Johnson’s POV
The damn phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
Three missed calls.
Then four.
I checked the screen again. “Wife” blinked like a warning flare.
Something was wrong.
I was off-duty, perched on the edge of my bunk at the barracks. Half in uniform, laces undone, sweat clinging to my neck like a second skin.
I’d stayed late to catch up on reports, but now my gut twisted tight, a knot of instinct and dread.
Whatever she wanted, I told myself, it could wait till later or so, I thought.
But something about the urgency in her repeated calls… the kind of panic that bleeds through even in silence… made me reach for my car keys and head straight home.
I drove like a possessed man.
Every red light bled into my headlights. Every bump in the road rattled against my chest like a war drum.
