Page 82 of Shattered By Grace

No time to breathe.

Another man lunged at her. She ducked under his swing, driving her knee into his gut. He staggered but didn’t go down, catching her wrist before she could land another hit. She fought against his grip, twisting her body, but then— A sharp blow to her ribs.

Pain exploded through her side as she gasped, barely catching herself before she hit the ground. The third man loomed over her, his face twisted in a sick grin. Her vision blurred, her limbs aching from the fight, but she braced herself anyway. She’d go down swinging.

Slow, deliberate footsteps echoed across the gym floor.

A voice, smooth and laced with amusement, cut through the tension.

“Well, well. Looks like I walked in just in time for the entertainment.”

Victoria’s body tensed.

The men around her froze. The one still gripping her wrist let go like he had been burned, while the others turned stiffly toward the entrance.

Tristan Locke stood in the doorway, arms crossed, his dark eyes gleaming with something dangerous. The overhead lights carved sharp shadows over his sharp jaw, his mouth curled into an amused smirk. But Victoria knew better. That wasn’t humor in his eyes. It was ice-cold rage, controlled but deadly.

“You must be new,” Tristan mused, stepping forward with a lazy kind of confidence, the kind that made the air feelsuffocating. “Because if you knew who I was, you wouldn’t have put your filthy hands on what’s mine.”

Mine.

The word sent a shiver through Victoria’s spine, even as fury curled in her chest.

One of the men swallowed hard. “L-Locke?—”

“Oh, good. Youdoknow my name.” Tristan tilted his head, his smirk widening. “Then you also know what happens to people who cross me. Or did my father forget to mention that part before sending his lap dogs to do his dirty work?”

Victoria’s stomach twisted. Tristan didn’t know.

One of the men sneered, trying to mask his growing fear. “Your father sent us.”

A single beat of silence. Something in Tristan’s posture shifted. The smirk vanished.

His entire body went rigid, his expression darkening as his eyes flicked to Victoria. Bruised, bloodied, fighting off men sent byhisfather.

The realization hit him slowly, like a blade dragging through flesh. His father had sent men after her. But why now?

Tristan’s jaw clenched, but if he was thrown off, he didn’t show it. Instead, he let out a slow exhale and rolled his shoulders, that smirk creeping back. It was sharper now. Deadlier.

“Well,” he said, his voice deceptively casual, “that’s a shame. Because now I have to send a message back.”

The men barely had time to react before Tristan moved.

Fast. Brutal.

A fist to one’s throat, a knee to another’s ribs. Quick, calculated strikes that dropped two of them instantly. The third scrambled backward, reaching for a weapon, but Tristan kicked it from his grasp before slamming him against the nearest weight rack.

The last man standing stammered, his hands raised in surrender. Tristan tilted his head, considering him with cold amusement.

“Do me a favor,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “Tell my father that if heevercomes for her again, he won’t just be losing pawns. He’ll be losing his goddamn king.”

That was all it took.

The man dragged his unconscious comrades and bolted, practically tripping over himself as he fled.

Silence stretched through the gym, the only sound Victoria’s ragged breathing.

Tristan didn’t move until the door slammed shut behind them. Then, and only then, did he turn to her, his gaze sharp, questioning.

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