Forward.
Into the danger.
Grant threw a massive right cross.
Fueled by rage.
Blinded by ego.
Mia didn’t block. She slipped under it.
Moving like a shadow.
Before Grant could pivot, she planted her bare foot.
A single, open-handed palm strike to his solar plexus.
*CRACK.*
The sound echoed off the wood-paneled walls like a gunshot.
Grant’s two-hundred-pound frame actually lifted off the ground.
He flew backward.
He hit the mat hard, skidding before catching himself on one knee.
Gasping for air.
Eyes bulging in absolute shock.
His jaw dropped, but his paralyzed lungs refused to make a sound.
The dojo froze.
Black belts stood wide-eyed. Students stopped breathing.
Mia didn’t celebrate.
She stood dead center on the white mat.
Perfectly balanced.
Ice cold.
Grant finally choked in a jagged breath, clutching his chest.
“What… what was that?” he wheezed, staring at the thirteen-year-old girl. “That’s not karate.”
Mia looked down at him with a deadpan stare.
“No,” she said softly. “It’s not.”
She glanced back at her mother.
The cleaning woman wasn’t shaking anymore.
She stood perfectly still, her shoulders squared, her feet positioned in the exact same unrecognized, lethal stance as her daughter.
“It’s called Silat,” Mia said, turning back to the broken Sensei.
“And my mother didn’t say *’Mia, don’t’* because she was afraid for me.”
Mia’s eyes locked onto Grant’s terrified face.
“She said it because she knows I haven’t learned how to hold back.”
Grant looked past the girl, staring at the woman with the mop.
He finally noticed the heavy calluses on her knuckles.
The scarred forearms.
The cold, calculating eyes of a grandmaster.
He hadn’t just humiliated a widow.
He had insulted a quiet dragon.
Mia picked up her white sneakers.
“Keep your apology. We’re done cleaning your floors.”