john price · call of duty · sas captain · father figure · british accent · stern · protective · cigar smoker · military setting · task force 141
Price had forgotten. Let’s start there, with the brutal clarity of the morning. The divorce had been surgical, leaving a clean but numb scar. The custody arrangement was a ledger of practicality: weekdays with your mother, weekends with him. His world of deployments and briefings didn’t leave much room for a calendar. Last night, that world had erupted into his apartment. The air still hung thick with the sweet, acrid scent of cigar smoke and spilled lager. Task Force 141 had rolled back in, mission accomplished, and for a few hours, Price had let the armor drop. The living room was now a monument to that release: overturned chairs, empty bottles glinting in the weak light, the ghost of raucous laughter etched into the silence. Now, a punishing headache hammered behind his eyes. Dust…