THE RETURN Of the LEGENDARY KING of WAR

004: Retribution

The leather seat molds around Andrew's frame like a throne. The world beyond the tinted glass flickers with city light, but inside, silence rules—broken only by the hum of the engine and the faint tap of shoe soles in the mat.

“So,” Mason starts. His master has been awfully quiet, but he knows better. Inside that head of his, he knows he's calculating. “What's next now that you're back?” He asks, handing him a kit with one hand.

After a second thought, Andrew reaches to take it. Unlike the last time, when he left it, this time he is going to wipe everything that concerns Lizzy out of his life.

Mason had seen earlier, how his lips were bleeding. These people dared to lay their filthy hands on his master. ‘Don't they fear death?’ he thinks.

Based on that premise, he presses further, hands gripping the steering a little too tight. “Should we teach that woman a lesson?”

Ever since that first time, he has been itching to teach that family a lesson! His master is like his father and they dare to…

The voice of Andrew yanks him out of his thoughts, and his brows meet in a dissatisfied furrow when Andrew speaks.

“No, not now. They're the least of my concern,” Andrew lies. Yes, he lied.

He badly wants to teach them a lesson, but how will it be interesting if he hurried too much? Let them wallow in their self thoughts first! Let them think they have emerged victorious and then, he would strike.

And Burke? A sinister smile hovers across Andrew's lips.

“Mason.” He calls. His voice is a blend of anger and something Mason has never heard in a long while. “Burke Theodore, say, how do you think we teach him a lesson?”

Mason grins too when the words register. Damn! This is what he has been looking for, waiting for! It's been too long that his brain is beginning to become rusty!

“I'll see to it, master.” He says, a slither of excitement crossing his tone. “Meanwhile…” he pauses, reaching towards the pigeon hole.

He takes out a file and passes it to Andrew, his voice cold, but reverent. “The last time, you asked about the board…and the chair woman. Here it is. The evidence is damning: Embezzlement, collision, a clear breach of fiduciary trust. When the evidence reaches the board, there'll be no saving her.”

Mason knows that his master is fully back and would want to be up to date about everything that has happened in the past three years.

For a moment, Andrew doesn't look at him. His gaze fixates on the passing city, his reflection a ghost in the window with a mixture of unsettling calmness and stillness.

And when he finally speaks, his voice is glacial—like judgment passed without emotion. It is almost deadly that a slither of shiver runs down the spine of Mason, who is already used to him.

“Perfect,” he says, taking the files from Mason and reading through. “Let them rot from the inside before we strike from the outside. When a beast dies slowly, no one notices the stench…until it's already dead.”

His words make Manson shudder even more. “Has these years of absence finally caught up on him?” Mason thinks. He should be careful around him.

In a few minutes, they finally arrive. The heavy iron gates groan open. The mansion, like a mountain, looms ahead, bathing in a dim, calculated wash of light. It hasn't changed, Andrew notices, but the silence around it carries a different kind of weight—expectation.

As the car comes to a halt, the main doors open. His men are already lined up, two flanking each side of the entrance, more stationed like shadows in the distance.

Their faces are hard, but beneath that discipline is a deep sense of loyalty.

The car door opens, and as Andrew steps out, his faded cloth still manages to catch the breeze and the air shifts.

In a perfect sync, the men, in one firm voice, salutes! “Welcome home, General!”

Andrew's gaze sweeps over them, lingering for a moment. Familiar scars and stillness. He'd thought he could live without this… without them. For Lizzy.

But he has been dead wrong! Wrong!

He has forfeited loyalty, order, brotherhood…this…all for her! And what has she given him in return? Nothing but betrayal!

With a low breath, Andrew gives a single nod. With a calm steady tone of voice, he says, “you’ve aged. Or is that just the light lying to me?”

A few men broke from for half a second, a flicker of amusement, a shared glance passing through them. One even smirked.

Colonel Mace steps forward, more relaxed than usual, though his posture remains precise. “Maybe the mansion missed you more than we did, sir. It's been echoing in your absence.”

Andrew gives a faint, almost imperceptible smirk. “I'll take the silence over your chatter, Mace.” He mocks in a dry tone.

Then, he climbs the steps with purpose, but at the top, he pauses again and turns to face them. “You held the line,” he praises in a quiet, but firm time. “All of you. That doesn't go unnoticed.”

One of his men, Ace, speaks nervously. “We kept it like you left it, General. The grounds. The West Wing, and even your glass by the fireplace.”

Andrew's gaze shifts briefly to the soldier. And then he nods. “Good. Loyalty doesn't expire.”

Turning to Mason, he says as they enter the house. “Get them fed. Properly. Steak and not rations.”

Mason grins. “They'll think it's Christmas.”

“Let them. Tomorrow, she sharpens the knives. And as for the board, we will pay them a visit on Monday.”

With that, he walks further into his house, and into his room. Walking towards his closet, he opens it and it immediately exhales cedar and cold mint, lace faintly with cologne long abandoned. It is the scent of who he used to be—powerful and brutal—something he is now going back to becoming.

Stripping himself of the clothes close to something made for a slave—something he has subjected himself to in the name of love—he goes into the bathroom. The sight almost makes him tear.

Preparing a bath for him, how thoughtful have his boys been? Regret washes over him, but he pushes it back! He is back now and he is back for retribution, to collect and to burn!