Chapter 25: The Ghost from the Badlands
Within an hour, Jack and Caleb stood inside the glowing command center of the lodge, staring at the documents displayed across Daniel's monitors.
Jack didn't yell. He didn't smash a desk or curse. He simply went terrifyingly, unnaturally still. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving him looking older and more battered than Ethan had ever seen him.
"Where did you get this?" Jack asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Hand-delivered this morning," Daniel answered grimly. "No digital signature. The encryption protocols point straight to a black-ops server in the state capital."
Caleb leaned over the console, his eyes narrowing as he read through the deployment logs. "Operation Omega... Jack, I thought we burned every record of that op twenty years ago. The agency blamed us for the civilian fallout so they could cover up their own illegal arms trafficking."
Jack clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles turned chalk-white. "They didn't burn it. They kept it locked in a vault, waiting for the right moment to use it as leverage."
"Leverage for what?" Ethan demanded, looking between the two older men. "Jack, what is this? What are these offshore accounts?"
Jack closed his eyes for a long, agonizing moment before looking directly into Ethan's eyes. The fierce, unbreakable armor he always wore had completely shattered, leaving behind a raw, painful vulnerability.
"When your father and I left the military," Jack began slowly, his voice thick with repressed agony, "we were young, broke, and angry at the system. We took jobs doing security work for private contractors overseas. One night... things went catastrophically wrong. Civilians were caught in the crossfire of a corporate raid we were hired to stop. The agency pinned the entire massacre on us to protect themselves."
Jack pointed a trembling finger at the screen. "Those offshore accounts? They aren't my money, Ethan. They's hush money the agency deposited under my name to keep me quiet, threatening that if I ever spoke out about what really happened... they would destroy everyone I loved."
Ethan stepped closer, his heart aching. "And you stayed quiet all these years to protect us?"
"I stayed quiet to protect Benjamin," Jack whispered, a tear finally breaking free and tracking down his weathered cheek. "And when Benjamin died... I stayed quiet to protect you."
May you like
Caleb straightened up, his jaw set like iron. "Whoever sent this package isn't trying to blackmail Jack anymore. They're trying to force him into a corner where he has to run—or fight a war he can't win."
"I'm not running," Jack said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the lethal, unmistakable resolve of a apex predator backed into a trap. "If they want my past, I'll give them my past. But if they think they can use it to touch my family... they'll find out why they used to call me the Wolf."
