Page 131 of Yours to Keep
The waterfront suddenly didn’t feel peaceful anymore.
Every instinct my father had ever beaten into me rose to the surface without warning.
Danger.
Beside me, Eli went rigid at the same moment.
An SUV pulled in far too fast and stopped much too close.
Neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to. My heart rate spiked until I could feel it slamming against my ribs. Every instinct screamed at me to move. To protect. To survive.
I looked at Eli. He looked back at me.
We both knew.
Then the driver’s door opened.
The man stepped out with a handgun already raised.
“Get in.”
Everything narrowed, and my training took over before fear could. Eli and I moved together, stepping backward before spinning to run.
We never made it.
Hands exploded out of nowhere, grabbing both of us from behind.
I fought immediately.
So did Eli.
I heard him scream: “CJ!”
The fear in his voice wasn’t for himself; it was for the man he loved.
My own voice tore from my throat: “Deck!”
The world became fists and bodies.
For years, I’d hated what my father had turned me into: every sunrise training session, every bruise, every broken bone, every lesson about pain. He hadn’t trained me because he loved me. He’d trained me because he wanted a weapon he could control. Useful. Disposable. Never his son. Just another tool.
But standing there, watching strangers drag Eli toward that SUV, I thanked the asshole for the first time in my life.
Because these men looked at me and saw exactly what everyone always saw: small, easy, harmless.
They didn’t see years of combat training.
They didn’t see every time I’d been thrown onto a mat until I learned how to get back up, or the boy who’d been taught how to survive men exactly like them.
One of them grabbed me, and I twisted underneath his arm, driving my elbow hard into his ribs.
He stumbled backward with a grunt.
There it was: the moment, the exact second he realized I’d lied to him without saying a single word. He’d mistaken my size for weakness.
Big fucking mistake.
I shoved past him, reaching for Eli.
