Money I’d saved for the past six months to pay my way to the Titans Combine in Chicago in a month, which was conveniently when he’d be home next, was gone.

I’d scraped it together doing odd jobs, fixing people’s cars and selling some of my old crap that I’d need to get rid of anyway when I left for college. If Aaron Smith hadn’t fucked me over, so I’d needed to extract my fee through destruction, I’d have been home to hide this away before my dad had seen it.

As he took on longer routes driving his rig, our paths crossed less and less. Almost like every ten pounds of muscle I packed on in the weight room was another week he’d sign up for a longer trucking trip across country and stay out of the house. Good. I wanted him to finally be the scared one for once.

I picked up the box and turned it over. A quarter slid out into my open palm. Closing my fist around the metal, I launched the box through the air. The wall of tools on the other side shuddered and swayed. Both my hands clenched at my sides.

Air brakes from the trucker rig squealed outside the garage door. Tension gripped every part of me. Was he coming back?

The front door of the house banged open. My fingers tightened around the cold metal of the wrench beside me on the work bench. It was smaller than the one he’d used on me, but maybe this time I wouldn’t freeze up, reverting to an eight-year-old kid when his boot steps hit the floor outside my door.

Stomping footsteps vibrated the wall behind me. My heart rate spiked, the throb traveling through my chest and threatening to choke me. Bile raged in my stomach, racing for my throat. Every cell in my body screamed for revenge, but I still sat there frozen, unable to move. The steps retreated again and the door slammed. Outside, tires ground the gravel in the dead-end street outside my house.

Shame washed over me. I should’ve run out there and taken his ass down. He’d always been bigger than me, but I was stronger. And quicker. And not drunk off my ass ninety percent of the time. I could knock him out and he’d never touch me again. Instead, I’d cowered in the garage, not even able to turn the door knob.

On the field, I never thought twice about knocking guys on their asses to get the opening that Bennet, our quarterback, needed, but my old man still paralyzed me.

Red rage clouded my vision and I let out a primal scream, wishing it could rip through the ceiling of the garage.

Crunching, smashing, pounding wrath unleashed on everything around me. A sound broke through the need to destroy. It continued, nudging at the edges of the blinding fog I’d slipped into, where instinct drove me.

The hammering of the blood in my ears slowed. I stepped forward, my shoes sliding on shards of glass. This snapped me from the haze and pulled me from the depths of my fury.