The war leaves its mark.

Previously

…Alex felt a strange calm settle over him. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was overshadowed by a burning certainty. He was no longer a victim of his past, but a force driving towards a necessary future. He looked at Sarah’s journal, then at Miller, her brother’s name a silent echo in the room. The web of deceit Thorne had spun was about to unravel, and he would be the one to tear it apart. He stood, his muscles coiled, ready for the final confrontation. The war had left its mark, but it had also forged him into something unbreakable.