Chapter 18 #2
His hand shot out and grabbed the front of my shirt, his fist closing around the fabric with a grip like a steel vise, fingers digging in with terrifying precision.
Then he lifted—hauled me straight off the ground like I weighed nothing, like I was a fucking ragdoll instead of a two-hundred-pound man.
My feet dangled uselessly in the air, toes scraping against nothing.
My eyes went wide, shock and disbelief flooding through me as my feet left the earth.
My hands instinctively grabbed at his wrist, trying to pry his fingers loose, but it was like trying to bend iron.
The man didn’t even strain. Didn’t grunt with effort.
His arm stayed rock-solid, holding me aloft without so much as a tremor.
He was sixty-three years old.
Sixty-three. And he’d just picked me up with one hand like it was nothing. Like decades hadn’t passed. Like age was just a number that didn’t apply to him.
“Hex—” Mercy started, his voice sharp with warning, taking a step forward from where he’d been standing.
But Hex wasn’t listening. His jaw was set, his eyes cold and distant, locked on something far beyond me. He turned and threw me.
I slammed into the porch banister with brutal force, the wood cracking under the impact with a sickening snap, splinters exploding outward.
Pain exploded through my back and ribs like white-hot lightning, radiating through every nerve.
The air rushed out of my lungs in a harsh gasp, and I barely had time to register what had happened—barely had time to process the throbbing agony spreading through my body—before I heard the front door bang open, the screen door slamming against the house with a metallic crash.
“NO!” Brandy’s voice cut through the chaos, high and desperate. “Daddy, no!”
I looked up, dazed, my vision swimming, and saw her rushing out onto the porch, her face pale and streaked with tears.
And then I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
“Don’t fucking move,” Mercy said, his voice cold and deadly.
I turned my head—slowly, carefully—and saw Mercy standing a few feet away, his gun drawn and aimed directly at the back of Hex’s head.
My stomach dropped. “Mercy, don’t—” I started, but the words died in my throat.
Because Hex was turning. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he had all the time in the world.
“NO, Daddy!” Brandy screamed, her voice breaking. “Please!”
Hex’s eyes locked onto Mercy, and for a moment, everything went still. The air itself seemed to freeze, caught in the electric tension between the two men. Time slowed to a crawl. I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, feel the sweat trickling down my spine despite the cold.
Then Hex moved, whipping around toward Mercy with a speed and fluidity that shouldn’t have been possible for a man his age, for someone who’d been standing so still just seconds before.
Mercy’s finger tightened on the trigger, his knuckles going white with the pressure.
His breath came in short, sharp bursts. But Hex was faster—so much faster.
His hand shot out like a striking snake and grabbed the gun, his fingers wrapping around the barrel and Mercy’s hand simultaneously, twisting it out of Mercy’s grip with a brutal efficiency that spoke of decades of experience, of muscle memory carved deep into bone.
Mercy tried to hold on, tried to pull back, his face contorting with effort and desperation, but it was useless. Completely and utterly useless.
Hex had the weapon. And then, with movements so practiced they looked almost casual, almost bored, Hex dismantled the gun right there in front of us.
Ejected the magazine, letting it drop to the dirt with a dull thud.
Racked the slide to clear the chamber, the brass casing spinning through the air and landing somewhere in the dirt.
Separated the barrel from the frame with a twist and a click.
All in the span of maybe three seconds. Maybe less.
The pieces clattered to the ground, useless and scattered as Hex stepped forward, closing the distance between them in one smooth stride, getting right in Mercy’s face, so close their noses were almost touching.
I could see Mercy’s chest rising and falling rapidly, could see the fear flickering behind his eyes even as he tried to maintain his composure.
“You want to kill me,” Hex said quietly, his voice like gravel and ice, each word deliberate and measured.
“Next time come at me with more than a gun.”
Mercy’s jaw tightened, the muscles jumping beneath his skin, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even blink. He just stood there, his hands raised slightly in a gesture of surrender, his eyes locked on Hex’s with an intensity that bordered on defiance even in defeat.
Smart man. He knew when he was beaten.
Hex held his gaze for another long moment, letting the silence stretch out between them like a taut wire, then turned away, dismissing him like he was nothing. Like he was just another obstacle cleared from the path. Like he wasn’t worth the effort or the breath it would take to say anything more.
He turned back toward me, and I braced myself for another attack, my body tensing despite the pain radiating through my back and ribs.
But then I saw her. Brandy. She was standing between us now, her small frame positioned directly in front of her father, her hands raised, her face wet with tears. “Daddy,” she said, her voice trembling but firm. “Please stop.”
Hex stopped. His hands, which had been curled into fists at his sides, slowly relaxed.
His expression, which had been carved from stone and fury, softened—just slightly, just enough to show the man beneath the legend.
He looked down at his daughter, and for the first time since we’d arrived, I saw something other than rage in his eyes.
I saw pain.
“Daddy,” Brandy whispered again, her voice breaking. “Please.”
Hex stared at her for a long moment, his jaw working, his chest rising and falling with slow, controlled breaths.
Then he reached out and gently cupped her face in his massive hands, his thumbs brushing away her tears with a tenderness that seemed impossible given what I’d just witnessed.
“Go inside, baby girl,” he said quietly. “This doesn’t concern you anymore.”
“Yes, it does,” Brandy said, her voice stronger now despite the tears. “It’s my baby. My life. And you don’t get to decide what happens next.”
Hex’s expression tightened, but he didn’t argue.
He just looked at her—really looked at her—and I saw the exact moment he realized she wasn’t his little girl anymore.
She was a woman. A woman who’d made her own choices, her own mistakes, and was now facing the consequences.
And there was nothing he could do to protect her from that.
Slowly, reluctantly, Hex dropped his hands and stepped back. He looked at me, his eyes cold and hard once more. “You’ve got five minutes,” he said. “Then I want you off my property.”
He turned and walked back into the house, the screen door slamming shut behind him with a sharp crack that echoed across the yard. And I was left standing there, bruised and shaken, staring at the woman I’d gotten pregnant and realizing I had no fucking idea what to say to her.