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So why the fuck do I care? Why can’t I stop staring at the marks on his throat? I’m imagining my hands around the neck of anyone who put them there, even my cousin.

Jaxon hangs his head, defeat pouring off him in waves so thick it feels like I can see them in the air around him. The water bottle in his hand dangles loosely between his fingers, his massive shoulders slumped as he braces his elbows on his knees. He looks drained, broken. Not just physically. And for some reason, that sits wrong under my skin.

I move closer to the balding guy who’d been in his face after the match. He’s standing near one of the organizers now, talking low enough that most people wouldn’t notice. I stop a few feet away, close enough to hear. The little bastard, Henry, doesn’t even glance at Jaxon while he talks. Like he’s not a person. Like he’s a fucking investment.

“He’s good to go. Put him back on the roll,” the ugly fucker motions at Jaxon.

“He just got choked out. You need to give him some time to recover first,” Danny says.

I’ve known Danny since he and his partner started these fights a couple of years ago. Illegal and unregulated doesn’t mean stupid. They know where the line is.

A broken jaw? Fine. A concussion? Expected. But a body bag would be bad for business. The balding guy looks irritated, his mouth pinching tight like Danny’s the one being unreasonable.

“He needs to get back in there,” he snaps.

Danny shakes his head, “Not happening. He can barely stand.”

My gaze drifts back to Jaxon. He hasn’t moved from the chair. His head is still hanging low, his thick forearms braced against his knees, the water bottle slightly crushed in his grip. He looks exhausted. Defeated.

And something about that look makes my jaw tighten. Because no one else in the room seems to see the difference between him being unable to fight and him not wanting to.

I don’t know what it is about Jaxon that has me so fixated. He’s built like a tank, all broad shoulders and heavy muscle, the kind of man most people would cross the street to avoid. There’s nothing small about him. Nothing weak. But underneath all of that, there’s something else. Something in the way he keeps his head down. In the tightness around his eyes when he thinks no one’s looking. In the way he sits there and takes whatever gets thrown at him without fighting back nearly as hard as he should.

There’s a vulnerability in him that doesn’t match the rest. Something bruised. Something that makes a dark, possessive part of me sit up and take notice. Because every time I look at him, all I can hear is the same thing. Please protect me. Help me. But from what?

Chapter 1

Jaxon

Present day

Fuck. There it is again, that creeping certainty that someone is watching me, settling in the same way a storm announces itself before the first drop ever falls. It’s in the air, in the subtle shift of it, like something unseen brushing the back of my neck and sinking deeper, until it’s no longer outside me but moving under my skin.

I keep my head down, my gaze fixed on the concrete between my boots, but my body betrays me anyway. Every muscle in my body is tightening as if it already knows there’s something there, someone still watching, still waiting for me to look up.

I haven’t figured out who it is. Maybe there’s no one at all. Maybe this is just my mind turning on me again, pulling me back into something I barely clawed my way out of. The thought settles heavy in my chest, cold and familiar in a way that makes it worse, because I know this feeling. I remember what it’s like when reality starts to slip at the edges, when shadows don’t sit right, and every passing glance feels like it means more than it should.

So who’s to say this isn’t happening again? Who’s to say I’m not already halfway gone, just lucid enough to notice it this time? Are my nightmares seeping into my reality? I give an involuntary shudder thinking about my nightmare last night. I woke to a scream, only to figure out that it was me—sweat-drenched and tangled in my sheets. At least I managed four hours of sleep this time.

I force myself to focus on the job in front of me, because that’s easier than letting my thoughts wander anywhere they don’t need to go.

After the Marines discharged me, I ended up in construction, which made sense at the time. Grunt work traded for a different kind of grind, the same long hours, the same strain on my body, just without the uniform to make it feel like it meant something.

I haul lumber, pour concrete, carry more than anyone else on the site. Because one look at me is enough for people to decide what I’m built for, as if size alone means I don’t get tired, don’t want more, don’t need anything beyond the next paycheck and a place to crash. Men who look like me aren’t supposed to want soft things; we’re supposed to endure, to keep our mouths shut, to be useful in the simplest, most physical way possible.

And the worst part is how easily that idea settles in, how it stops feeling like something other people decided and starts sounding like the truth, until I catch myself moving through the day on autopilot, already knowing how it will end before it’s even begun.

I don’t want this, not for the rest of my life, not as the only version of it I get, but wanting something else doesn’t seem to matter much when everyone who looks at me has already decided this is where I belong, as if that’s all I’m worth.

I’d get laughed off the site if anyone knew what I actually wanted out of life, if they had even the slightest idea of the things I keep buried deep enough that they never make it past my lips. None of them knows I’m gay. None of them knows that I want to be on my knees, surrendering to another man. It’s a secret I carried through five years in the Marines, locked down so tight it became second nature, until it stopped feeling like a secret at all and started feeling like part of the structure holding me together.

Trent knew. But Trent’s not here, and that version of my life might as well belong to someone else. Out here, no one knows, and I intend to keep it that way, because even if most of them wouldn’t say anything to my face, even if my size buys me a certain kind of silence, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel it in everything else. The looks that linger a second too long, the conversations that shift the moment I walk up, the quiet recalibration people make when they think they’ve figured you out.

I already stand out enough without giving them another reason to stare, so I keep my head down and my mouth shut, same as always.

It’s not like I spend time with them outside of work anyway. I’ve gotten good at the routine—brushing off invitations with the same handful of excuses, too tired, got things to take care of, need to get home—until eventually they stop asking, and the distance settles into something expected.

It’s easier like this, keeping everyone just far enough away that they never get a clear look at me, never close enough to see anything I’m not ready to have taken apart.