d4.Twenty-eight days on. Twenty-eight days off.

Brandi stood in the center of the hallway, her hands trembling as she tied the belt of her robe. Her gaze darted from Dwight, who was still rubbing his shoulder against the wall, to me, standing motionless in the center of the living room.

“Have you lost your mind?” Brandi shrieked, her voice reaching that piercing register she used whenever she was cornered. “You come home unannounced, you assault my guest, and you terrorize these poor children? Where is Finn? Did you wake him up? Finn! Get out here right now!”

“Finn isn't here,” I said.

Brandi blinked, momentary confusion cracking her facade. “What do you mean he’s not here? He’s supposed to be watching the boys while Dwight and I go get breakfast!”

“He’s an eight-year-old child, Brandi,” I said, stepping toward her. She instinctively took a step back, her back hitting the hallway mirror. “Not an unpaid babysitter. Not a cook. And certainly not a punching bag for your deadbeat boyfriend.”

Dwight was back on his feet now, regaining his bluster now that Brandi was in the room. He positioned himself slightly behind her, his chest heaving, his fists clenched at his sides.

“He assaulted me, Brandi,” Dwight growled, his voice thick with venom. “You see that? He came into *our* house and laid hands on me in front of my kids. Call the deputies. Have this psycho hauled off.”

“Go ahead, Brandi,” I said, pulling my work phone from my pocket and setting it on the counter, screen up. “Dial 911. Tell Sheriff Guidry to send a cruiser out here. While they’re on their way, I’ll explain to them why my son is currently lying in an isolation room at Lafayette General with third-degree scald burns wrapped in industrial duct tape.”

Brandi’s face instantly drained of color. The anger in her eyes evaporated, replaced by a cold, sickening panic.

“What... what did you do?” she stammered.

“I took him to real doctors,” I said. “The kind who report felony child neglect and aggravated cruelty to the state authorities within fifteen minutes of walking through the doors.”

“You called CPS?” Brandi gasped, clutching her throat. “Are you crazy, Wade?! They’ll take him away! They’ll investigate me!”

“No, Brandi,” I replied with brutal precision. “They won’t take him. Because Finn is safe with my sister Sarah. They are investigating *you*. And they are investigating this piece of human garbage standing in my living room.”

Dwight’s eyes narrowed into slits. The realization that law enforcement was now officially involved turned his swagger into a cornered animal’s rage. He lunged forward, reaching past Brandi to snatch my phone off the counter.

“Give me that damn phone!”

I didn't flinch. I didn't step back.

Before Dwight’s fingers could graze the glass, I caught his thumb and index finger, twisting them backward against the joint with the practiced efficiency of a man who worked with pipe wrenches for a living. Dwight shrieked, dropping to his knees on the hardwood floor for the second time that morning.

“I told you once,” I said, leaning down over him, my face inches from his sweating brow. “You don't touch my property. And you don't make demands in my house.”

I let him go. Dwight scrambled backward on all fours, gasping for breath, clutching his sprained hand against his stomach.

“You’re a dead man, Mercer!” Dwight screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. “You hear me?! You think you’re tough because you work on a rig?! I know people in this parish! I know where you sleep! I will burn this whole damn house down with you inside it!”

I tapped the screen of my work phone. The little red recording circle had been spinning the entire time.

“Thank you, Dwight,” I said calmly. “That’s terroristic threats and aggravated assault recorded on high-definition audio. Keep talking. Every sentence adds six months to your sentence at Angola.”

Dwight stared at the glowing phone, his mouth hanging open. The older boy, Travis, was crying now, clutching his younger brother by the sleeve near the front door.

“Dwight, please,” Brandi pleaded, her voice trembling. “Just take the boys and go. Go over to your cousin’s shop. Let me handle this with Wade.”

Dwight glared at Brandi with pure disgust. “You said he was a soft touch! You said he just signed the checks and stayed out on the water! You didn't tell me he was insane!”

Dwight scrambled to his feet, grabbed his boys by their collars, and shoved them toward the front door. He didn't bother grabbing their shoes or the bags of clothes strewn across the guest bedroom.

“This isn't over, Mercer!” Dwight spat from the front porch, backing down the wooden steps. “You can’t hide behind the law forever!”

He piled his kids into the lifted Dodge Ram, slammed the doors, and threw the transmission into reverse. The heavy mud tires spun aggressively, tearing two deep, ugly trenches through the manicured Bermuda grass of my front lawn before spitting gravel all over my truck as he roared down the country road.

The house fell completely silent.

The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the shallow, ragged breathing of my wife standing in the hallway.

Brandi looked around the trashed living room—the discarded food containers, the half-empty liquor bottles, the torn drywall where Dwight’s shoulder had slammed into it.

“Wade,” she began, taking a step toward me, her eyes brimming with forced tears, her hands coming up in a pleading gesture. “You don't understand the pressure I was under. You’re gone for weeks at a time. The house is so quiet. Dwight... he was just helping out. He got carried away. I didn't know Finn’s arm was that bad, I swear to God I didn't! He told me it was just a tiny blister!”

“Save it, Brandi,” I said, turning away from her.

“We can fix this!” she cried, running behind me as I walked toward the home office. “We can talk to the social worker! We can tell them it was an accident! If we lose custody of Finn, Wade, they’ll ruin us! Think about our family!”

I stopped in the doorway of the office and turned around to look at her. Really look at her.

The woman I had married ten years ago in a small chapel in Breaux Bridge—the woman who used to pack handwritten love notes into my offshore duffel bag—was gone. In her place stood a stranger hollowed out by greed, selfishness, and neglect.

“There is no family, Brandi,” I said, my voice as cold as deep ocean water. “There is only Finn. And I am going to tear your world down to make sure you never hurt that boy again.”

I walked into the office, shut the heavy oak door, and locked it from the inside.

I pulled out my personal phone and dialed a number I had saved three years ago after a major offshore liability dispute.

The phone rang twice.

“Marcus Vance,” a crisp, gravelly voice answered.