Chapter 7 - Into the Wilderness
The black SUV crested the snowy ridge of the Adirondack logging road, its headlights cutting twin beams through the blinding flurry of a late-winter blizzard.
Lucien sat in the back seat, his jaw clenched, a heavy woolen coat pulled tight against the freezing mountain air. Two tactical vehicles followed close behind. He had refused an army; this wasn't a military operation. This was personal.
"The cabin is half a mile up ahead, boss," Marco reported from the front seat, wiping condensation off the windshield. "Trees are too dense for the convoy. We go on foot."
Lucien stepped out into the biting wind. Snow crunched beneath his Italian leather boots. The silence of the mountains was absolute, broken only by the whistling wind through the pines.
May you like
He walked up the winding trail, his heart hammering against his ribs in a rhythm he hadn't felt since his first gunfight. Every step felt like walking backward through time, stripping away the suits, the power, the money, until only the raw, desperate core of who he was remained.
A thin line of smoke rose from a stone chimney ahead.
