I came home from a Delta deployment to find my wife in the ICU. Her face… I couldn’t recognize her. The doctor whispered, “Thirty-one fractures. Blunt force trauma. Repeated strikes.” Then I saw them outside her room—her father and his seven sons—smiling like they’d just won something. The detective said, “It’s a family matter. The police can’t touch them.” I looked at the hammer print on her skull and replied, “Good. Because I’m not the police.” “What happened to them… no court could ever judge.”

“You held her legs,” I repeated. “You felt her fighting. You heard her begging you. ‘Mason, help me.’ That’s what she said, right?”

Mason flinched. “I… I tried to look away.”

“That doesn’t matter. You were part of the equation.”

I zip-tied his hands in front of him. “Where is the warehouse?”

“What warehouse?” He played dumb. A reflex.

I took the hammer out of my belt loop. I didn’t raise it. I just let the heavy steel head rest in my palm. Mason’s eyes locked onto it. He knew exactly what this hammer meant.

“Warehouse 4!” he blurted out. “At the docks, the South Terminal. That’s where the shipment is.”

“What’s in the shipment?”

“Guns. Modified ARs, military surplus. They’re shipping out to a buyer in Sudan on Tuesday.”

“And the others?”

“They went to Dominic’s penthouse. They’re continuing the party.”