Derek stood beside a black SUV.
Mark was next to him.
And between them stood a third man.
My brother stopped breathing.
I had known Cole my entire life.
I had watched him break an arm falling from a tree when he was twelve without crying.
I had watched him bury our father.
I had watched him leave for deployments without telling us where he was going.
Nothing frightened him.
But the man in that photograph frightened him.
I could see it.
“Cole?”
He didn’t answer.
The detective looked between us.
“You recognize him?”
Cole’s eyes remained fixed on the screen.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
My brother’s jaw tightened.
When he finally spoke, his voice was almost a whisper.
“He’s supposed to be dead.”
The detective’s expression changed.
Behind us, someone shouted.
We turned.
The office door slammed.
Derek was gone.
black SUV tear out of the parking lot.
The same black SUV from the photograph.
Cole grabbed his phone.
“Sarah, get behind the officers.”
“What’s happening?”
He was already moving.
“Cole!”
He turned once.
The calm older brother who had come to help me move was gone.
In his place stood the man the Navy had spent ten years creating.
And the look on his face told me the choke Derek had put me in was no longer the most dangerous thing that had happened that night.
Not even close.
Because apparently Derek hadn’t chosen me as his sparring partner by accident.
And the man Cole believed had died three years earlier had been waiting for my brother to walk into Apex Grappling all along.
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