They Crossed Me, I Became the God of war

Chapter 4

Midnight fell over the central graveyard of Port Valenford. Cold rain poured from the black clouds, soaking the tall grass and running down the cracked stones. Gideon Knox walked quietly through the mud, his boots leaving deep prints in the wet earth.

He stopped before a plain gray stone standing near the top of the hill. Beneath the wet grass lay the ashes of his father, Arthur Knox, and his two older brothers who had died ten years ago. Gideon took a small metal flask from his coat, unscrewed the cap, and poured the strong drink over the dark soil.

"Father, I am finally back," Gideon whispered into the freezing wind, his chest tight with sorrow. "I am sorry I took ten long years to come here. I spent all this time fighting wars in the north, while you and my brothers slept alone in the cold dirt."

He knelt in the wet mud, pressing his bare hand flat against the cold stone. "Mother has suffered so much, Father. Dominic Caldwell and Cassandra kept her locked in a dark cellar, and they dragged Lily and Maya away to a fortress in the sea."

Gideon tightened his fingers against the rough stone, his jaw clenching hard. "They want to cut my little sisters open for old Silas Caldwell. But I swear on our family name, the Caldwells only have forty-eight hours left. I will save the girls and make them pay for every drop of blood."

A sudden noise broke through the sound of the falling rain. Gideon lifted his head, his sharp ears catching the sound of heavy footsteps and tearing cloth down the slope. A woman let out a muffled, terrified cry from behind a large stone tomb below the hill.

Gideon stood up without making a sound and moved through the dark grass. Down near the old stone crypt, three men in dirty coats had a young woman pinned against a marble wall. Her jacket was torn open, and she was fighting with all the strength left in her shaking arms.

"Stop screaming, you little beggar," one of the thugs sneered, his dirty hand pressing hard against her throat. "Nobody will hear you out here in the rain. You should have signed over your father's last harbor docks when Master Dominic told you to."

"Take your hands off me!" the young woman cried, her voice raw and breaking with pain. She tried to push him away with her arm, but her right wrist hung at an unnatural angle, swollen and dark blue. Tears of anger and hurt ran down her pale, muddy face.

"Shut your mouth!" another man snapped, raising his fist to strike her cheek. "Your father is already dead at the bottom of the bay, Miss Ashford! Once we finish with you tonight, we are throwing you off the bridge to sleep beside him!"

The heavy fist never reached her face. A tall shadow stepped out from the rain behind them, moving so quietly that none of them heard him come. The air around the tomb suddenly felt freezing cold, as if winter had dropped from the sky.

The man turned around with an angry curse, only to find Gideon standing right behind him. Gideon’s eyes were pitch-black, showing no pity at all.

"Who the hell are you?" the thug yelled, reaching inside his jacket for a folding blade. "Get lost, you dirty tramp, before we cut your throat and leave you in the dirt!"

Gideon did not say a single word. His right hand shot out like an iron clamp, grabbing the man by the throat and lifting his entire body two feet off the wet ground. With a simple, sharp twist of his wrist, the man's neck snapped, and his body went completely limp.

Gideon dropped the dead man into the mud and stepped toward the second thug. The man froze in total terror, his mouth open to scream, but Gideon drove an open palm hard into the center of his chest. The blow broke his ribs instantly, stopping his heart before he hit the ground.

The third man fell backward onto the wet grass, dropping his knife with shaking hands. "Please! Do not kill me!" he screamed, crawling backward through the weeds like a beaten dog. "We work for the Caldwell family! Master Dominic will hunt you down if you touch a hair on my head!"

"My father always hated cowards who hurt the weak," Gideon said, his voice flat and chilling. "And you dared to bring your filth right in front of his grave. Shaming the resting place of the dead is something I will never forgive."

Gideon took one step forward and brought his heavy boot down hard onto the man's neck. A loud crack silenced the rain, leaving the three thugs dead in the dark. Gideon turned away from the bodies and knelt down beside the shivering woman on the ground.

She was curled up against the base of the stone, holding her broken wrist against her ribs. Her clothes were soaked with icy water, and she shook so hard that her teeth rattled together. She stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes, gasping for breath.

"Do not be afraid," Gideon said in a gentle voice, keeping his hands low so he would not scare her. "They are dead. No one is going to hurt you now."

He reached down and carefully took her swollen right arm into his hands. Her wrist was dislocated, the bone pushed out of place under the purple skin. Gideon pressed his thumbs softly against two spots on her forearm, numbing the sharp nerve pain.

"Take a deep breath and hold it," Gideon told her quietly. The woman took a quick breath, and with a swift, clean pull of his fingers, Gideon slipped the bone straight back into the joint.

The terrible burning ache vanished at once, replaced by a warm, dull throb. The young woman let out a long, trembling breath of relief, staring at her hand in disbelief before looking up into Gideon's face.

"You... you fixed it without any tools," she whispered, her voice shaking from the cold. "Who are you? Why did you save a ruined girl like me?"

"I came to visit my family," Gideon answered softly, unwrapping his warm wool scarf from his neck and putting it over her wet shoulders. "Why are you sleeping out here in the storm among the dead?"

Fresh tears filled her eyes as she pulled the warm wool close around her neck. "I have nowhere else left to go," she wept, her voice full of grief. "The hotels threw me out, and the Caldwells took our house three days ago. My name is Serena Ashford."

Gideon’s heart stopped for a second as the name hit his ears. His father’s oldest and most loyal friend had been Walter Ashford, the head of Ashford Maritime. When the Knox family fell ten years ago, Walter was the only man in the city who had tried to stand by them.

"Serena Ashford?" Gideon asked, his voice shaking slightly. "Are you the daughter of Walter Ashford?"

"I was," Serena sobbed, wiping the dirty rain from her eyes with her sleeve. "My father is dead now. Three days ago, he jumped from the harbor bridge because he could not bear the shame of losing everything we owned."

Gideon looked at her bruised face and muddy clothes, a sick, heavy pain twisting inside his stomach. "Ashford Maritime was the most honest shipping company in this city. Walter was a proud, good man. How could he lose everything so fast?"

"It was Dominic Caldwell," Serena said, her voice shaking with bitter tears. "Three years ago, our company controlled the safest shipping routes. But suddenly, Dominic Caldwell showed up with huge, powerful military supply contracts from the northern border."

Gideon’s eyes widened in the dark, a cold shock running through his veins. "Military contracts from the northern front?"

"Yes," Serena wept, looking down at the mud. "Nobody knew how a useless playboy like Dominic got those government deals. They were worth billions of dollars, signed directly by the top military command in the north."

She took a ragged breath, trembling as she remembered the nightmare that had destroyed her home. "Dominic used all that government money to buy out the smaller docks. Then he turned on my father because my father refused to bow to him."

"What did Dominic do to your father, Serena?" Gideon asked, his voice dropping into a deep, dangerous rumble.

"He framed us," Serena cried out, her small hands clenching into fists. "Dominic secretly hid illegal weapons inside our cargo ships and called the corrupt city inspectors. They canceled our shipping permits and locked our bank accounts overnight."

She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with deep sorrow. "The banks took everything, our old partners ran away, and Dominic bought all our ships for pennies. My father could not feed his workers, and he could not clear his name. He ended his life in despair."

Gideon sat completely motionless in the pouring rain, staring at the weeping girl as the awful truth struck his mind like lightning. The air in his lungs felt as hot and heavy as smoke.

Those military shipping contracts from three years ago were his. While he was bleeding in the northern snow, he had secretly ordered his supply officers to send massive trade contracts to Port Valenford. He had done it entirely to keep Cassandra rich and safe, so she would have plenty of money to shelter and raise his little sisters.

But Dominic Caldwell had stolen those contracts, put his own name on them, and kept all the billions for himself. He had only given small crumbs of that money to Cassandra, using those cheap gifts to trick and flatter her into giving up the twin girls as an unwanted burden.

Dominic had taken Gideon's own military wealth and turned it into a weapon to murder Walter Ashford, destroying the most loyal friend the Knox family had ever known. Gideon looked down at his calloused hands, his heart burning with bitter guilt and dark rage.

His blind trust in Cassandra had not only left his mother enslaved and his sisters in danger, but it had also pushed an innocent family to their deaths. He had unknowingly caused the ruin of the very girl sitting broken before him.

Serena looked up through her wet hair, seeing the deep, crushing pain in Gideon's dark eyes. "Why do you look so sad?" she asked in a small, tired voice. "Did the Caldwells hurt your family too?"

"They hurt my family," Gideon answered softly, his voice thick with a heavy sorrow he could barely hold back. "And they used stolen power to destroy yours. It is my fault that you had to suffer like this, Serena."

Serena looked at him with gentle, wet eyes and shook her head. "You did not kill my father. Dominic Caldwell did. You saved my life tonight, and I will always be grateful to you."

Gideon looked at the brave, proud young woman sitting in the dirt, her spirit still unbroken despite losing everything she had loved. An unyielding fire ignited inside his chest, hotter than any forge.

"Serena," Gideon said, extending his broad, warm hand toward her in the rain. "Stand up. You will never have to sleep in the mud again."

Serena looked at his strong, open palm, feeling a deep sense of peace she had not known since her father was alive. She slowly placed her cold, trembling fingers into his warm grip.

Gideon gently pulled her up to her feet, holding her steady as she stood tall on the hillside. He looked down into her eyes, his face turning into stone, his voice carrying the calm, absolute promise of a soldier.

"We share the exact same enemy now, Serena," Gideon told her, his words cutting through the dark storm like iron. "I promise you, before two days pass, Dominic Caldwell will pay for every single tear you shed tonight in his own blood."