CHAPTER ONE
TARYN
Ben Calder didn’t believe in punishment that left visible marks. He believed in the kind that lived under your skin.
The garage smelled of rubber mats and metal—cold iron, old sweat, and gun oil. The overhead light buzzed like a trapped insect, bleaching everything in its harsh glare. Ben stood beside the workbench, his stopwatch in one hand and a legal pad in the other, as if this were a job site and I were a tool he needed calibrated.
I called him Ben in my head because he felt as far from what I believed a dad should be, as you could get. Of course, out loud I called him Dad—I wasn’t brave enough to do otherwise.
“Shoes,” he grumbled.
I didn’t argue.
Arguing wasn’t tolerated, and this day was going to be difficult enough without me adding to it—no point in stoking the fire.
I took off my sneakers and stepped onto the mat in my socks. The concrete underneath was hot, despite it being fall. My legs ached from yesterday, the day before, and every day that ended with me not being good enough.
Ben—Dad’sgaze flicked over me as if he were running a checklist in his head.
Hair up.
No jewelry.
Water bottle full.
Knees not locked.
Shoulders back.
He was careful in the way a man is careful with a firearm—no wasted motion, no room for error, no sympathy for flinching.
“Warm-up,” he said, with zero inflection. “Three minutes.”
I dropped and immediately began stretching. Then my workout began.
“Higher.”
“Faster.”
“Again.”
His voice never rose, and that was the hardest part. If he’d been angry, it might have felt like I mattered more. Ben’s tone was always the same—calm, clear, and straightforward—whether he was explaining how to clear a jam or field-strip a weapon.
The timer beeped.
“Push-ups,” he growled. “Sixty.”
I spread my hands on the mat and lowered myself.
One.
My arms shook on twenty.
My shoulders screamed at thirty.
My core cramped at forty.
Ben’s pen scratched on paper with each count, a metronome marking my failure before I’d even earned it.
