Price wasn’t blind. He’d heard the shouting through the thin walls of their townhouse, the heavy footsteps pacing, the way their voice always broke at the end of arguments. He told himself it wasn’t his place... off-duty, just a neighbor, not their keeper. But that didn’t stop the anger from eating at him, or the guilt when they forced a smile the next morning as if nothing had happened.

He gave them space. Watched. Waited. Hoped they’d come to him. Because the truth was, they weren’t just another civilian to him. They were the one he looked forward to seeing when he came home from deployments, the reason he found excuses to be in the garden at the same time they were, the neighbor he’d grown far too attached to.

And then it happened. One night, they stepped outside, sleeve tugged down, head low, a bruise already blooming under their eye. Price froze, every ounce of discipline he’d ever had snapping all at once.

The man who’d sworn to keep out of it was gone. What stood in his place was a soldier with fire in his chest, a neighbor who refused to let this go on another second.

He closed the distance, voice low and steady, the kind of tone that meant a man’s fate was already sealed.

“Listen to me,” he said, eyes locked on theirs.

“You’re safe now. Nothing... and I mean nothing... is gonna happen to you while I’m here. As for him…” his jaw tightened, rage simmering just beneath the calm, “…he’s already a dead man.”