As he sculpted a cherrywood box for his daughter Marcy’s birthday, Shane Jones stood at his woodworking bench with calm hands. After fifteen years of instructing new Marines on how to shatter bones and neutralize threats, the garage reeked of the familiar, grounding smells of sawdust and linseed oil. His beard was more gray than brown at forty-eight, and a comfortable civilian life had added thirty pounds to his physique. His hands, however, never forgot. They recalled every joint lock, every pressure point, and every lethal blow he had implanted in thousands of fighters.
“Dad? Marcy, a twenty-two-year-old woman with her mother’s black hair and his intense blue eyes, emerged in the doorway. There was a problem. Despite the heat in California, she wore a turtleneck, and her eyes didn’t quite meet her smile.
“Hi,
She took a step closer, and Shane saw how carefully she walked, favoring her left side. “It’s beautiful.” Long before he was appointed the Marine Corps’ top hand-to-hand combat instructor at Quantico, his instructor instincts—the same senses that had kept him alive in Fallujah and Helmand Province during his Force Recon days—came into play.
“How
He’s doing well. Excellent. The break was too long—half a second. In fact, we are currently training together. I’m learning the fundamentals of boxing from him.
Shane’s mouth clenched. Twenty-six-year-old confident MMA fighter Dustin Freeman trained at Titan’s Forge, a strip mall gym. After four months of dating, Shane had despised him from the first handshake because he was overly controlling and made too much eye contact, which was a sign of overcompensation and insecurity.
Shane
“Don’t worry, Dad. She kissed his face and pulled away before he could press any farther, saying, “I’m not a kid anymore.” “Mom needs assistance preparing dinner.”
At the dinner table that night, Shane sat across from his wife, Lisa, with Marcy’s vacant chair serving as a silent accusation between them. The same anxious furrow he sensed growing on his own forehead was also there in Lisa, a trauma nurse at County General.
Lisa murmured softly, hardly raising her voice above a whisper, “She’s covering bruises.” When I visited her apartment yesterday, I noticed them. Her upper arm has fingerprints on it.
Around his fork, Shane’s knuckles turned white.
“She denied it,” Lisa said, her voice breaking. claimed that while working out, she ran into a doorframe. Shane, I’ve witnessed enough victims of domestic abuse to understand the distinction between an assault and an accident.
Shane’s inner warrior immediately wanted to take a car to Dustin’s gym. However, he had learned patience from fifteen years of tactical training. You didn’t charge in blind to win fights. You acquired intelligence. You waited for the ideal opportunity. You attacked while your adversary was unguarded.
With a low growl, Shane answered, “I’ll take care of it.”
Shane, legally. Make me a promise.
He looked into his wife’s beseeching eyes and remained silent. He was unable to fulfill his pledges.
Two weeks passed slowly. Shane sat and watched, the old, familiar hum of his Force Recon surveillance training taking over. After passing Titan’s Forge three times, he committed the layout, the faces, and the patterns to memory. Dustin’s trainer, Perry Cox, was a verbose man in his forties who equated roughness with discipline. He had tattoos on his neck and a shaved head.
Shane called, too. Background checks were conducted by his former Marine friend, Gabriel Stevenson, who is currently a private investigator in San Diego.
“Your daughter’s boyfriend is filthy, brother,” Gabriel said grimly on the phone. Three charges of assault were reduced to misdemeanors through plea bargaining. an ex-girlfriend’s restraining order. The worst part is that Royce Clark is his uncle.
Shane felt his blood freeze. The Southside Vipers, led by Royce Clark, dominated underground fighting circuits and illegal marketplaces in three counties. They were organized crooks with respectable business facades and dishonest police officers working for them, not street-level punks.
Gabriel went on, “Freeman is their prize fighter.” They wager hundreds of thousands of dollars on him in illicit prize fights. People suffer if he loses. Shane, he’s a beast in the ring. One opponent has lifelong brain damage, while three others are in the hospital.
With a flat voice, Shane said, “Send me everything.”
“Shane, you can’t straighten up these inebriated Marines. They’re—
“Send me everything.”
Marcy came over for dinner that evening. She walked even more cautiously than previously and put on long sleeves once more. Marcy only picked at her food, tensing every time her phone chimed, despite Lisa’s attempts to get her to come out. She checked it often, her fear scarcely disguised.
Shane escorted Marcy to her car after supper. “Baby girl,” he uttered quietly. “I am aware of what is taking place.”
She started crying. “Please don’t, Dad.”
Has he struck you?”
“It’s difficult. Training and his uncle’s expectations cause him worry. It’s not always—
“Has. He. Struck. You?”
The tears fell freely. He claims to love me. He always says he’s sorry. He’s simply feeling a lot of strain from his family.
Feeling her petite body tremble against him, Shane drew her into an embrace. “This is over now.”
“You don’t get it, Dad! Dustin, his uncle, warned that Royce would harm him if he left. harmed our family. Dad, they’re related. Judges, police, everyone.
“I’ll take care of that. Make me a promise that you won’t act carelessly.
Like he used to do when she was younger and afraid of thunderstorms, Shane caressed her hair. “I swear I’ll make this right.”
He took his old footlocker out of the garage attic that evening. Tactical gear, surveillance equipment, and a notebook with fifteen years of information on threat neutralization were wrapped in oilcloth and contained items he had intended to never touch again. He had been trained as a weapon by the Marine Corps. Now was the moment to recall how to use it.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when the call came in. When Shane’s phone rang, he was working as a shop foreman for a bespoke furniture firm. Lisa’s tone was cold. “Marcy is in the emergency room. I was named as her emergency contact by her.
Shane saw a tunnel in the distance. “How awful?”
split lip, injured ribs, and concussion. She claims to have fallen downstairs, but her forearms have defense wounds, Shane. And witnesses saw her arguing with Dustin in the parking lot of his gym an hour ago.”
In Shane’s hands, the phone broke. “I’m en route.”
He did not, however, visit the hospital. Not quite yet. He started by taking a car to Titan’s Forge. The gym was located on the town’s industrial side in a repurposed warehouse. Bass-heavy music pounded from inside, mingled with the thud of fists against bags and coaches yelling directions. Finding the cool, collected center he had developed in battle zones, Shane parked and sat for five minutes, taking deep breaths.
The stench of sweat, testosterone, and cockiness hit him as soon as he stepped through the door. There were twenty warriors strewn throughout the room. Dustin Freeman, his coach Perry Cox, and three other boxers were laughing while standing close to a cage. Dustin had the predatory confidence that comes from never having to deal with actual repercussions. He was big, muscular, and covered in tattoos.
Shane approached them directly. A few combatants were aware and halted their activity. The music seems to fade.
Dustin smiled as he saw him approaching. “Well, well. “Daddy stopped by,” he said, pushing Perry. “This is Marcy’s elderly father.”
Perry Cox smiled as he examined Shane from head to toe, taking in his increased weight, gray beard, and carpenter’s attire. “Grampa, what are you going to do? Have a lengthy talk with us?”
Ten feet away, Shane halted, speaking in a soft, conversational tone. “You put your hands on my daughter.”
Dustin hissed, “Your daughter is a clumsy girl who can’t follow simple instructions.” “ Told her your old self couldn’t protect her. I had to teach her some respect because she didn’t trust me.
The three combatants, who Shane had identified from Gabriel’s report as Viper associates Lamar Duncan, Brenton Cantrell, and Andres White, dispersed somewhat around him.
Perry took a step forward. “This is how it works, Grandpa. My boys will make sure you depart on a stretcher if you turn around and leave without remembering you have a daughter.
Shane grinned. He had smiled at opposing fighters who were unaware that they had already lost. For fifteen years, I taught hand-to-hand combat in the Marine Corps. I taught over 3,000 combat Marines, MARSOC Raiders, and Force Recon operators.” He rolled his shoulders, and the extra weight no longer appeared so soft. “More than three guys will be required.”
Perry nodded at his fighters, calling them cocky old fools. “Set him down.”
The following action took seventeen seconds.
Lamar threw a haymaker as he entered first. Shane sidestepped, grabbed the arm, and delivered a knee to the solar plexus along with a classic wrist lock. Lamar gasped and fell like a stone.
Andres and Brenton hurried together. Decades of muscle memory took control, and Shane glided like water. He blocked Brenton’s blow, caught the arm, and struck the ear with his palm, rupturing the eardrum. Shane turned, intercepted Andres’s kick, swept the standing leg, and placed an elbow on the falling fighter’s knee while Brenton yelled. The gym reverberated with the snap. Fourteen seconds.
Perry Cox lunged after grabbing a training knife from a wall rack. An error. Shane disarmed out of reflex. As he moved into Perry’s center line, he put pressure on the nerve cluster, controlled the wrist, and trapped the weapon hand. The blade clanked off. Shane swiped both legs after driving three quick blows into Perry’s floating ribs. Perry fell onto his back. Shane trailed behind him, kneed him in the sternum, then struck Perry’s jaw twice with such accuracy that Perry went dark.
17 seconds. A coach and three combatants were on the ground, two of them asleep, one clutching a damaged knee, the other rolling in pain from a burst eardrum.
Shane looked to Dustin Freeman and stood up. Dustin’s arrogant smile had disappeared. With his hands raised, he retreated toward the cage. “You’re done! My uncle—
Shane took two steps to get closer. Dustin used a combination of hook, cross, and jab. After deflecting each blow, Shane kicked Dustin in the front, sending him reeling back against the cage wall. Shane was on Dustin, locking an arm behind his back, before he could get better.
“
Indeed! Indeed!
“All right.”
Quiet.
