Page 103 of At Your Mercy

Elias smirked, but I could see the faintest flicker of unease in his eyes. “So what’ll it be? How will you exact your revenge?”

Ro took a step closer. Then another.

And I found myself holding my breath.

Because I realized, in that sterile, humming basement, that this wasn’t just Ro confronting his abuser.

This was Ro confrontinghimself.

The boy Elias had made—the one who’d been trained to seduce, to obey, to survive by submission—was walking toward his maker now, weapon in hand, not as a victim, not as a pawn.

But as a man.

“Taking your life is a mercy,” Ro said. “True revenge would be to have you gang-raped for twenty years, to destroy you to the point of wanting to end it yourself, but then forcing you to keep living, enduring day after day of drowning in the deepest, darkest pit in your mind.”

Under his breath, Lane let out a broken sound—a sound of disgust, of recognition, of pain. “Jesus,” he whispered. Grey stepped between his legs and pulled Lane into his chest.

Quietly, he told him, “It’s okay if you want to leave, baby.”

When Lane looked up into his eyes, Grey cupped his jaw.

“No, I want to stay, please, Daddy.”

Greyson pressed his lips against his husband’s forehead. “You’re so strong.”

Lane smiled at him. “Now be a good Daddy and move so I can see when the bloody stuff starts happening.”

That surprised a soft laugh out of me. As my nephew shifted so that he could still hold Lane without blocking his view, I smiled at him.

I really had missed too much. Maybe it was time to implement family dinners once a week.

My attention returned to Ro as I shelved that idea for later.

He was still talking to Elias. “I couldn’t stand to do the things to you that were done to me. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, even you.”

“Oh, baby,” I murmured, my heart aching for him.

“So soft-hearted, my Ro,” Elias crooned.

Ro ignored him and turned to address our group. “Can someone bring me a mallet or a hammer?”

Hayes made a show of riffling through the wall of tools until he found what Ro had requested.

Hayes grinned, satisfied, and tossed a mallet toward the little pass-through slot in the glass. It thudded into Ro’s hands with a stupid domestic finality, like a handyman’s tool, not an executioner’s instrument.

I watched Ro cradle the mallet, like a man checking the weight of a guitar before the first chord. He ran his thumb along the worn wood. There was no bravado in the gesture—nocinematic flourish. Just the simple mechanics of choosing the right tool for the job. It made it worse.

I was about to speak up, to suggest that we leave the twins to handle it, but Lane’s words echoed in my head,“He needs this.”

So I held my tongue.

I felt Lane’s hand lace with Greyson’s behind me, their presence a steadying counterpoint.

Ro raised the mallet slowly, testing the balance, the arc. He flexed his wrist, set his jaw, and lifted his chin as if measuring distance and consequence in the same motion.

Elias’s eyes followed the mallet. “Stalling?”

Ro’s hand tightened, knuckles whitening. “Just deciding where to start.”