Chapter 2

The motorcade tore through New Harbor's rain-slicked streets like a black arrow—three armored SUVs with tinted windows, running red lights with the casual arrogance of men who'd written the rules everyone else followed.

Inside the lead vehicle, Kael sat in silence, watching the city slide past. New Harbor had been dying when he left ten years ago. The steel mills had closed, the docks had emptied, the young people had fled to Chicago or New York or anywhere with jobs. Now, looking at the boarded-up storefronts and the tent cities under the overpasses, he saw that the city hadn't recovered. It had simply learned to live with its wounds.

"Commander." Ryker's voice cut through his thoughts. "We have a situation."

"We have several. Start with the worst."

"The Holloway family. Derek's father, Victor, runs Holloway Industries. They're the biggest employer in New Harbor—steel fabrication, shipping, some defense contracting. Victor Holloway is... not a man who tolerates humiliation."

"He'll have to learn."

"He's already learning." Ryker tapped his tablet, pulling up a news feed. "He's been making calls since we left the hotel. He's mobilizing his security team, contacting local law enforcement, and—according to our intercepts—he's put a bounty on your head. Fifty thousand dollars to the man who brings you to him alive."

Kael almost smiled. "Fifty thousand. I'm insulted."

"Should I handle it, Commander?"

"No." Kael's voice hardened. "Victor Holloway is a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, I need to see my family."

The motorcade turned onto a street lined with crumbling Victorian houses, their paint peeling, their porches sagging. This was the neighborhood Kael had grown up in—the neighborhood he'd left at eighteen to join the military, the neighborhood he'd returned to three years ago hoping to find peace.

The SUVs stopped in front of a small house with a crooked mailbox and a porch light that flickered like a dying star. Kael got out before Ryker could open his door.

"Wait here," he said.

"Commander—"

"Ryker. I said wait here."

Kael walked up the cracked concrete path and knocked. A moment later, the door opened, and his mother, Eleanor Vance, stood there in her bathrobe, her gray hair pinned back, her face lined with worry.

"Kael? Honey, what are you doing here? I thought you had your engagement party tonight?"

"It's over, Mom."

Eleanor's eyes widened. She reached out and touched his face, her fingers rough from years of factory work. "Oh, baby. Come inside."

The house hadn't changed in twenty years. The same faded wallpaper. The same secondhand furniture. The same smell of coffee and cinnamon that meant home. Kael's father, Frank, sat in his recliner, watching a baseball game with the volume too low. His sister, Maya, was at the kitchen table, textbooks spread around her like a fortress.

"What happened?" Frank asked, not looking away from the game. He'd always had a way of knowing when something was wrong.

"Vanessa decided I wasn't good enough for her."

Maya slammed her textbook shut. "That gold-digging—"

"Maya."

"She's right, though," Eleanor said softly, sitting beside Kael on the couch. "Vanessa never saw you, Kael. She saw what she wanted to see. And when she couldn't find it..."

"She threw me away," Kael finished. "It's fine, Mom. Better to find out now than after a wedding."

Frank finally looked at him. "You don't seem upset."

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

Kael met his father's eyes. Frank Vance had worked thirty years in a steel mill before it closed. He'd raised two kids on a disability pension and pride. He was the strongest man Kael knew, and Kael had never told him the truth about where he'd been for the last decade.

"Because," Kael said carefully, "some things are more important than pride."

They talked for an hour. Eleanor made coffee. Maya ranted about Vanessa's Instagram posts. Frank nodded at the right moments and said nothing at the wrong ones. It was exactly what Kael needed—a reminder that the world he'd built, the world of private armies and offshore accounts and governments that bowed to his name, wasn't the only world that mattered.

When he finally stood to leave, Eleanor hugged him tight. "Come back soon," she whispered. "And Kael? Whatever she did to you... don't let it change who you are."

"I won't, Mom."

He stepped out into the night. The motorcade was still there, Ryker leaning against the lead SUV, smoking a cigarette that glowed orange in the darkness.

"Everything okay, Commander?"

"It will be." Kael looked back at the house, at the warm light in the windows. "Ryker, I want you to do something for me."

"Anything."

"Buy this entire block. Every house. Every empty lot. I want a security perimeter—cameras, sensors, a rapid response team stationed two minutes away. Nobody gets near my family without me knowing about it."

Ryker nodded, pulling out his phone. "Done. What about the Holloways?"

Kael's expression didn't change, but something in the air around him seemed to drop ten degrees. "Victor Holloway put a price on my head. Let's see how he likes it when the price is on his."

"Sir?"

"I want every dirty secret Victor Holloway has ever buried. Every bribe. Every tax evasion. Every worker he cheated out of overtime. Every environmental violation. I want it all, and I want it by morning."

Ryker grinned—a feral expression that transformed his scarred face into something truly terrifying. "Yes, Commander."

As the motorcade pulled away, Kael took one last look at his childhood home. He'd tried to leave the Ghost Reaper behind. He'd tried to be ordinary. But ordinary men couldn't protect the people they loved in a world that preyed on the weak.

If being the Ghost Reaper was what it took to keep his family safe, then the Ghost Reaper would walk again.

And God help anyone who stood in his way.