“I TAP! I TAP! I TAP! PLEASE!”
SLAP-SLAP-SLAP-SLAP-SLAP.
Derek’s left hand battered the pine deck boards in a frantic, hysterical flurry, slapping the wood like a panicked novice on his first day on the sparring mats. Hot, uninhibited tears poured from his bloodshot eyes, cutting clean tracks through the sweat and grime on his cheeks.
“LEO! TELL HER! PLEASE, LEO! IT’S TEARING! I SWEAR TO GOD, I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!”
I held the joint at maximum structural tension for three more cold, deliberate seconds.
I wanted every single spectator on that deck to sear the scene into their memory. I wanted Frank Vance, the smirking uncles, and the younger brothers who had spent their lives cheering on Derek’s casual cruelties to look at their champion weeping on the floor beneath the knee of the woman they had dismissed as a fragile toy.
Then, with the clean, detached discipline of a professional stepping away from a heavy bag, I released the lock.
I stepped back, rising to my feet in a single, balanced motion. My spine was perfectly straight, my breath remained steady through my nose, and the yellow cotton dress settled gracefully back over my knees.
Derek stayed curled on the deck, rolling into a tight, trembling fetal ball. He cradled his injured right arm against his chest, hyperventilating, letting out shuddering, ragged sobs. Brad was groaning in the bushes. Kyle was still out cold on the grass.
Up on the deck, Frank Vance was shaking. His face was purple with a mix of shock and absolute outrage. He looked past me, his eyes locking onto Leo, who had finally managed to sit up against the brick border, clutching his blistered, burned arm.
“Leo!” Frank bellowed, his voice trembling with disbelief and rage. “What the hell is this?! You brought a… a violent animal into this family! She’s a monster!”
Leo slowly pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his bleeding forehead. He found his shattered glasses in the grass, slid the broken frames onto his face, and looked up at his domineering father.
Despite the pain radiating from his burns, a slow, brilliant, completely unbothered smile spread across Leo’s face.
“A monster?” Leo repeated, his voice raspy but echoing with an iron-clad confidence I had rarely seen him display in front of his family. He let out a genuine, dry chuckle. “Dad, who do you think ran the data analytics for her fight camps? Who do you think wrote the predictive algorithms and biomechanical software that broke down every opponent in her division, allowing her to stay undefeated for eight years?”
Frank stared at his youngest son, utterly speechless.
Leo struggled to his feet, refusing my offered hand, standing tall under his own power. He looked at his weeping older brother on the ground, and then back to his father.
“I’m not the soft, weak little boy you all thought I was,” Leo said, his voice dropping into a register of icy authority. “I am the architect. And I don’t leash her, Dad. I just point her in the right direction. And today? Derek gave her the green light.”
Behind us, out on the quiet residential street, the heavy slam of car doors echoed through the trees, followed by the crackle of a police radio. Jessica, sobbing on the deck, had called 911 the moment Leo was thrown into the fire.
The myth of Derek Vance had been thoroughly dismantled, but as the police stepped into the backyard, I knew the war was far from over.
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Chapter 6: The Counter-Strike
At my in-laws’ BBQ, my brother-in-law held red-hot barbecue tongs inches from my throat, mocking: “Let’s see if the little princess flinches.” When my husband defended me, Derek hurled him violently into a 400-degree steel smoker and hissed: “Sit down, sweetheart, or you’re getting a matching burn.” They never knew I had a secret I’d buried years ago. He grabbed my wrist… and that’s when the entire afternoon shattered.
Part 5 of 7
