. It was always a bad sign in Lucius’s experience.
He stood in his office at the precinct, the afternoon sun cutting through the blinds like prison bars across his desk. At forty-six, Lucius carried his authority with the ease of a man who had earned every stripe through blood and competence. His uniform was immaculate, his bearing military-straight, but his eyes, gray as gunmetal, held a warmth reserved for exactly three people: his son, Blake; his partner of fifteen years; and his late mother.
“Captain David?” Officer Sandy Ali knocked on the open door. “The mayor’s office called again about the community outreach program.”
“Tell them I’ll have the proposal by Friday,” Lucius didn’t look up from the incident reports. Gang activity was spiking in the East District, and two of his best detectives were out on paternity leave. “Anything else?”
“Your ex-wife called. Said something about Blake’s football game Saturday. She sounded… tense.”
Lucius’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. Carmela always sounded tense these days. Ever since she’d married Guillermo Edwards two years ago, her life had become a performance of suburban bliss. The man was a successful contractor—too successful, in Lucius’s opinion. Nobody built that fast and that profitably without cutting corners somewhere.
“I’ll handle it,” he waved Ali away and picked up his personal phone. Three missed calls from Carmela, all within the last hour. Before he could dial back, his phone rang. Blake’s number.
“Hey, champ. You okay?” Lucius felt his shoulders ease at the sound of his son’s voice, but only for a second.
“Dad? Yeah, I’m fine. Just… can we talk? Not on the phone.”
Blake was sixteen, a sophomore who’d inherited his father’s build and his mother’s dark, expressive eyes. He’d been distant lately, a change Lucius had attributed to teenage rebellion, first girlfriends, the usual chaos of adolescence. But something in his son’s voice triggered the instinct that had kept Lucius alive in Helmand Province.
“I can pick you up in twenty. Usual spot.”
“No,” Blake’s voice dropped. “Can you meet me at Uncle Byron’s garage instead? I… I don’t want to be home right now.”
Uncle Byron. Byron David, Lucius’s younger brother, was the only mechanic in the city who could resurrect a ’67 Mustang from a pile of rust and regret. Blake had spent countless afternoons there, learning to rebuild carburetors and change timing belts ever since the divorce.
“I’m on my way.” Lucius grabbed his jacket and headed out, stopping only to tell his second-in-command, Lieutenant Arnaldo Caldwell, that he’d be out for an hour. Caldwell, a barrel-chested man with twenty years on the force, just nodded. He knew better than to ask questions when the Captain got that look.
The garage sat in an industrial area that gentrification had somehow missed. Byron David had bought it for nothing fifteen years ago and turned it into a sanctuary for classic cars and lost causes. When Lucius pulled up, he found his son sitting on the hood of a Chevelle, shoulders hunched, staring at his phone.
“Blake.”
His son looked up, and Lucius saw the purple shadow blooming under his left eye, half-hidden by carefully arranged hair.
“Don’t freak out.” Blake slid off the hood, hands raised defensively. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Lucius’s training kicked in before his rage. He approached slowly, gently turning Blake’s face to the light. The bruise was fresh, maybe three or four hours old. There were finger marks on his son’s upper arm, barely visible under his sleeve.
“Who?” Lucius kept his voice level, a low, dangerous calm settling over him. “Dad, who did this to you, Blake?”
His son’s eyes filled with tears he was too proud to shed. “Guillermo. We got in an argument about the game Saturday. I talked back, and he… he grabbed me, shoved me against the wall. Said I was disrespectful, that Mom lets me get away with murder, that someone needed to teach me discipline.” Blake’s voice cracked. “I pushed him back, just once, and he… he lost it.”
Lucius felt his blood temperature drop to somewhere near absolute zero. This was what the old guys called combat calm, that crystalline clarity that came right before hell broke loose.
“Where’s your mother?”
“She was at her sister’s. She doesn’t know yet. Guillermo told me if I said anything, he’d make sure I never saw you again. That he has friends in family court, that he could prove you’re an unfit parent because you’re never around.”
Lucius pulled his son into his arms, felt the boy shake against his chest. “Did you hit him back?”
“No. I just… I left. Grabbed my bike and came here.” Blake pulled away, swiping at his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have provoked him. I know Mom’s happy with him, and I don’t want to mess that up.”
“Stop.” Lucius gripped Blake’s shoulders, making sure his son looked him in the eye. “You did nothing wrong. A grown man put his hands on you. That’s assault. That is unacceptable.”
“But Mom…”
“I’ll handle your mother. Right now, I need you to do exactly what I say. We’re going to the hospital, getting you checked out. Then we’re documenting everything.”
Blake nodded, and Lucius saw the trust in his son’s eyes, that absolute faith that Dad would fix this, that Dad would make it right. It was a weight Lucius had carried since the day Blake was born and one he’d carry until his last breath.
What he didn’t tell his son was that Guillermo Edwards had just made the biggest mistake of his life. Because there were rules in Lucius David’s world—laws he upheld, codes he lived by. But there was one rule that superseded everything else: You don’t touch his son.
Carmela Edwards, formerly Carmela David, stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror of her sister’s house and tried to convince herself that the tightness in her chest was just anxiety about Blake’s upcoming football game. She’d been on edge all day, ever since the argument at breakfast between Blake and Guillermo.
“You okay in there?” her sister, Elena Smith, called through the door.
“Yeah, just give me a minute.” She splashed cold water on her face. At forty-three, Carmela had aged gracefully, thanks to yoga, expensive skincare, and the comfortable life Guillermo provided. She’d married him because he was everything Lucius wasn’t: present, attentive, and financially stable without the constant threat of a bullet ending it all. No more 3:00 a.m. calls about officer-involved shootings, no more waiting up, wondering if today was the day she’d become a widow. But lately, Guillermo had been different—a shorter temper, drinking more, working later hours—and his relationship with Blake had deteriorated from cool to hostile.
Her phone buzzed. Lucius. She almost didn’t answer, but guilt and habit made her thumb swipe right.
“Carmela, where are you?”
“At Elena’s, why? What’s wrong?” She heard it immediately, that tone Lucius used when he was barely restraining his fury.
“When did you last see Blake?”
Her heart stopped. “This morning, around 7:30. Why, Lucius? What happened?”
“Your husband happened.” The way he said husband, like it tasted rotten, made her stomach drop.
“What are you talking about?”
“Guillermo put his hands on our son. Blake has bruises, Carmela. On his face, his arms. Do you want to tell me how long this has been going on?”
The bathroom tilted. “That’s… no. Guillermo wouldn’t. Blake must have gotten in a fight at school.”
“Blake told me everything. And before you accuse our son of lying, I’m looking at the evidence right now. We’re at County Memorial. You should get here.” He hung up.
Carmela stared at the phone, her perfect world cracking like a windshield after a stone strike. Guillermo had been frustrated with Blake, yes. The boy could be difficult, moody, disrespectful. But physical harm? That wasn’t the man she’d married, the man who brought her coffee in bed every Sunday, who’d renovated their kitchen with his own hands, who’d promised to give her the stability Lucius never could.
“Elena!” she burst out of the bathroom. “I need to go. It’s Blake.”
The drive to County Memorial took fifteen minutes that felt like hours. She tried calling Guillermo three times—straight to voicemail. When she finally reached the emergency room, she found Lucius in the waiting area, still in uniform, radiating that controlled intensity that had once made her feel safe and now just made her feel small.
“Where is he?”
“Getting X-rays. The doctor wants to rule out a fractured orbital bone.” Lucius stood, and she was reminded viscerally of how physically imposing he was: six-foot-two, two hundred pounds of coiled muscle and barely suppressed violence. “You want to explain to me how you didn’t notice your husband was hurting our son?”
“Don’t,” Carmela’s voice shook. “Don’t you dare make this sound like I knew. If Blake was having problems, he should have told me.”
“He tried. Three weeks ago, remember? When he asked to spend weekdays with me and only weekends at your place? You told him he was being dramatic, that he needed to adjust.”
She had said that. The memory made her nauseous.
“Mrs. Edwards?” a nurse appeared. “Your son is ready to see you.”
Carmela rushed past Lucius, past the judgment in his eyes, and found Blake in a curtained examination area. The bruise looked worse under the fluorescent lighting, an angry purple spreading from his cheekbone to his eye socket. But it was the defeated slump of his shoulders that broke her heart.
“Baby…”
“Mom.” Blake’s voice was flat. “Dad told you?”
“He told me his version. I want to hear yours.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled away.
“I talked back to Guillermo about Saturday’s game. Said I wanted Dad there, not him. He grabbed my arm, shoved me into the wall, told me I was an ungrateful punk. I pushed him away. He punched me.” Blake finally looked at her. “That’s my version. You going to believe me, or are you going to make excuses for him like you always do?”
“Always? Blake, what are you talking about?”
“The shoving, the grabbing, the names he calls me when you’re not in the room. The way he goes through my phone, my backpack, controls everything I do. I’ve been telling you for months that something’s wrong, but you don’t want to see it. You’re so happy to have your perfect husband in your perfect house that you don’t care what he does to me.”
Each word was a knife. Carmela felt tears streaming down her face. “Blake, I swear, I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well, now you do.”
The curtains swept open. Lucius and a doctor entered, followed by a woman in a blazer with a CPS badge clipped to her belt. The social worker’s presence made everything horrifyingly real. “Mrs. Edwards, I’m Whitney Shaw from Child Protective Services. I need to ask you some questions about your household.”
The next hour was a blur of interrogation, medical reports, and the slow, agonizing realization that she’d failed her son. Failed to see what was happening under her own roof, failed to protect him from a man she’d brought into their lives. When it was over, Blake was released into Lucius’s custody, pending an investigation. Temporary, the social worker said, but the look Lucius gave her promised this was permanent.
“Carmela,” Lucius stopped her as she walked to her car. “You need to decide right now what’s more important: your marriage or your son. Because you can’t have both anymore.”
She watched them drive away, Lucius and Blake in his truck, the boy’s head against the window, her ex-husband’s hand on their son’s shoulder, and felt the foundations of her carefully constructed life crumble to dust.
When she finally got home, the house was dark. Guillermo’s truck was in the driveway. She found him in his study, a glass of bourbon in hand, staring at his phone.
“Where’s Blake?” he asked without looking up.
“With Lucius. At the hospital, where you put him.” Now he looked at her, and she saw something she’d never seen before. Not remorse, not shame, but cold calculation.
“He tell you his version?”
“‘His version’?” Her voice rose. “You hit our son in the face!”
“Our son?” Guillermo laughed, a bitter, sharp sound. “He’s not my son, Carmela. He made that clear today. He’s Lucius’s son, and he never lets me forget it. I’ve tried for two years to connect with that kid, and all I get is attitude and disrespect. So yeah, I put him in his place. That’s what fathers do.”
“You’re not his father,” the words came out before she could stop them. Something dangerous flickered across Guillermo’s face.
“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.” He drained his bourbon. “Your ex is going to come at me for this, you know that, right? Captain Lucius David, war hero, decorated officer. He’s going to try to destroy me.”
“Maybe you deserve it.”
Guillermo stood, and for the first time in their marriage, Carmela felt afraid. “Be very careful whose side you choose here. Because if you think Lucius is going to welcome you back with open arms, you’re delusional. You left him, remember? You said he was married to the job, that you couldn’t live with the danger, that you deserved better. Well, this is better. This house, this life, I gave you everything you asked for. And if you throw that away over one mistake, over a punk kid who needs discipline, then you’re a fool.”
He walked out, leaving her standing in the study, her perfect life in ruins, wondering how she’d been so blind.
Lucius had Blake settled in his apartment, a sparse two-bedroom unit that had all the warmth of a barracks but was, at least, safe. When his phone rang at 10:37 p.m. from an unknown number, his gut told him to answer.
“David.”
“Captain David, this is Sergeant Randy Miller from the West District station. I, uh… I have your son here.”
Lucius’s blood froze. Blake was twenty feet away on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and pretending to watch TV. “What are you talking about? My son is right here.”
“Sir, I have a Blake David, sixteen years old, claims you’re his father. He was brought in about an hour ago. His stepfather filed a report. Assault, destruction of property. The kid’s in interview room B, and he’s asking for you.”
The world slowed down. Lucius looked at Blake on the couch, then back at his phone. “Sergeant Miller, I’m going to ask you one time: describe the boy you have.”
“Uh, about five-eleven, brown hair, has a bruise on his face…”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Nobody talks to my son without me present. Clear?”
“Yes, sir. Captain, I should tell you, the stepfather is here, too. Guillermo Edwards. He’s pretty insistent we press charges.”
Lucius felt that combat calm descend again, cold and clarifying. “I’ll deal with Edwards. You just make sure my son is comfortable and has water. Twenty minutes.” He hung up and turned to Blake, who was now sitting up, alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Your stepfather just filed a false police report claiming you assaulted him. You’re at the West District station, apparently.” Lucius grabbed his jacket, his badge, his service weapon. “When did you last see Guillermo?”
“This morning. At the house. Dad, I swear, I didn’t touch him.”
“I know. He’s trying to get ahead of what happened today, make himself the victim.” Lucius checked his weapon automatically, a habit from two decades of doing this before every shift. “Get dressed. You’re coming with me. I want you visible and accounted for when I walk into that station.”
“Dad, what are you going to do?”
Lucius looked at his son, saw the fear there, the uncertainty. Blake needed to see that his father could handle this, that justice existed, that good men still won sometimes. “I’m going to do what I’ve always done: protect what’s mine.”
The drive to West District took exactly eighteen minutes. Lucius used the time to make three calls: one to Arnaldo Caldwell, one to Byron, and one to his lawyer, a shark named Courtney Baldwin, who’d gotten him through the divorce and owed him several favors. When they walked into the station, Lucius made sure to stop at the front desk, made sure the duty officer logged Blake’s arrival, made sure there were witnesses and timestamps. Then he walked toward the interview rooms with Blake beside him, his hand on his son’s shoulder, projecting an authority that made officers step aside.
Sergeant Randy Miller met them in the hallway. He was maybe thirty, a career cop written all over him. The moment he saw Lucius’s uniform, his face went white. “Captain David, I—”
“Which room is my son supposedly in, Sergeant?”
“Interview B, sir. But—”
Lucius walked past him. “Open the door.”
Empty. Just an empty room with a table, two chairs, and the ghost of a fabricated accusation. “Interesting. My son seems to have disappeared.” Lucius turned, and Miller actually took a step back. “You want to explain to me how you have a victim in custody who’s also standing right next to me?”
“Sir, I was just following procedure. Edwards came in with a report, said his stepson attacked him, destroyed property, made threats. He had photos, documentation.”
“Photos of what? Damage he did himself? Sergeant Miller, you’ve been a cop long enough to recognize a setup. Where’s Edwards now?”
“Interrogation C. He’s waiting to give his statement.”
“Excellent. I’m going to need fifteen minutes with him.”
Miller’s eyes widened. “Captain, I can’t—”
“You can’t what?” Lucius stepped closer, dropped his voice to a register that carried command without volume. “You filed a report based on false information. You attempted to process a minor without parental notification, and you’re harboring a man who assaulted a child—my child—earlier today. Now, I can make this official, bring in Internal Affairs, have your career examined under a microscope. Or you can give me fifteen minutes with the man who tried to frame my son, and we can resolve this quietly. Your choice, Sergeant.”
Miller looked at Blake, at the bruise that was now impossible to ignore under the station’s harsh lighting, and something shifted in his expression. “He did that this morning?”
“Hospital records are already filed. X-rays, doctor’s statement, CPS report, all timestamped. So when Edwards claims my son attacked him today, you can see the problem.”
“Jesus,” Miller ran a hand through his hair. “Captain, I didn’t know. He came in all professional, had his story straight, seemed credible.”
“He’s a contractor. He’s good at building facades.” Lucius gentled his tone fractionally. “You’re not at fault here, Randy. But you’re going to help me fix it. Take Blake to your office. Get him coffee, something to eat. I need witnesses to see him calm, cooperative, uninjured beyond what Edwards did earlier, while I have a conversation with my son’s stepfather.”
“Sir, if you—”
“I’m not going to harm him.” Lucius smiled. It was not a kind expression. “I’m just going to ask him some questions about his construction business. His permits, his tax returns. Completely by the book.”
Miller hesitated, then nodded. “Interview room C. He’s all yours. But, Captain? I didn’t hear anything. I was in my office doing paperwork.”
“Smart man.”
Lucius waited until Blake was safely in Miller’s office, visible through the glass, before he walked to interrogation room C. He didn’t knock, just opened the door and stepped inside, letting it close behind him with an authoritative click.
Guillermo Edwards sat at the metal table, looking smug and confident in expensive jeans and a polo shirt that screamed “successful contractor.” When he saw Lucius, that smug expression flickered. “Captain David. I was hoping we could talk man-to-man about your son’s behavior.”
“Shut up.” Guillermo’s mouth snapped closed.
Lucius walked slowly around the table, his boots loud on the linoleum. He didn’t sit, didn’t move into Edwards’s space, just stood there, letting the silence stretch, letting his uniform and his reputation and his barely leashed rage do the work.
“You put your hands on my son,” Lucius finally said, his voice conversational. “Then you try to cover it up by filing a false report. That’s assault on a minor and filing a false police report. Those are felonies, Guillermo.”
“He attacked me!”
“Blake was with me all evening. Hospital records, witnesses, timestamps. Your story falls apart under basic scrutiny.” Lucius leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to walk out of this station, go home, and stay away from my son. I’m filing for emergency custody, and you’re not going to contest it. You’re going to tell Sergeant Miller that there was a misunderstanding, that you overreacted, that you’re dropping all charges.”
“Like hell I will!”
“And if you don’t,” Lucius continued as if Edwards hadn’t spoken, “I’m going to take a very close look at your business. Your permits, your building codes, your employee documentation. I’m going to talk to the IRS about some interesting discrepancies I’ve noticed in your tax returns. Yes, I’ve already pulled them. Perks of being a captain. I’m going to talk to your suppliers about those bulk material purchases that don’t quite match your project invoices. And I’m going to make sure every building inspector in this city knows your name.”
Guillermo’s face had gone pale. “You can’t.”
“I can, and I will. Because you made one critical error, Guillermo. You thought I was just a cop. But I’m not just a cop. I’m a father. And you hurt my son.” Lucius pushed off the wall, moved to the door. “You have until tomorrow morning to decide. Keep pushing this, and I’ll destroy everything you’ve built. Or walk away, and maybe—maybe—you get to keep your business and your freedom. Your choice.” He opened the door, then paused. “Oh, and Guillermo? If you ever, ever come near Blake again, I won’t use my badge. I’ll use my hands. And there won’t be enough of you left for a closed casket. We clear?”
Lucius walked out without waiting for an answer. He found Miller in his office with Blake, who was nursing a hot chocolate and looking young and vulnerable in a way that made Lucius’s chest ache.
“Sergeant Miller, Mr. Edwards is ready to give his statement. I believe he’ll be dropping all charges and apologizing for wasting police resources.”
Miller looked between Lucius and the interrogation rooms, then nodded slowly. “I’ll, uh… go take care of that.”
When they were alone, Blake looked up at his father. “What did you say to him?”
“The truth. That he messed with the wrong family.” Lucius pulled his son into a hug, felt Blake cling to him like he had when he was five years old and afraid of thunderstorms. “It’s over, champ. You’re safe now.”
But even as he said it, even as Blake relaxed against him, Lucius knew it wasn’t over. Not really. Because men like Guillermo Edwards didn’t give up that easily, and wounds this deep took more than threats to heal. This was just the beginning.
Three days after the police station incident, Lucius sat in his office reviewing surveillance footage from one of Guillermo Edwards’s construction sites. His brother Byron had a friend who had a cousin who worked security, and that footage had found its way into Lucius’s hands through a chain of carefully maintained deniability. What he was seeing made his blood run cold for entirely different reasons.
“Captain,” Arnaldo Caldwell knocked and entered without waiting. “We got a problem.”
“Another one?”
“Carmela just called the front desk. She’s here, says she needs to talk to you, and she won’t leave.”
Lucius closed the laptop. He’d been avoiding his ex-wife since the hospital, letting her stew in the consequences of her choices, letting her wonder what he was planning. But maybe it was time for that conversation.
He found Carmela in the lobby, and the sight of her stopped him cold. She’d lost weight in three days, had circles under her eyes that makeup couldn’t quite hide, and was wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt instead of her usual carefully curated outfits.
“Lucius,” her voice cracked. “Please, I need to talk to you.” He gestured to a conference room, waited until they were alone.
“What do you want, Carmela?”
“I want my son back.” Tears streamed down her face. “I want to explain, to apologize. I want—”
“You want. What about what Blake wants? Did you ask him?”
“He won’t answer my calls, won’t respond to texts. I went to your apartment, and he wouldn’t even come to the door.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you choose your husband over your child.”
“I didn’t choose—” she stopped, took a breath. “Okay, I did. I chose wrong. I was blind and stupid, and I failed him. But Lucius, he’s my son, too. I have rights.”
“Rights you nearly forfeited when your husband put him in the hospital.” Lucius kept his voice level, professional. “CPS is still investigating. Emergency custody is temporary, but I’m filing for permanent modification. Blake doesn’t feel safe in that house, and I’m not sending him back.”
“What if I leave Guillermo?” The question hung in the air. Lucius studied his ex-wife, looking for manipulation, for strategy. He found only desperation.
“Have you?”
“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it. The house is in both our names. The business is his, but I could—”
“Thinking about it?” Lucius laughed, a bitter sound. “You’re thinking about leaving the man who harmed your son. That’s where we are.”
“It’s not that simple! We’re married, we have assets together. I can’t just walk away from two years of my life.”
“Blake is sixteen years of your life, and you’re still hesitating.” He stood. “I’m going to make this simple for you, Carmela. You want to be in Blake’s life? You want him to answer your calls? Then you prove you’ve changed. You leave Edwards. You get therapy. You spend every day earning back the trust you destroyed. But until then, until I see actual change and not just words, you stay away from him. Because he’s been through enough.”
“You can’t keep me from my son!”
“Watch me.” He walked out, left her sitting there, and felt no satisfaction in her pain, just a bone-deep weariness at how tangled everything had become.
Back in his office, he opened the laptop again. The surveillance footage showed something interesting: Guillermo Edwards meeting with three men in hard hats at a construction site on the East Side—the same site where, according to permits, no construction was supposed to be happening for another two weeks. The same site where, according to Lucius’s digging, building inspections had been mysteriously passed despite obvious code violations.
His phone rang. Courtney Baldwin, his lawyer. “Lucius, we have a problem. Edwards is counter-suing for defamation and harassment. Claims you threatened him at the police station, that you’re abusing your position to intimidate him, and he’s filing an ethics complaint with the department.”
“He’s what?”
“It gets worse. He’s claiming Blake has been difficult at home for months, that you’ve been coaching the boy to lie, and that the whole thing is a custody play on your part. He’s got documentation—texts, photos, witness statements from neighbors.”
Lucius felt ice settle in his gut. “He’s been planning this since before he hit Blake.”
“Probably. This guy’s smart, Lucius. He knew you’d come after him, so he built a defense ahead of time. We need to be very, very careful here.”
After she hung up, Lucius sat in the dark of his office and realized he’d underestimated Guillermo Edwards. The man wasn’t just an abuser covering his tracks; he was a predator who’d been orchestrating this entire scenario, maybe from the beginning. The question was, why?
That night, after Blake was asleep, Lucius called in a favor from an old army buddy who now worked in private investigation. Within an hour, he had a preliminary background on Guillermo Edwards that made everything click into place: three previous marriages, two restraining orders (both sealed), a bankruptcy seven years ago right before he started his construction business, and a sealed juvenile record from when Edwards was seventeen.
Lucius knew sealed records stayed sealed for good reasons. But he also knew people who could unseal them, off the books, no questions asked. It would cost him, maybe even cost him his badge if it came out. But his son was more important than his career. He made the call.
The file arrived via encrypted email at 2:47 a.m. Lucius was still awake, had been for hours, digging through public records and construction permits, trying to find a thread that would unravel Guillermo Edwards’s carefully constructed life. What he found in that sealed juvenile file made him reach for his phone to call Carmela, then stop. Because what he was reading wasn’t just evidence; it was a weapon, and he needed to think very carefully about how to use it.
At seventeen, Guillermo Edwards, then Guillermo Garcia, had been arrested for assault against his stepfather. The charges were eventually dropped, the record sealed, but the police reports told a story: a teenage boy with anger management issues, a pattern of concerning behavior, and allegations of stalking his stepfather’s daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter had been fifteen at the time.
Lucius felt sick. He looked at the closed door to Blake’s room and wondered how he’d failed to see this coming. Carmela had married a predator, and Lucius had been too busy being angry about the divorce to properly vet the man who’d be living with his son.
His phone buzzed. Byron. “You awake?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“You need to come to the garage. Now. Blake’s here.”
“What? He’s supposed to be asleep in his room.”
“Well, he’s not. He rode his bike here an hour ago. Won’t tell me why, but he’s pretty shaken up. You need to come.”
Lucius checked Blake’s room: empty, bed stuffed with pillows in a classic teenager trick. He was out the door in three minutes, his heart pounding. What if Edwards had gotten to him?
He found Blake in Byron’s office, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like motor oil and old coffee. His brother stood guard at the door, arms crossed, looking worried.
“Blake,” Lucius knelt in front of his son. “What happened?”
“I went back to the house to get some stuff I forgot.” Blake wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Mom wasn’t there, but Guillermo was. He… Dad, he was waiting for me.”
Lucius felt his control slip. “Did he touch you?”
“No. He just talked. Said things about you. About how you’re going to lose your job because of the ethics complaint. How you’re abusing your authority. How the court’s going to see through your manipulation and give Mom full custody. He said I’d never see you again, that I should get used to having him as a father, that you were nothing but a violent thug in a uniform.”
“He was baiting you, trying to get you to attack him.”
“I know. That’s why I left. But Dad…” Blake finally looked up, and the fear in his eyes was worse than any bruise. “He showed me photos of me. Sleeping in my room. Taken through the window. He’s been watching me.”
The world tilted. Lucius stood, walked to the corner of the garage, and had to physically restrain himself from putting his fist through the wall.
Byron put a hand on his shoulder. “Lou, stay smart. Don’t give him what he wants.”
“He violated a restraining order,” Lucius’s voice was deadly calm. “He threatened a minor. He’s been stalking my son.”
“And if you go over there and beat the hell out of him, you lose everything: your badge, custody, maybe your freedom. Is that what Blake needs?”
Lucius looked at his son, huddled in that blanket, trying to be brave and failing. Byron was right. This required strategy, not violence.
“Blake, did he give you those photos?”
“No. Just showed them on his phone. There were like twenty of them, from the past week.”
“Good. That means they’re still on his phone, timestamped and geo-tagged.” Lucius pulled out his own phone. “I’m calling this in. Official channels. He just gave us everything we need.”
Two hours later, Officer Sandy Ali and another patrolman arrived at Guillermo Edwards’s house with a warrant for his phone, based on stalking charges filed by Lucius David on behalf of his minor son. Carmela wasn’t home. Edwards answered the door in pajamas, all innocent confusion, but his phone told a different story. Twenty-three photos of Blake, taken over five days. Locations, timestamps, angles that showed Edwards had been following the boy, watching him, building a file. And in the metadata, Lucius’s investigator found something else: photos of other teenage boys, going back years.
“Captain David,” Sandy Ali called him at dawn. “You need to see this. Edwards isn’t just stalking Blake. We found three other victims on his phone. One’s from his previous marriage. Another’s a neighbor’s kid. The third, we don’t know yet. But this is a pattern.”
Lucius felt vindication and horror war in his chest. “Enough for an arrest?”
“More than enough. Stalking, harassment, child endangerment. We can hold him for seventy-two hours while we build the case. You want to be here when we pick him up?”
“No.” Lucius looked at Blake, asleep on Byron’s office couch, exhausted from fear and adrenaline. “I want to be with my son. But Ali? Make sure he knows why he’s going down. Make sure he knows he should have left my family alone.”
The arrest happened at 7:15 a.m., while Guillermo Edwards was drinking coffee and probably planning his next move against Lucius. Carmela got the call at 7:47 from a lawyer Guillermo had on retainer. By 8:00, she was at Lucius’s apartment, pounding on the door.
“Lucius, open up! What did you do?”
He opened the door, stepped into the hallway so Blake wouldn’t hear. “I did my job. Your husband is a predator. He’s been stalking Blake, photographing him, and we found evidence he’s done this before. He’s in custody, and if I’m right, he’s looking at five to ten years, minimum.”
Carmela’s face crumbled. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be.”
“It is. And Carmela, you need to make a choice right now. You can stand by Edwards, hire lawyers, fight this. Or you can stand with your son and help us build the case. But you can’t do both.”
She slid down the wall, sat in the hallway of his apartment building, and sobbed. “I didn’t know. I swear to God, Lucius, I didn’t know.”
“I believe you. But Blake doesn’t. And that’s what matters.” He softened, fractionally. “You want to fix this? You start by telling the prosecutors everything. Every red flag you ignored, every moment you chose Edwards over Blake. You give them the ammunition to put him away for good. That’s how you start earning your son back.”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face, and Lucius felt no satisfaction, just a grim determination to see this through. Because this wasn’t over. Not yet. Men like Edwards had contingency plans, resources, and lawyers who knew how to muddy the water and create reasonable doubt. The arrest was just the beginning. The real war was about to start.
Guillermo Edwards made bail in forty-eight hours. His lawyer, a slick operator named Tanner Mada who specialized in defending the indefensible, argued that the photos were innocent, that Edwards was a concerned stepfather, that the metadata was circumstantial. The judge, a tired woman three weeks from retirement, set bail at fifty thousand dollars and released him with an ankle monitor and a restraining order.
Lucius got the call from the prosecutor, a bulldog named Julio Walsh who put away more predators than anyone in the city. “I’m sorry, Lucius. I pushed for remand, but Mada is good. He made Edwards look like a concerned parent.”
“He’ll run.”
“His passport’s flagged. He’s got a monitor. And we’re building the case. The other victims are willing to testify.”
“That’ll take months, maybe years. In the meantime, he’s out there, and he knows I’m coming for him.”
“Lucius,” Julio’s voice held a warning. “Do not do anything stupid. We have him. Let the system work.”
But Lucius had spent twenty-three years watching the system work, and he knew its flaws intimately. He knew how evidence got suppressed, how victims got intimidated, how men with money and good lawyers walked free while good people suffered. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Not to Blake.
“Captain,” Arnaldo Caldwell appeared in Lucius’s office doorway. “We have a situation. Anonymous tip came in about Edwards’s construction sites. Claims he’s been using undocumented workers, ignoring safety codes, paying off inspectors. Could be nothing, or…”
“Or it could be exactly what we need.” Lucius grabbed his jacket. “Get me a warrant for his business records. Everything. Payroll, permits, inspection reports. I want to bury him under so many charges he never sees daylight again.”
“Lou, man, you need to be careful. His lawyer’s already crying harassment. IA is watching you.”
“Then they can watch me do my job.” Lucius headed for the door, then stopped. “Arnaldo, you’ve been my partner for fifteen years. You don’t have to follow me on this. If it goes bad, I don’t want you caught in the fallout.”
Caldwell stood, grabbed his own jacket. “That kid of yours used to bring his science projects to the precinct, showed me how to build a volcano when he was eight. You think I’m going to let some predator walk free? I’m with you, wherever this goes.”
The warrant came through by noon. By 2:00 p.m., Lucius had a team of officers at Edwards’s main construction site, the luxury condo development on the East Side that had been fast-tracked through every permit process, every inspection, every bureaucratic hurdle. What they found was worse than Lucius had hoped for: structurally unsound foundations, electrical work that violated a dozen safety codes, materials that didn’t match the building plans, and in the site office, a set of books that showed Edwards had been cooking numbers for years—overbilling clients, underpaying workers, skimming materials, and pocketing the difference.
“Captain David,” one of the officers called from the basement level. “You need to see this.”
Lucius climbed down into the foundation area, his flashlight cutting through the gloom. The officer pointed to a section of wall where concrete had been poured but hadn’t yet set properly. “Look at the rebar placement. It’s all wrong. This whole building could collapse in a moderate earthquake. And according to the inspection reports, this passed structural review three weeks ago.”
Lucius photographed everything, called in a city building inspector who wasn’t on Edwards’s payroll, and by 4:00 p.m. had enough evidence to shut down every project Edwards had in progress. Financial fraud, reckless endangerment, bribery of public officials—the charges would multiply like bacteria in a petri dish.
But it still wasn’t enough. Because Edwards had contingency plans, offshore accounts, properties in his mother’s name. He could walk away from the business, declare bankruptcy, and disappear into a comfortable life somewhere warm while Blake lived with nightmares. Lucius needed something bigger, something permanent.
That night, he met with Byron and Courtney Baldwin in Byron’s garage. Blake was at a friend’s house, a carefully supervised visit that Lucius had arranged to give the kid some normalcy.
“Okay,” Courtney spread files across Byron’s desk. “Here’s where we stand legally. The stalking charges are solid. The construction fraud is building. But Mada is good, and Edwards has money. He could drag this out for years, and there’s always the chance he beats some charges, plea-bargains on others, serves minimal time.”
“That’s not acceptable,” Lucius said flatly.
“Then we need to think outside the law,” Byron leaned back in his chair. “I’m not saying we do anything illegal. I’m saying we need to get creative.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Byron grinned, and Lucius was reminded that his younger brother hadn’t always made his living fixing cars. Before he’d gone straight, Byron had run with a rougher crowd, had connections that spanned the gray areas between legal and criminal. “Edwards has enemies, lots of them. Contractors he undercut, workers he screwed over, clients he defrauded. What if some of those enemies decided to come forward? What if the press got interested in the story? A predator contractor who stalked his stepson while building death traps that could collapse on families.”
“Media pressure,” Courtney said slowly. “Public outcry. Make it politically impossible for any DA to offer a plea deal.”
“And more than that,” Byron pulled up something on his laptop. “Edwards owns three properties outright. One’s the house where he lives with Carmela. The other two are rental properties that generate his cash flow. What if those properties suddenly had very expensive problems? Plumbing disasters, electrical fires, foundation issues that require immediate and costly repairs.”
“That’s destruction of property,” Lucius said.
“Is it? Or is it just the natural consequence of shoddy construction finally catching up with him? You’ve seen his work; those properties are probably already disasters waiting to happen. What if someone just… accelerated the timeline?”
Lucius looked at his brother, at the lawyer who was carefully not expressing an opinion, and felt the weight of the choice in front of him. He could play by the rules, trust the system, hope that justice prevailed. Or he could fight fire with fire, use Edwards’s own weapons against him.
“How soon can you make it happen?”
“Give me a week. And Lou? Once we start this, we can’t stop. Edwards will know it’s us. He’ll fight back. This could get ugly.”
“It’s already ugly. Let’s finish it.”
The first domino fell on a Tuesday morning when the city’s largest newspaper ran a front-page story: CONTRACTOR FACES STALKING, FRAUD CHARGES. ARE YOUR HOMES SAFE? The article detailed Guillermo Edwards’s arrest, the photos of Blake, and crucially, included interviews with three former employees who described systematic safety violations, financial fraud, and a pattern of intimidation. By noon, Edwards’s phone was ringing off the hook: clients demanding refunds, investors pulling funding, city councilors calling for investigations. His carefully constructed empire was shaking.
The second domino fell that night when a pipe burst in his primary rental property, a six-unit building that housed two families with young children. The water damage was catastrophic, requiring immediate evacuation and tens of thousands in repairs. The building inspector who showed up found so many code violations that he red-tagged the entire structure. Lucius watched from across the street as tenants carried their belongings out in garbage bags, their faces exhausted and angry. He felt a flicker of guilt for their displacement, but Byron had already arranged for them to be contacted by a tenants’ rights lawyer who helped them sue Edwards for uninhabitable conditions. They’d end up better off.
The third domino was Carmela. Three days after the newspaper article, she filed for divorce and moved into her sister’s house. She called Lucius that night, her voice small and broken. “I gave the prosecutor everything. Every document I could find, every conversation I remembered. Julio Walsh says it’s enough to add financial fraud to the stalking charges.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Not as hard as facing Blake and knowing I chose that monster over my own son.” She paused. “Can I see him? Just for coffee? I know I don’t deserve it, but…”
“I’ll ask him. No promises.”
Blake agreed reluctantly, and Lucius drove him to a coffee shop where Carmela waited, looking fragile and older than her years. He stayed within sight but out of earshot, letting them talk, watching his son’s body language shift from defensive to guardedly open over the course of an hour. When they were done, Blake walked back to the car with red-rimmed eyes but looser shoulders.
“She apologized. Really apologized. Said she was wrong, that she chose badly, that she understands if I never forgive her.”
“Do you want to forgive her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe eventually. But Dad? She gave the prosecutor everything. She’s helping take Guillermo down.”
“I know.”
“Is that enough to make up for it?”
Lucius pulled his son into a hug. “That’s not for me to decide. But it’s a start.”
The fourth domino fell when one of Guillermo Edwards’s previous victims, a boy now twenty-three, married with a child of his own, saw the newspaper article and came forward. His testimony was devastating: three years of stalking when he was fifteen, escalating from photographs to following him, to showing up at his school, to explicit messages. The charges had been sealed in a plea deal, but now he was willing to testify publicly. Two more victims followed. The case was no longer just about Blake; it was about a pattern of predatory behavior spanning a decade.
Tanner Mada tried to suppress the testimony, tried to argue prejudice, character assassination, irrelevance. But Julio Walsh was relentless, and the judge, newly motivated by public pressure and media scrutiny, denied every motion. The trial date was set for six weeks out. Edwards would stand trial for stalking, fraud, child endangerment, and a dozen related charges. If convicted on all counts, he was looking at fifteen to twenty years.
But Lucius knew convicted men still had appeals, still had lawyers, still had ways to fight back. He needed Edwards not just in prison, but destroyed, so thoroughly ruined that he’d never threaten Blake again. That’s when Byron called with the final piece.
“Lou, you need to hear this. I found a guy, a friend of a friend, who worked on Edwards’s construction crew five years ago. He’s willing to testify that Edwards intentionally cut corners on a residential build in 2020. The foundation was never properly reinforced, and Edwards knew it. The family that bought that house? Their ten-year-old daughter was injured when part of the deck collapsed last year.”
“Does the family know Edwards was responsible?”
“Not yet. But they could, if someone pointed them in the right direction.”
Lucius felt the trap closing. “Give me the family’s contact information. And Byron? Thank you.”
“He hurt our kid. Our family. I’d burn the world down for you, too,” Byron’s voice was fierce. “Now go finish this.”
The trial of Guillermo Edwards began on a cold Monday in November. The courtroom was packed: media, victims, former employees, and every cop in the city who had a grudge against predators who abused their position. Lucius sat in the front row, Blake on one side, Carmela on the other, a united front despite all the history between them.
Julio Walsh’s opening statement was surgical. She outlined the pattern of stalking, the photos of Blake, the testimony from previous victims. She detailed the construction fraud, the building code violations, the bribery. And then she played her final card: the family of the injured girl, suing Edwards in civil court and willing to testify about the collapsed deck, the negligent construction, the permanent injury their daughter had sustained.
Tanner Mada tried to counter, painting Edwards as a misunderstood businessman, a concerned stepfather, a victim of a vengeful ex-husband with a badge. But his voice lacked conviction, and the jury—eight women, four men, mostly middle-aged, mostly parents—stared at Edwards with undisguised contempt.
The prosecution’s case took three days. Victim after victim testified to Edwards’s stalking, his manipulation, his predatory behavior. Construction workers detailed the fraud, the corner-cutting, the intimidation. Building inspectors admitted to taking bribes. The father of the injured girl broke down on the stand, describing his daughter’s months of physical therapy, the surgeries, the trauma.
Through it all, Edwards sat impassive, his expensive suit and calm demeanor a mask over whatever darkness lived beneath. But Lucius saw the cracks: the way his hand shook when the photos of Blake were displayed, the tightness around his eyes when former employees detailed his cruelty, the moment of pure rage when Carmela took the stand and methodically destroyed his character.
On the fourth day, Tanner Mada called Edwards to testify in his own defense. It was a gamble, and Lucius knew why. Edwards was charismatic, articulate, and Mada was hoping he could charm the jury. But Julio Walsh was waiting.
She let Edwards tell his story: the concerned stepfather, the misunderstood businessman, the victim of a vindictive ex-husband. She let him paint himself as sympathetic, reasonable, human. And then she went for the throat.
“Mr. Edwards, you claim these photos of Blake David were taken out of concern for his safety. Is that correct?”
“Yes. He was sneaking out at night, hanging around dangerous areas.”
“These dangerous areas,” Julio pulled up a map on the courtroom screen. “Could you identify them?” Edwards pointed to various locations: the coffee shop near his father’s apartment, the library, his uncle’s garage. “These don’t seem particularly dangerous to me, Mr. Edwards. Would you characterize a library as a dangerous area?”
“It’s not about the location; it’s about who he was meeting.”
“Who was he meeting?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I was monitoring him.”
“So you were monitoring a minor child, not your biological son, without his knowledge or consent, because you were concerned about hypothetical meetings with hypothetical people in public locations like libraries and coffee shops?” The jury shifted. Edwards’s lawyer objected, but the damage was done.
Julio continued. “Mr. Edwards, let’s talk about your previous marriages. How many times have you been married?”
“Three times, including Carmela.”
“And in your previous two marriages, did you have stepchildren?”
“Yes.”
“Both teenage boys?”
“Yes.”
“And both relationships ended with restraining orders filed against you, is that correct?”
“Those were misunderstandings.”
“Misunderstandings. Like the photos of Blake were misunderstandings? Like the building code violations were misunderstandings? Like the collapsed deck that injured a ten-year-old girl was a misunderstanding?” Julio’s voice rose. “Mr. Edwards, how many misunderstandings does it take before we recognize a pattern of dangerous, predatory behavior?”
Tanner Mada was on his feet, objecting loudly, but the jury had already made up their minds. Lucius could see it in their faces: the disgust, the anger, the determination to protect their own children from men like Guillermo Edwards.
The defense rested the next day, their case in tatters. Closing arguments were brief: Julio Walsh, methodical and devastating; Tanner Mada, desperate and unconvincing. The jury deliberated for four hours. When they returned, their verdict was unanimous on all twenty-three counts: Guilty.
Guillermo Edwards’s face went white. He turned to look at Lucius, and in that moment, Lucius saw everything: the rage, the hatred, the unspoken promise of revenge. But it was hollow, because Edwards was going to prison for fifteen to twenty years, minimum. And by the time he got out, Blake would be in his thirties, established and safe, and Lucius would still be waiting.
Sentencing was set for two weeks later. Lucius walked out of the courtroom with Blake and Carmela, feeling the weight of months of tension finally lifting. Outside, media swarmed, cameras flashing, microphones thrust forward.
“Captain David, how do you feel about the verdict?”
“I feel like justice was served, and I hope this sends a message to anyone who thinks they can harm children and get away with it.” He put his arm around Blake. “My son is safe. That’s all that matters.”
But as they walked to his truck, Lucius’s phone buzzed. Byron. “Lou, we have a problem. Edwards posted bail pending sentencing. He’s out.”
“He’s what?”
“Mada pulled some strings. Appeals court overturned the remand order. Edwards walked out twenty minutes ago. And Lou? His ankle monitor is already offline. He cut it and ran.”
Lucius looked at Blake, at Carmela, at the life they’d been trying to rebuild, and felt a cold certainty settle in his chest. Edwards wasn’t going to go quietly. He was going to come after them, one last desperate act of vengeance.
“Get Blake somewhere safe. Now.” Lucius was already moving toward his truck. “Byron, I need you to take him and Carmela to the cabin upstate. Don’t tell me where, exactly. Just go.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I should have done from the beginning. I’m going to end this.”
Lucius David had hunted men before—in Fallujah, in Kandahar, in the dark streets of the city’s worst neighborhoods. He knew how predators thought, how they moved, where they ran when cornered. And he knew Guillermo Edwards would come for him first. Not Blake, not Carmela, but Lucius himself. Because Edwards understood that to truly hurt Lucius, you didn’t just harm him; you harmed what he loved while he watched.
Which is why Lucius went home alone, sent Blake and Carmela away with Byron, and waited.
His apartment was dark when he arrived at 10:00 p.m. He didn’t turn on the lights, just moved through the familiar space, checking windows, setting up sightlines, preparing for war. His service weapon was locked in the safe, per department regulations. The shotgun he’d bought for home defense was not. He sat in the dark and waited.
Edwards came at 2:17 a.m. Lucius heard the lock picks working on his door, heard the careful footsteps in the hallway. He watched as Edwards slipped inside, a shadow against shadows, holding something that glinted in the ambient light. A knife, of course. Up close and personal. Maximum suffering.
“I know you’re here, Captain,” Edwards’s voice was steady, almost conversational. “I know Blake isn’t. You sent him away. Smart. But that just means we get to have our conversation uninterrupted.”
Lucius stayed silent, watching from his position in the bedroom doorway.
“You destroyed my life,” Edwards moved into the living room. “My business, my marriage, my freedom. All because your son couldn’t handle a little discipline. All because you couldn’t accept that Carmela chose me over you.”
“You stalked and harmed a child,” Lucius’s voice came from the darkness. “This was always going to end one way, Guillermo.”
Edwards spun toward the sound, but Lucius was already moving. Twenty-three years of training, three combat tours, a thousand encounters with violent offenders. He closed the distance before Edwards could react, swept the knife arm aside, and drove his shoulder into Edwards’s sternum. They went down hard, the knife skittering across the floor.
“I’m going to find Blake, and your brother, and everyone you love,” Edwards gasped, swinging wildly.
“No,” Lucius pinned him, drove a knee into Edwards’s solar plexus. “You’re not.”
He could end him right now. Claim self-defense. Plant the knife. Call it in. No one would question Captain Lucius David defending himself against a convicted felon who’d broken into his home. It would be justified, clean, final. But that wasn’t justice; that was revenge. And Blake didn’t need a father who was a killer. He needed a father who was better than that.
Lucius pulled out his phone, called it in. “This is Captain David. I have an intruder at my residence, armed with a knife. I’ve subdued him. Send units to my location.”
Edwards laughed, blood on his teeth. “You think this is over? I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll claim you lured me here, that you attacked me. Self-defense. Entrapment.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the security camera I installed last week caught everything.” Lucius pointed to the small device mounted above the door. “Including you breaking in, including the knife, including your threats against my son.”
Edwards’s face went slack. “You planned this?”
“No. I just knew you were stupid enough to come after me. And I was ready.”
The police arrived six minutes later, Sandy Ali first through the door, weapon drawn, eyes taking in the scene: Lucius standing, Edwards on the ground, the knife as evidence. Everything clean, legal, and by the book.
“Captain, you okay?”
“I’m fine. Mr. Edwards is under arrest for breaking and entering, attempted assault, and violation of his bail conditions. I have video evidence.” Lucius handed over his phone. “Book him, and make sure his lawyer knows that this time, there’s no bail. He’s in custody until sentencing, and probably for a long time after.”
They cuffed Edwards, read him his rights, and hauled him out of the apartment. Tanner Mada arrived thirty minutes later, looked at the evidence, and promptly advised his client to accept whatever plea deal the DA offered, because going to trial with video evidence of a midnight knife attack on a police captain was career suicide, even for a lawyer as good as Mada.
Two days later, Guillermo Edwards pled guilty to all charges in exchange for a consolidated sentence: twenty-five years, no possibility of parole before eighteen. By the time he got out, if he survived prison that long, he’d be sixty-eight years old, broken, and irrelevant.
Lucius brought Blake back home that weekend. They sat on the couch in the apartment, eating pizza and watching a game, just being father and son in the quiet safety of their own space.
“Is it really over?” Blake asked.
“Yeah. It’s over.”
“What if he gets out early? What if—”
“Then I’ll be there. I’ll always be there.” Lucius pulled his son close. “That’s my promise to you, champ. Whatever happens, wherever you go, I’m on your side. Always.”
Blake nodded against his shoulder, and Lucius felt something shift: the last piece of tension releasing, the trauma finally beginning to heal.
Three months later, Carmela moved into an apartment two blocks away. She and Blake were rebuilding their relationship slowly, with therapy and honest conversations and the acceptance that trust, once broken, took years to repair. But they were trying. That was enough.
Six months later, Blake’s bruises had faded completely. He made varsity football, started dating a girl from his chemistry class, and began talking about college. The nightmares came less frequently. The fear in his eyes was gone.
One year later, Lucius stood in front of the department at an awards ceremony, receiving a commendation for his work on the Edwards case. The mayor gave a speech about protecting children and upholding justice. The new chief of police praised Lucius’s dedication and integrity. And in the audience, Blake sat next to Byron and Carmela, all of them together despite everything, because family—real family—survived worse than divorce and abuse and near-tragedy.
After the ceremony, Blake found his father outside the precinct. “Dad, I’m proud of you.”
Lucius felt his throat tighten. “I’m proud of you, too, champ. Every day.”
“I know things got ugly. I know you had to do things that weren’t easy. But you protected me. You did the right thing.”
“That’s what fathers do.” Blake hugged him, and Lucius held his son and looked up at the clear sky and felt, for the first time in a year, like everything was going to be okay. Because Guillermo Edwards was behind bars, Blake was safe, the family was healing, and justice—real, hard-won, imperfect justice—had prevailed. Not because Lucius had been the strongest or the most ruthless, but because he’d been smart enough to use the law, patient enough to build a case, and willing to sacrifice his own desire for immediate revenge in favor of a lasting victory. He’d won not by becoming a monster, but by remaining a man: flawed, determined, and absolutely unwilling to let evil win. And in the end, that was enough.
