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Preview from chapter one
Force Breeding My Daughter To Teach Her Respect
Rayne Vice
Carla slammed the cabinet door hard enough to make the old hinges complain, then stood with both hands braced on the counter while anger rattled through her narrow shoulders. Moving back into her father’s house had turned every room into an insult. The same sagging couch where Earl had watched ball games after shifts. The same kitchen table where he’d sat across from her with that stone face, deciding what was allowed under his roof. The same walls, the same rules, the same man who had made those rules feel heavier than rent, locks, or bills ever could.
Earl sat in the living room in his work shirt and worn jeans, broad shoulders settled into the recliner that had always been his. Her father’s recliner. Her father’s boots on the carpet. Her father’s house wrapping around her like a trap he didn’t need to build because the world had already shoved her back into it.
“You don’t get to run my life just because I’m stuck here,” Carla snapped, turning on him with her dark ponytail slipping loose and her jaw set hard. “I’m not one of your tools in the garage.”
Earl clicked off the television with a slow press of his thumb. The screen went black, leaving the room too quiet.
“You’re my daughter under my roof,” he said. “That means you follow my rules.”
Carla laughed, ugly and sharp, because if she didn’t laugh she might scream. “Your daughter. Right. Funny how that only matters when you wanna order me around.”
His eyes lifted to hers, steady and flat. “Watch your mouth.”
“There it is.” She stepped away from the counter, heat climbing her neck. “Dad lays down the law. No swearing, no attitude, no breathing wrong unless Earl approves.”
“Last warning, Carla.”
Something reckless split open inside her. The word daughter still hung between them, heavy and sour, and she wanted to smash it. She wanted to prove he didn’t get to pull that card and expect her to fold.
“Fuck you.”
Earl went still.
Carla felt the change in him before he moved. Not anger the way she showed it, loud and flashing, but something colder. The kind of quiet that had always made the house shrink around him when she pushed too far.
He set the remote on the side table, then rose from the recliner. He was all working muscle and quiet force, mid-forties and broad through the chest, his presence filling the space between living room and kitchen until Carla had to fight the urge to step back.