Garrett stood motionless in the center of the mat. Slowly, mechanically, he reached down and unlaced his heavy steel-toed work boots, stepping out of them. He placed them neatly on the edge of the mat.
Then, his hands moved to his chest. He unbuttoned his faded flannel shirt, pulling it off and tossing it aside. Next came the thermal undershirt. When Garrett pulled it over his head, the atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The air seemed to turn to ice.
The gym fell completely, utterly silent. The mocking smile vanished from Bryce’s face, replaced by a sudden, sickening wave of primal dread.
Garrett’s torso was a map of absolute violence. Deep, jagged combat scars crisscrossed his ribs and abdomen—remnants of shrapnel and blades. A massive, puckered burn scar climbed up his left oblique. Faded, black-ink military tattoos, the insignia of a deeply classified special operations unit that Bryce didn't recognize but fundamentally feared, stretched across his broad shoulders and back. Garrett Danner did not look like a bodybuilder. He looked like carved granite. He looked like a man who had survived the end of the world.
Bryce swallowed hard, his bravado evaporating. He had just picked a fight with a weapon disguised as a father.