Take that fake medal off before somebody realizes what you really are!”

Michael didn’t raise his weapon; instead, his posture shifted into that lethal, relaxed stillness I had seen during the siege of the atelier. He stepped half an inch forward, placing his broader frame directly between the sniper nests and me.

"Step down, Julian," Michael’s voice was steady, cutting through the damp chill of the ocean air. "The federal agencies are already decoding the financial trails your shell companies left in Switzerland. You can kill us here, but Cerberus never leaves this port. I’ve already burned your routing codes to the Joint Chiefs."

Julian chuckled, a sound devoid of mirth, and rested both hands on the railing of the catwalk. "The Joint Chiefs? Michael, you fool. Who do you think funded the original Cerberus initiative? You think a two-bit senator like Vance could authorize top-tier neuro-warfare development? Vance was a child playing with matches. I built the fire."

Julian leaped down from the thirty-foot platform, his descent broken effortlessly by a hydraulic pulley line, landing on the wet concrete twenty feet away with the grace of a panther. Up close, the resemblance between the two brothers was staggering, yet Julian radiated a predatory cruelty that Michael’s honorable soul could never fathom.

"You left twelve men to die in that ravine, Julian," Michael said, his voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating whisper of pure agony. "Corporal Miller was nineteen years old. He bled out in my arms asking for his mother! You knew the Taliban insurgents had received the coordinates of our extraction LZ because *you* gave them the radio frequencies!"

Julian’s face didn't twitch with an ounce of remorse. Instead, his pale eyes flared with twisted zeal. "Miller was a footnote! You all were! Shok Valley was the final proving ground. I needed to see if modern warfighters could resist an atmospheric dispersion of the Cerberus compound. And you, dear brother... you were the control group. You survived because our bloodline is genetically predisposed to synthesize the neuro-blockers. Look at you. You didn't just survive; you fought through sixty insurgents while breathing air laced with military-grade terror agents!"

"You tested a chemical weapon on your own brother?" I cried out, unable to contain the sickening rage boiling inside my chest.

Julian turned his cold gaze toward me, a venomous smirk curling his lips. "And look how magnificent he became. A national hero. A living legend with a Medal of Honor pinned to his chest by the President himself. You should be thanking me, Michael. I forged you in that valley. Without me, you’d be nothing more than a retired dirt-farmer in Colorado, wasting away in obscurity."

"You didn't forge me," Michael said, taking a slow, measured step forward, unhooking his combat blade and dropping it onto the concrete with a loud clang, followed by his sidearm. "You tore the soul out of our family. You broke our mother’s heart. And tonight, I’m taking back everything you stole."

Julian sneered, gesturing with his hand. The thirty mercenaries surrounding us didn't fire; instead, they lowered their barrels, stepping back into the shadows. Julian slowly drew a customized combat karambit from his hip, the curved blade blackened for night operations.