Chapter 3 - The Three Seconds
The cinematic tension in the sunny backyard was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Derek stared at the video on the phone, and then looked back at the soaking-wet woman standing in front of him. His toxic, fragile ego violently rejected the reality. He couldn't back down in front of his entire family. He was the "alpha male" of the neighborhood. He wasn't going to be intimidated by a woman, regardless of what a five-year-old video showed.
"You think a staged cage fight scares me?" Derek sneered, his face flushing red with desperate arrogance. He didn't let go of her arm. Instead, he gripped it even tighter, trying to twist her wrist backward to assert dominance. "I wrestled in college, sweetheart. You're nothing."
Ryan lunged forward to hit him, but Evelyn casually raised her free hand, stopping her husband dead in his tracks.
"One," Evelyn counted smoothly, completely ignoring the pain in her twisted arm.
"Evelyn, please!" Marissa sobbed in the background, knowing exactly what was about to happen.
"I'm not letting go until you apologize to me for disrespecting me in my own backyard!" Derek roared, trying to puff out his chest.
"Two," Evelyn whispered, shifting her stance by exactly one inch.
The guests instinctively backed away. The air felt incredibly heavy, dripping with imminent, inescapable violence.
"Derek, let her go!" Ryan warned, his voice cracking with sheer panic for his brother-in-law's life.
"Make me!" Derek barked.
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"Three," Evelyn stated coldly.
👉 What absolute, bone-shattering justice is Evelyn about to unleash?
