I CAME HOME FROM DEPL:OYMENT WITHOUT WARNING AND FROZE — MY WIFE’S HEAD WAS SHAVED, HER FACE BRUISED

And I discovered that the only person in that house who’d told me the truth was the one they’d all decided to destroy.

I believe my wife.

I believed her on the floor, before I read a word.

Everything after that was just proving to the world what I already knew:

that the woman they shaved and beat and framed was worth more than every single person who did it to her —

and that I would burn my entire bloodline to the ground before I’d let them touch her again.

I put my jacket on her.