Chapter 2 - Breaking the Threshold
The front door of Travis and Lena’s suburban house was made of solid mahogany with decorative wrought-iron scrollwork over an oval glass insert. Usually, it was locked tight during the middle of the day. But panic makes mistakes, and Travis Vance was a coward wrapped in a bully’s skin.
Derek didn't bother knocking.
As my brother sprinted up the porch steps, his athletic frame coiled like a spring, he saw the sheer curtains in the living room flutter. Through the glass, he caught a horrifying glimpse of Travis standing over the kitchen island, a cold-blooded smirk on his face as he casually tossed a bloodstained aluminum baseball bat from one hand to the other.
“Open the fucking door, Travis!” Derek roared, his voice booming across the quiet suburban cul-de-sac like thunder.
Inside the house, the sound froze the blood in Travis’s veins. He dropped the bat onto the counter with a loud clatter and rushed toward the foyer, his face flushing with furious indignation. He whipped the front door open, expecting to find a timid neighbor or a confused delivery driver.
Instead, he found an enraged, six-foot-two wall of muscle staring back at him with dead, shark-like eyes.
“What the hell do you want, Derek?” Travis sneered, trying to puff out his chest and mask the sudden panic flickering in his pupils. “You can’t just show up on my property—this is private—!”
He never got to finish the sentence.
Derek didn't waste a single breath on a warning. Utilizing the explosive hip torque from his years in professional MMA training, Derek drove the heel of his heavy work boot directly into the center of the wooden door, right beside the brass deadbolt.
CRACK!
The reinforced wooden frame splintered instantly under the massive impact. The door flew wide open with such violent velocity that it slammed backward against the interior hallway drywall, punching a jagged hole in the plaster and sending Travis staggering backward across the hardwood floor, tripping over his own sneakers.
“You piece of trash,” Derek growled, stepping across the threshold and into the house.
“Stay back!” Travis screeched, scrambling backward on his hands and knees like a crab, his face turning pale with terror as he realized the terrifying magnitude of his mistake. “You broke my door! I’m calling the cops! You’re trespassing!”
“Call whoever you want,” Derek said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he closed the distance between them in two massive strides. “Because right now, you’re going to find out what happens when you lay a finger on my niece.”
On the other end of the open phone line in my car, I heard every single sound—the splintering wood, Travis’s panicked squeal, and Derek’s cold, authoritative commands. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought my chest would crack.
“Derek! Stop! Wait for the police!” I yelled into the phone, but the line was chaotic, the phone having fallen onto the hallway rug during the confrontation.
Before Travis could scramble to his feet, Derek’s hand shot out, grabbing the collar of Travis’s designer shirt with the grip of a hydraulic press. With one effortless, fluid motion, Derek hoisted the fully grown man entirely off the floor, lifting him effortlessly into the air until Travis’s heels kicked uselessly against the air.
“Where is she?” Derek demanded, his face inches from Travis’s sweating, terrified visage.
“She’s... she’s in the master bedroom!” Travis choked out, clawing frantically at Derek’s iron-tight grip on his shirt. “I swear to God, put me down! I didn't mean to—she was screaming at me—!”
Derek didn't listen to another word of his pathetic excuses. With a sharp, powerful shove, he hurled Travis down the hallway. Travis crashed hard into a decorative console table, sending framed family photographs shattering across the floor before sprawling out flat on his stomach in a groaning heap.
Derek didn't look back at him. He sprinted straight down the hallway toward the master bedroom, his heart pounding for the only person in that house who truly mattered.
May you like
He gripped the brass doorknob of the master bedroom, twisted it, and pushed the door open.
What he saw waiting inside made the cold blood in his veins turn straight to ice.
