The Colonel’s Wrath
Victor Sutton had killed men in fourteen countries, but he’d never felt the particular coldness that settled in his chest when he saw his son stumbling through the gates of Fort Bragg on Christmas morning. Jake’s face was unrecognizable, swollen, purple, and black. His jaw hung at an angle that made Victor’s stomach turn. The nineteen-year-old collapsed into his father’s arms, blood soaking through Victor’s shirt.“Dad,” Jake managed through broken teeth, his words slurred and wet. “Stepmom’s family… they all…”
He couldn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
Victor carried his son to the base hospital, his mind already cataloging injuries with the detachment of his twenty-three years in Special Forces. Fractured orbital bone, broken jaw, three cracked ribs, concussion, internal bleeding. This wasn’t a fight. This was attempted murder.The doctors sedated Jake after setting his jaw, and Victor sat beside the hospital bed watching his son’s chest rise and fall. His phone buzzed. A video message from an unknown number. He almost deleted it, then recognized the thumbnail: Jake’s car in a driveway he knew too well. Victor’s ex-wife Rebecca’s new house in Pinehurst.The video was seventeen minutes long, shot from a second-story window. It showed Jake arriving at the house with Christmas presents. Victor recognized Rebecca immediately, standing on the porch with her new husband, Wayne Dolan, and his extended family. What happened next made Victor’s jaw clench so hard he thought his teeth might crack.
They invited Jake inside. Then they locked the doors. Through the window, he could hear Jake’s confusion turning to alarm, then terror. One by one, Wayne’s relatives emerged from different rooms: brothers, cousins, nephews, their wives—seventeen people total. They circled Jake like wolves. Wayne threw the first punch.
Victor watched his son try to defend himself, try to run, try to reason with them. They beat him systematically, taking turns. Rebecca stood in the corner filming on her phone, laughing. Actually laughing. At one point, she zoomed in on Jake’s face as Wayne’s brother kicked him in the jaw.“That’s what you get for thinking you’re better than us,” she said off-camera. “Your daddy’s fancy military base don’t mean sh*t here.”
The video ended with Jake crawling out the front door, blood trailing behind him. Someone threw his presents after him, smashed and torn.
Victor watched it three times. Memorized every face. Then he called his most trusted contact at the Judge Advocate General’s office.
“I need names and addresses,” he said. “All of them.”
Chapter 1: The Visit
Victor Sutton had grown up in Tennessee coal country, the kind of place where men went into mines at eighteen and came out in coffins at forty. He had excelled: Rangers first, then Delta Force, then an instructor position that let him shape the next generation of killers for the government. He married Rebecca during his second deployment, a mistake he recognized within a year. She’d wanted the military wife status; she hadn’t wanted the man who came home different each time.Jake had been the only good thing from that marriage. Victor had raised him alone after Rebecca left when Jake was six. Now, Jake was in college at UNC, studying engineering, brilliant and kind. Rebecca had reached out six months ago, claiming she was clean, wanting to rebuild their relationship. Victor had encouraged it. He delivered his son into their hands.
The thought made Victor’s vision go red.
“Colonel Sutton?” A nurse appeared in the doorway. “There’s a Sheriff Dolan here to see you.”
Chester Dolan filled the doorway. Six-foot-four and running to fat, his sheriff’s uniform straining at the buttons. Rebecca’s father.“Heard there was an incident,” Chester said, not entering the room. “Want to tell me what happened to your boy?”
“He got jumped by seventeen people in your daughter’s house while she filmed it,” Victor said calmly. “I have the video. Want to see it?”
Chester’s face went carefully blank. “Now I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding.”
“Get out.”
“You threatening me, Colonel?”
Victor stood slowly, stepping close enough that Chester had to look up slightly. “I’m telling you to leave this hospital before I forget which country I’m in. Your daughter and her criminal family tried to kill my son on Christmas Eve. If you’re here in any official capacity, come back with a warrant. If you’re here as family, you just became complicit.”Chester’s hand dropped to his service weapon. “You ain’t got no authority here. This is a federal military installation. You have no jurisdiction. Leave now.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Chester broke first, backing into the hallway. “You better watch yourself, Sutton. My family don’t take kindly to accusations.”
“That sounds like a threat, Sheriff. I’ll be sure to include it in my report.”
After Chester left, Victor made one call. “Greg,” he said when his second-in-command answered. “I need you to monitor a situation. Sheriff Chester Dolan, Pinehurst PD. I want to know every move he makes.”
“What’s going on, sir?”“Family matter. I’ll brief you tomorrow.”
Victor hung up and returned to Jake’s bedside. His son stirred, eyes fluttering open.
“Dad…” The word was barely audible.
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry. I thought she wanted to make things right… I thought…” Tears leaked from Jake’s swollen eyes.
Victor took his son’s hand carefully. “You have nothing to apologize for. You try to see the good in people. That’s not a weakness, Jake. That’s what makes you better than them.”“What are we going to do?”
Victor was quiet for a long moment. “We’re going to let the law handle it.”
Jake knew his father well enough to hear the lie, but he was too tired to argue. He drifted back to sleep, and Victor sat in the darkness, planning.
The law wouldn’t handle it. Chester would protect his family. Even with video evidence, they’d claim self-defense. The Dolans owned the local judge and the prosecutor.
But Victor Sutton had trained over three thousand special operators. His current class had thirty-two students, the best of the best. They’d been training in unconventional warfare, deep reconnaissance, and urban operations.And they all owed him their careers.
Chapter 2: The Extra Credit
The next morning, Victor stood before his class in the briefing room. Thirty-two faces looked back at him: Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders, Air Force Special Tactics. The elite of the elite.
“Before we begin today’s lesson,” Victor said, “I have an extra credit opportunity. Purely voluntary.”He pulled up the video on the projector. Didn’t say anything, just let them watch. Seventeen minutes of his son being beaten while Rebecca laughed and filmed. When it ended, the room was silent.
“That’s my son,” Victor said quietly. “Nineteen years old. Engineering student. Never been in a fight in his life. These seventeen people lured him into a house on Christmas Eve and did that to him. The woman filming is my ex-wife. Her father is the local sheriff.”
He clicked to the next slide. Seventeen photographs and dossiers.
“Wayne Dolan, 42, tobacco farmer. Two DUIs, one assault charge dropped. Spencer Dolan, 38, owns a pawn shop suspected of fencing stolen goods. Currently on probation…” He went through all seventeen. Addresses, routines, weaknesses.“Here’s the extra credit assignment,” Victor continued. “Make them disappear. All of them. No bodies, no evidence, no connection to me or this base. You have complete operational freedom. I want them to know fear like my son knew fear. And then I want them gone.”
The room remained silent for three seconds. Then every hand went up. All thirty-two.
“Outstanding,” Victor said. He distributed packets. “You’ll work in pairs. Coordinate through encrypted channels only. No communication that leads back to this base or to me. Consider this your final exam.”
A hand rose. It was Adam Atkins, a Navy SEAL. “Rules of engagement, sir?”
Victor met his eyes. “Remember. No mercy.”
Chapter 3: The First to Fall
That afternoon, Victor drove to Pinehurst, not to the Dolan house, but to a bar three miles away where Spencer Dolan spent every evening. Victor ordered a beer and waited.
Spencer arrived at six, loud and already drunk. He was a thick man, all shoulders and gut. Victor listened to Spencer brag to the bartender about teaching “that punk kid” a lesson.
“Should have seen his face when we closed the door,” Spencer laughed. “Thought he was coming for a nice family Christmas. Stupid sh*t.”
Family games
Victor’s hand tightened on his glass. He forced himself to relax. Spencer finished three more beers, then stumbled toward the bathroom. Victor followed a minute later. He locked the door behind him.
“Hey! Occupied!” Spencer started to turn.
Victor grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall, cutting off his air. Spencer’s eyes went wide.
“You recognize me?” Victor asked softly. “Jake Sutton’s father.”
Spencer tried to swing, but Victor was faster, slamming his head into the tile once, twice. Spencer slumped, dazed.
“What you did to my son was a mistake. You thought there’d be no consequences because your uncle’s the sheriff. I’m not going to kill you, Spencer. That would be too quick. I’m going to take everything from you. Your business, your freedom, your family’s respect, your peace of mind. And when you’re broken and terrified and have nothing left… then maybe I’ll let you disappear.”
He released Spencer’s throat. The man gasped for air.
“Go home, Spencer. Call your family. Tell them what’s coming.”
Victor left him there and drove back to Fort Bragg. His phone buzzed with an encrypted message from Adam Atkins: Eyes on Target 3 and 7. Await go signal.
Victor replied: Execute.
The operations began that night.
Wayne Dolan’s brother-in-law, Ryan Haas, ran a small construction company. At 2:00 a.m., his phone rang. A panicked voice said there had been a gas line rupture at his current job site. Ryan drove to the site, walked into the structure, and found… nothing.
“Hello?” Ryan called.
Two figures emerged from the shadows. Ryan never saw their faces. One sweep of his legs and he was down. They zip-tied his hands and feet, gagged him, and threw him into an unmarked van.
“Where should we take this one?”
“Colorado. Got a contact who runs a labor camp for illegal logging operations.”
Ryan Haas disappeared that night. His truck was found at the job site. His phone was in a dumpster fifty miles away. Target Eliminated. One of seventeen.
Wayne Dolan’s nephew, Cody Shepard, was a hunting guide. He was supposed to be leading a group into the Uwharrie National Forest. He never showed up. Two members of Victor’s class had intercepted him using a fake traffic stop.
They drove him to an abandoned farm in Virginia. Cody was locked in a concrete root cellar with a bucket, some bottled water, and a camping lantern. The door was welded shut from the outside. Whether someone would eventually find him or not wasn’t their concern.
Target Eliminated. Two of seventeen.
Chapter 4: The Sheriff’s Move
Rebecca Dolan spent December 27th calling her family members. Ryan and Cody were missing. Spencer was raving about a psycho in a bathroom.
Family games
Chester Dolan told her not to worry, but Rebecca felt something wrong in her gut. She’d sent that video to Victor as a power play. She’d expected him to threaten legal action. Instead, silence.
She tried calling Jake at the hospital. They wouldn’t put her through. She tried calling Victor directly. No answer. Finally, she drove to Fort Bragg herself.
“Ma’am, you’re not on the approved visitor list,” the MP told her.
“I’m his mother!”
“You need to leave the premises.”
Rebecca sat in her car, shaking. Her phone rang.
“Mrs. Dolan, this is Deputy Marshal Andrea Cross. We have video evidence of you filming an assault. The victim is the dependent of a federal military officer. The assault occurred on video transmitted across state lines. Please report to the federal building in Raleigh by tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.”
Rebecca sat frozen. She tried calling Chester, but he didn’t answer.
Chester was in his office staring at a map with seventeen pins. Two already had red Xs. It couldn’t be Victor. The man had an airtight alibi on a military base. But Chester knew.
His phone rang. Blocked number.
“Sheriff Dolan. I have information about your missing family members. Your nephew Cody is in a root cellar at the old Henderson farm in Virginia. Your brother-in-law Ryan is on his way to a logging camp in Colorado. If you hurry, you might retrieve one.”
“Listen here, you son of a—”
“Check the Henderson farm first. Cody’s only got about ten days of supplies.”
Chester stared at his phone. He called two deputies and drove to Virginia. They found the root cellar. It took an hour to cut the door open. Cody stumbled out, terrified, babbling about masked men.
Whoever had taken Cody were professionals. The kind Victor trained.
Chester pulled up Victor’s service record. Twenty-three years. Unconventional warfare. Advanced combat.
“Jesus Christ,” Chester whispered. Victor had access to the best-trained killers in the country, and he’d just given them all a reason to prove themselves.
By the end of the week, five more Dolans were gone. Tyrone Hayes vanished from a gas station. Randall Gross and his wife vanished from a highway. Marcy Holly vanished from the hospital parking lot. Keith Branch was found naked, zip-tied to a highway sign with a note: I helped beat a kid on Christmas Eve. Ask me about it.
Seven targets down. Ten to go.
The Dolans were panicking. Chester held an emergency family meeting.
Family games
“This is Victor Sutton’s doing,” Chester said flatly. “He’s using his military connections to make you disappear. We go to the media. We claim he’s using resources for personal vendettas.”
“What about the video?” Rebecca asked quietly. “The one I filmed. If we go to the media, that video comes out and we all go to prison.”
“We say it was self-defense,” Chester said. “Say Jake attacked first.”
“No one’s going to believe that,” Spencer said.
“We fight back,” Chester said. “We find out who Victor’s using and we make them stop.”
They didn’t realize they were already being watched. On the roof three doors down, two of Victor’s students lay prone with directional microphones.
That night, as the Dolans left Wayne’s house, two more vanished. Arnold Ross took a dart to the neck. Spencer’s girlfriend, Virginia, found a figure in her backseat.
“Drive where I tell you, or I put a bullet in your spine right here.”
Virginia drove to a trailhead in West Virginia. “Walk that trail. If you make it to the ranger station by dawn, you get to live.”
She lost three toes to frostbite. She never told anyone what really happened.
Nine targets down. Eight to go.
Chapter 5: The Investigation
Victor sat in his office at Fort Bragg. Every operation had been flawless. His phone buzzed.
Sheriff made contact with local FBI. Claims military resources being misused. Expect investigation.
Victor smiled coldly. He picked up his desk phone and called the base commander, General Raymond Cross.
“Sir, I need to brief you on a developing situation involving my family.”
Ten minutes later, Victor sat across from General Cross, a folder between them. The video. The documentation. Everything.
“Jesus, Victor,” General Cross said. “You’re playing with fire here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You want to know if I’ll back you when the FBI comes knocking.”
“I want you to know the truth before they arrive, sir.”
General Cross leaned back. “I never had this conversation. Whatever is happening in Pinehurst is a local law enforcement matter. If asked, I will state that you have been on base continuously since Christmas morning. Beyond that, I know nothing.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Victor. I’m helping you because I would do the same thing if someone hurt my child. But when this is over, we’re going to have a long conversation about where the line is.”
The FBI arrived on January 3rd. They interviewed Victor for four hours.
“Sheriff Dolan claims you’ve orchestrated the disappearances of nine people using military resources,” the lead agent said.
“That’s quite an accusation. I’ve been on this base continuously. My students have been engaged in regular training activities.”
They interviewed fifteen students. Every one of them told the same story. Continuous training. No leave.
“Colonel,” the agent said, frustrated. “Nine people connected to that incident are missing. Have you considered that maybe they’re running because they’re guilty?”
“That seems likely,” Victor said.
The FBI left. Chester’s last play had failed.
On January 5th, Wayne Dolan disappeared. On January 6th, Spencer Dolan vanished from his pawn shop. Eleven targets down. Six to go.
Rebecca had a full breakdown. She showed up at Fort Bragg screaming. They admitted her to the psychiatric wing. Victor visited her once.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Is it you?”
“No, thanks to you,” Victor said, and walked out.
That night, three more Dolans vanished. Chester had gathered the remaining six at his house. The power went out. Chester woke up twelve hours later alone.
On his kitchen table was a laptop showing a video feed. Wayne in a shipping container. Spencer in a concrete room. The others in holding cells.
A text appeared: You have a choice, Sheriff. Turn yourself in for corruption. Confess to covering up the assault on Jake Sutton and resign. Or I start eliminating the hostages one by one. You have 24 hours.
Chester’s phone rang. It was Victor.
“I told you to prove it. You couldn’t. Now here we are.”
“This is kidnapping! Terrorism!”
“You think because he lived, what your family did is somehow less monstrous? They tried to kill him for fun. Twenty-four hours, Sheriff. Confess, resign, take responsibility. Or I’ll do to your family what you all tried to do to my son. Except I’m better at it.”
Chester sat in his kitchen for hours. He thought about calling the FBI. But they’d never believe him.
At dawn on January 7th, Chester Dolan walked into the Moore County Courthouse. He brought a laptop containing Rebecca’s video and documents proving his corruption.
“I want full immunity for my son, my niece, and Spencer’s mother. In exchange, I’ll plead guilty to everything.”
The deal was struck. Chester confessed and accepted fifteen years in federal prison. His innocent relatives were released that evening. Wayne, Spencer, and the others were never found.
Officially, missing persons. Unofficially, serving life sentences in places far worse than any prison.
Chapter 6: The Aftermath
Jake Sutton recovered fully. He returned to UNC in February. He never asked his father for details.
On a warm evening in April, Chester Dolan called Victor from prison.
“I know you did this,” Chester said. “Your students. Your plan.”
“Prove it,” Victor replied.
“I can’t. That’s the beauty of it. Why didn’t you just kill us?”
“Because death would have been too easy. You needed to understand what it feels like to be helpless. To watch your family suffer. That’s what you did to Jake. That’s what you did to me.”
“You’re a monster.”
“No, Sheriff. I’m a father. There’s a difference.”
Three months later, Chester Dolan was found dead in his cell. Suicide by hanging. Or so the report said.
Jake graduated in May. Victor sat in the audience and watched his son accept his diploma. After the ceremony, they hugged.
“Thank you, Dad,” Jake whispered. “For everything.”
Victor pulled back. “You never have to thank me for protecting you. That’s what fathers do.”
“I know what it cost. I don’t know the details, and I don’t need to. But I know.”
“Then you know why we can never talk about it.”
“It’s over now, right?”
Victor smiled. “It’s finished.”
They walked out into the sunshine.
Victor Sutton returned to Fort Bragg. His reputation grew. His students were the best trained, most loyal operators in the military. They’d do anything for the Colonel.
And sometimes, late at night, Victor would think about the seventeen people who’d beaten his son. He’d wonder if he’d crossed a line. Then he’d remember Jake’s face in the hospital. He’d remember Rebecca laughing.
And Victor would sleep just fine. Because some people deserve what they got. And some fathers would burn the world down to protect their children.
Victor Sutton was both.
