Coming home after six months of military duty should have been the happiest night of my life, but the moment my pregnant wife flinched away from my touch, I knew something in my house had gone terribly wrong.

Before I took down Julian legally, I needed to dismantle his safety net.

Parasites like my brother don't operate in a vacuum. A man who steals his brother's company and sells his brother's unborn child doesn't do it out of raw ambition; he does it out of desperate, suffocating terror.

Sterling’s confession revealed what had driven Julian over the edge.

It wasn't just greed. Julian was drowning.

At 1100 hours, Miller and I sat in an unmarked sedan across from an upscale sports lounge in Arlington. Julian’s late-model BMW M8—purchased with Ironclad Hauling funds two months ago—was parked in the VIP slot out front.

"Our contacts at CID ran Julian's recent financial footprint," Miller said, turning a tablet toward me. "Julian didn't just lose money in Miami. He got involved with an underground bookmaking ring run by an Albanian syndicate operating out of South Baltimore. He owes a loan shark named Artan Kastrati seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The deadline is tomorrow at midnight."

"And if he doesn't pay?" I asked.

"Kastrati’s enforcers don't repossess cars, Daniel," Miller replied flatly. "They take organs."

"So Julian was never going to keep the trucking company," I realized, the pieces locking into place with mathematical clarity. "He was liquidating everything. He was going to take the four million from Ironclad, pay off Kastrati, let Evelyn take the fall for the fraudulent adoption, and vanish to Costa Rica."

"A complete scorched-earth betrayal," Miller said. "He was going to leave his own mother holding the bag while Maya ended up in an asylum and your child was shipped across the Atlantic."

The front doors of the sports lounge swung open.

Julian stepped out onto the sidewalk, talking animatedly on his gold-plated smartphone. Beside him walked two men with thick necks, shaved heads, and leather jackets—Kastrati’s muscle.

One of the enforcers slammed Julian against the brick wall of the building, grabbing him by the neck of his designer sweater.

I rolled down my window slightly, listening through the parabolic directional microphone Miller had mounted to our dashboard.

"—I told you, the wire clears at two!" Julian was sobbing, his voice shrill and trembling. "Four point two million! I'll have Kastrati's money in his crypto wallet by four o'clock! Just tell him to call off the guys watching my apartment!"

The enforcer shoved Julian back, patting his cheek with hard, mocking slaps.

"Two o'clock, little boy," the heavy man spat in broken English. "At two-fifteen, if the wallet is empty, we visit your mama's house. Understand?"

The two enforcers turned and walked toward a black Mercedes SUV, leaving Julian hyperventilating on the sidewalk, straightening his crumpled collar with shaking hands.

I stepped out of our car.

Julian didn't see me until my shadow fell across the hood of his BMW.

He froze. His phone slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the concrete pavement.

"D-Daniel?" he stammered, backing up until his spine hit the driver's door of his car. "What are you doing here? Mom said you went looking for Maya!"

I walked up to him, stopping eighteen inches away. I was half a foot taller than him and sixty pounds of solid, combat-hardened muscle heavier.

"I found her, Julian," I said.

Julian’s eyes darted wildly down the street, looking for an escape route, but Miller was already leaning against the lamppost ten feet away, cutting off the alley.

"Listen, bro," Julian rambled, sweat pouring down his temples, washing through his hair gel. "I was just... I was meeting some business associates! We're closing the syndication deal! Everything is great! Ironclad is going to be worth fifty million—"

I reached out, grabbed Julian by the front of his shirt, and lifted him onto his tiptoes with one arm.

His breath choked off. His hands clawed desperately at my wrist, but my forearm was like an iron bar.

"Do you know what Haloperidol is, Julian?" I asked softly.

His face turned purple. His eyes bulged with pure, unadulterated terror.

"I... I don't..."

"It’s an antipsychotic," I whispered. "Dr. Chen found it in Maya’s bloodstream. Along with Lorazepam."

Julian’s bladder gave out. A dark stain spread rapidly across the front of his tailored trousers.

"It was Mom!" Julian squealed, the words tumbling out of him in a desperate, pathetic rush of cowardice. "It was all Mom’s idea! She got the pills from her doctor in Richmond! She told me if Maya miscarried or went crazy, you wouldn't fight us on the company! She said you'd be too broken to care! Daniel, please! Don't kill me! I’m your brother!"

"My brother died when he laid his hands on my pregnant wife," I said.

I didn't strike him. An amateur punches an enemy; a professional controls the operational environment.

I reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his keycard to the Ironclad corporate headquarters, his passport, and his encrypted flash drive.

"You're going to that signing meeting at two o'clock," I told him, lowering him back to the ground until his trembling feet touched the pavement.

Julian fell to his knees, gasping for breath, clutching his throat. "W-what?"

"You're going to put on your best suit," I continued, looking down at the broken, sniveling mess of a man before me. "You're going to walk into Vance & Preston’s boardroom. You're going to sit next to Evelyn. And you're going to smile for the cameras."

"Daniel, Kastrati’s men—"

"Kastrati’s men are the least of your problems, Julian," I said. "Be at the boardroom at one-forty-five. If you try to run, if you try to board a plane, or if you don't show up, I won't call the police. I will personally find you. And there won't be a safehouse on this earth that can hide you from me."

I turned and walked back to the car.

Miller opened the door for me, shaking his head with disgust. "Pathetic excuse for a man."