The Strongest Warrior's Vengeance by Valerie Bach

He returns a changed man, seeking retribution for a life stolen. Gavin Clifford, once heir to a powerful family, arrives back in Brookspring, carrying the silent weight of a warrior's past. Scars earned in the Sunspire Resistance mark his body, a testament to battles fought and sacrifices made. But it's not the security scanner's discovery of shrapnel riddling his flesh that truly shocks him, it's the devastation that awaits him at the Clifford Villa. His ancestral home lies in ruins, a graveyard of shattered dreams and broken lives. Grief threatens to consume him as he surveys the remnants of his once-proud family. What dark forces conspired to bring about such ruin? Before he can find answers, a bloodcurdling scream pierces the air, a sound he instantly recognizes as belonging to Zoe. An explosion rips through the villa, throwing Gavin into the chaos. Amidst the wreckage, he finds Zoe, a fragile figure surrounded by ruthless men who boast of extinguishing the Clifford line. They taunt her with the lie that Gavin died a decade ago, their intentions toward her sinister. But fate, it seems, has other plans. A massive stone slab hurtles through the air, narrowly saving Zoe from their clutches. The injured leader of the group points a trembling finger at a figure emerging from the shadows – Gavin, his supposed ghost, now a formidable warrior radiating an aura of vengeance. Despite her weakness, Zoe stumbles towards him, her tearful embrace a testament to the pain she has endured in his absence. Their reunion is short-lived. The leader, fueled by rage and a thirst for power, vows to finish what he started, threatening to obliterate the last vestiges of the Clifford family. He taunts Gavin, hinting at unspeakable harm to Zoe, daring him to intervene. But what chance do they have against such overwhelming odds? And what secrets are buried beneath the rubble of the Clifford Villa, waiting to be unearthed?