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.”

I turned the corner toward the ICU waiting area, and there they were. It looked like a blockade. Victor was sitting on a bench, checking his watch like he was late for a board meeting. The seven brothers stood in a semicircle around the  door to her room.

When they saw me, the atmosphere shifted. It wasn’t grief I saw in their eyes. It was annoyance.

“Finally,” Victor said, standing up. He smoothed his expensive Italian suit. “The soldier returns.”

“Where is she?” I growled, stepping forward.

Dominic, the oldest brother, stepped in my path. He was a big guy, a gym rat with vanity muscles and soft hands. He put a hand on my chest.

“Easy, Rambo. She’s not in a state to see anyone right now.”

I looked at his hand on my chest. Then I looked at his eyes.

“Touch me again, Dominic, and you’ll be in the bed next to her.”