Frank had spent years convincing himself that gentleness was all that remained. Roses, soil, and the quiet choreography of pruning had become his penance, his refuge from the ghosts that still marched in his sleep. But his daughter’s broken plea didn’t just summon him; it summoned the soldier they had trained him to be, the one he had sworn never to unleash again.

He crossed that threshold without a weapon, yet every step was loaded. He moved through the mansion’s polished halls like hostile territory, past portraits of power and entitlement that had never once been tested. When he left, the bat was on the floor, the shears were no longer tools, and the hierarchy inside those walls had been shattered. Back in the garden, his hands trembled over the roses. To the world, he was only an old man. To his daughter, he was proof that some wars are worth reopening.