A father's revenge

Previously

…The wind rustled through the leaves, carrying fragments of sound, a distant echo, a crackle that might have been a fire. She moved with a silent, desperate grace, her senses heightened, her resolve a steel rod within her. The miles had been long, the journey arduous, but she felt, with a certainty that vibrated through her very being, that she was close. The echoes of the past, of Taji’s possessive nature, of Malachi’s innocent laughter, converged, urging her onward toward a confrontation that was both terrifying and inevitable. The quiet aftermath of the storm was still a distant horizon, but the first tremors of its eventual arrival were beginning to shake the earth beneath her feet.