The freight building smells like oil and rust. Headlights cut across cracked floors as the van rolls in and the big metal doors grind shut behind us, sealing the night out and trapping him inside with the real monsters of the night.
The silence inside the warehouse is thick and heavy, like the building itself knows exactly what it’s about to witness. The kind of quiet that presses in on your ears and makes every breath sound too loud.
When the hood comes off, he starts crying. Not loud, dramatic sobs. Just broken, panicked gasps, like his body is trying to drag in more air than his lungs can handle, like he already knows he’s in trouble and there’s no talking his way out of it.
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” he chokes, voice shaking. “I swear, I didn’t—”
I hit him. Hard. Right in the stomach, driving the air out of him in a harsh, wet sound that cuts off whatever lie he was about to spit out. His body jerks against the restraints, shoulders curling forward as he gags and coughs, eyes bulging while he fights for breath.
Before he can even suck in another one, I hit him again. Across the face this time, snapping his head sideways, blood spraying from his nose as his chair rattles against the concrete.
“You don’t get to say that,” I growl, grabbing his shirt and slamming another punch into his ribs. “You don’t get to pretend this didn’t happen.”
He whimpers, a thin, pathetic sound, and that just makes something in me snap wider.
I keep going. My fist to his stomach. To his jaw. To anywhere I can reach. Each hit landing with a dull, meaty thud, each breath he tries to take turning into a broken wheeze instead.
I don’t feel satisfaction or relief. I don’t feel anything at all. Just this cold, steady need to make him understand that whatever he thought he was, whatever power he thought he had, it ended the second he put his hands on her.
We drag him across the cold concrete and slam him into the metal chair welded to the floor, and the zip ties scream as we ratchet them down around his wrists, his ankles, and across his chest, just enough slack to let him feel every useless strain and every futile twitch.
His shoulders wrench backward in panic, ribs caged, lungs fighting for air that comes in wet, ragged bursts, and his eyes dart between our faces like a trapped animal realizing the hunters didn’t come to talk.
Mason steps forward, slow and deliberate. “Grant Whitaker,” he says. “You know exactly why your worthless heart is still beating right now.” Grant tries to speak, tries to lie, but the back of Mason’s hand cracks across his face so hard his teeth clack together and blood spills from his lip. One strike is all it takesto turn words into a broken whimper. “You put your hands on Brooke Calloway tonight,” Mason says, voice flat and lethal. “You held her down, and you ignored every no, every stop, and every sob.”
Grant shakes his head, trying to deny it, but my fist slams into his stomach before the next word can form, and the air explodes out of him in a choking wheeze. I lean in close. “You don’t say her name again. Ever.”
Mason’s hand closes on my shoulder, steady and grounding, reminding me that this isn’t finished yet.
Grant is crying now, tears and blood streaking down his face, chest heaving in useless bursts. Good.
Mason lifts two fingers, and Blade and Switch move in, flanking the chair so Grant has nowhere to look that doesn’t end in muscle and fury. Blade grips the back of the chair, metal groaning under his hand, while Switch crouches in front of him, eyes dead calm. “This is what powerless feels like,” Switch says quietly. “There isn’t enough money, no lawyers, and no fucking exits that will save you.”
Blade leans in close enough that his breath brushes Grant’s ear. “And this is the part you remember.”
Mason steps closer again. “You leave Jackson tonight. You sell everything. You disappear.”
Grant nods so hard it’s frantic.
“And if she wakes up tomorrow afraid,” Mason continues, “we come back, and next time there are no warnings. We’ll finish what we started here.”
Riot flips his laptop open, screen glow cutting across Grant’s face. “Every trace of her is gone from your devices, and if you even try to look her up, we’ll know.”
Grant sobs openly now, shoulders jerking.
Mason straightens. “Get this piece of shit out of here.”
Tank and Riot haul him toward the van, still bound and shaking, while Dagger and Piston follow without a word. When the doors slam shut again, the fear stays behind, thick in the air, even after he’s gone.
Once he’s gone, it takes me longer than I want to admit to get my hands to stop shaking.
The warehouse feels too quiet now, like all the violence got sucked out of the air and left this thick, heavy stillness behind. My chest is still heaving, lungs dragging in breaths that feel too sharp, too fast, like my body hasn’t caught up to the fact that it’s over. That the immediate threat is gone.
Mason’s there. Blade. Riot. Switch.
All of them standing close, not crowding me, but not leaving either, like they know better than to walk away from a man who just crossed a line he can’t uncross.
When I finally lift my head, I see it on their faces. The same tight jaws. The same dark eyes. The same fury that hasn’t burned out yet, just banked down low and waiting.
