Storms of the Heart novel Chapter 17

Standing in the crowded airport terminal, watching the flight information scroll across the screens and listening to the boarding announcements, Julian felt strangely calm.

It was as if simply boarding that plane and flying across the ocean could offer him even the slightest hope.

Just as he held his boarding pass and was about to head to the security checkpoint, a military courier in uniform rushed through the crowd and stopped in front of him. He snapped to attention, saluted, and handed Julian a sealed telegram marked urgent.

"General Hauser, it's an urgent dispatch from the border. There's an emergency on the front lines. Command orders you to return to your unit immediately and lead your squad into action!"

Julian's outstretched hand froze in midair.

He looked down at the heavy telegram, then up at the plane outside the glass window, slowly taxiing toward the runway. It was the very flight he was supposed to board.

The plane's engines roared, as if mocking the futility of his actions.

Military orders were law. Duty, responsibility, and country—things he had once valued above all else—now stood like an insurmountable chasm between him and the person he longed to reach.

He clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his palms, sending sharp pain shooting through his hands.

For the first time, he felt the weight of the uniform on his shoulders not as honor, but as a crushing burden, leaving him almost hopeless and powerless.

Finally, he closed his eyes in pain. When he opened them again, they were bloodshot and full of icy determination.

He took the telegram, tore it open, and scanned it. Then, he said to the military courier in a low voice, "Report back to the headquarters. Julian Hauser is to return to his unit immediately."

Turning his back to the departing plane, he strode toward the airport exit.

His silhouette remained upright, yet it carried an indescribable air of desolation.

The plane carrying all his hopes roared into the sky behind him, shrinking until it became nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

…

A gritty, coarse wind whipped along the border, cutting sharply across Julian's face.

The sun sank, red as blood, painting the barren mountains a fiery, tragic orange. The sounds of gunfire, explosions, and screams blended, forming the brutal symphony unique to the battlefield.

Julian charged forward like a drawn sword, leading the squad. His tactical movements were still precise and deadly, his marksmanship unmatched, but his old subordinates, the ones who knew him best, could see that something was wrong with him.

He was too aggressive, reckless to the point of self-destruction.

He no longer calmly strategized from the back lines as he once used to. Instead, he led the charges himself, throwing himself into the most dangerous positions as if deliberately seeking some form of release—or punishment.

"General Hauser! Watch the right flank!" a fellow soldier shouted hoarsely.

Julian twisted aside just in time as bullets whizzed past his ear, the scorching gust of air slamming against his face.

His gaze hardened. He raised his weapon and fired in controlled bursts, making an enemy drop to the ground in the distance.

But more enemies were flanking them. Their firepower was brutal, pinning the squad in a low-lying area under relentless fire.

"Cover me! I'll draw their fire. All of you find a chance to break out!" Julian wiped sweat and dirt from his face, his voice hoarse but resolute.

When she crashed into the commander's garden fence, he quietly cleaned up the mess. When she got into a fight and was detained, he bailed her out.

She was like a tenacious vine, winding its way into his orderly, rigid world, whether he wanted it or not.

She nestled in his arms, fiddling with his buttons and teasing him not to lie. When he jokingly mentioned having children, she turned red-eyed with anger and called him a bastard.

When she was found in the morgue, her face was chalk-white, yet she forced a cold, defiant smile.

For him, she endured 80 strikes from the army baton, her back a bloody, torn mess, yet she said nothing and gritted through the pain.

She signed the divorce papers, gave up everything, and left the country, leaving behind only the words "You are not qualified".

Finally, there was her cold, detached "Oh" when he made the overseas call, immediately followed by the busy dial tone as she hung up without hesitation.

Her laughter, her mischief, her tears, her anger, the resolute way she had walked away—every image replayed in his mind in slow motion.

He realized that beneath the responsibilities and the obligations he had always used to justify himself, and through the countless days and nights he had ignored, avoided, and even hurt her, Trina had already carved a deep, indelible mark in his heart in her reckless, unstoppable way.

He loved her.

Not out of duty, not because of some sense of obligation, but because she had quietly crept into his life. During the small, unnoticed moments they shared, love had taken root deep in his bones.

He had been blind and foolish, deceived by past promises and his own self-righteous sense of duty. Only after losing her completely, only after facing life and death, did he see everything so clearly.