1
Six months later
“Again,” Griff orders, breathing in heavily with his body still prone to fight, watching from his position in the middle of the mat.
The rims of my nostrils flare, my skin wet with sweat and probably a little bit of blood too. The motherfucker got in a cheap shot earlier and it’s been bleeding a steady stream ever since, a stream which mingles with my perspiration to make it watery enough to drip from my chin and onto the blue foam beneath my bare feet.
I grunt and cross the mat in a sprint, my legs carrying me stealthily. When I’m close, instead of running right into the guy like he expects, I leap to the side, spinning around and hooking my arm around his throat, throwing my body down. I quickly release and land in a crouch to the side as Griff hits the mat hard. His back thuds and his head bounces, and for a moment, just a brief second, I worry I went in too hard.
Unexpectedly, a rough laugh vibrates from his chest, “Good. That was good.”
“Are we done?” I breathe in deep, trying to steady the chaotic thump of my heart. I wipe the blood with the back of my hand, no doubt spreading it over my cheek but at this point, I don’t care. I have places to be, people to see.
“Yeah, Wren, we’re done.” Griff levels himself up onto his elbows, quirking one dark brow my way, “You’re distracted today.” I liked Griff, I’ve been training with him for a couple of years now and he’s taught me everything I know but because of that, he knew me well enough to be able to pick up when my head wasn’t in the session.
“I’m busy,” I snap back, grabbing my towel and rubbing it across my brow and then down my face before swiping up my water bottle and taking a couple of healthy gulps.
“Too busy for your family?”
And there it is. Regardless of whether I liked Griff, I knew any and all information he got from me during these sessions would end up back with my father. He had become a middle man, a messenger of sorts.
I roll my eyes, “More like they’re too busy for me.”
“Your father asked me to request your presence at dinner tonight.”
“Of course he did,” it’s like the man has a link to my diary – if I had one of course – and purposely steps in when he thinks I’m about to go out and have fun. God forbid I do anything where I actually enjoy myself. “Tell him no.”
“We all know, ‘no’, isn’t in the vocabulary that your father understands.”
“Well give him a dictionary at the same time, you can find it under the letter N.”
Griff chuckles, “I’ll tell him, but I’d turn your phone off if I were you, you’ll have a thousand voicemails by morning.”
I nod. That would be likely, “Later Griff, take some aspirin for the headache.”
He shakes his head and climbs up from the mat as I push through the doors that’ll take me back to the changing rooms. The gym is quiet this evening, only a few other people work out on the equipment in the main room, the steady thump of sneakers on the treadmill mingling with the heavy bass music that crackles from a sound system that has seen better days.
Whenever we train, we use one of the back rooms, a private area that’s usually reserved for lessons, but Griff owns the gym himself and personally sees to my training. Training my father demands I take, along with the gun training, knife training and any other means of self-defense. The man is paranoid, that much is obvious.
I supposed I had him to thank for the ease in which I’m able to defend and protect myself, in this day and age, being a woman who can hold her own is everything. I shower quickly and then change into the dress I had stashed in the bag, pulling out my makeup and hair brush at the same time. It wasn’t ideal having to hit the bar straight from training, but with time against me, I had no choice.
I knew better than to believe my dad was simply just paranoid. I’d heard the late-night calls and witnessed the guys coming and going in hours not meant to be seen by civilization. Not guys like him, dressed in tailored suits and Italian loathers, but big guys, in leather and ripped jeans. It wasn’t their clothes that set them apart from the men my dad usually associates with, but the ruthless glint they all held in their eyes. Not much scared me but those fuckers wereterrifying.
Now you tell me, what would a man, who sits as a CEO of a million-dollar company, have that meant he dealt with guys who carry guns tucked into the waistbands of their jeans and concealed blades beneath their trouser legs.
It’s not the behavior of a man who lives life within the carefully set boundaries.
The conversations I’ve overheard suggest something much darker, dirtier in fact, drugs, guns…
I had no doubt my father was involved in something way bigger than the company he is determined to give to me when he retires. Something much seedier and dangerous.
The paranoia is one reason he forces me to train like this but it’s his lifestyle that has determined that fact and made it a necessity.
I apply a small layer of makeup to my face, hiding the flush in my cheeks still present from training, trying my best to conceal the split in my lip, and run my fingers through my still wet hair, the strands curling already. By the end of the night it’ll be wild, the curls tight and unruly, but I don’t have time to tend to it now.
Rory – Aurora, my best friend – was meeting me in twenty minutes at a cocktail bar down the street and if I were late, she’d have my head. We made sure to plan far in advance, like six weeks in advance and she’s been reminding me every other day for the past three weeks. My schedule was always manic, thanks to my family but I made sure my father knew and understood tonight was blocked out. His request I join him for dinner isn’t his want for a nice family meal, it is, in fact, a try at controlling my life, just like it always is.
The dress clings to my frame, the neckline low, dipping well below my cleavage, almost to my naval and the hem sits just above my knee, the swirls of black ink on my thigh only just peeking out from the bottom. It’s late summer so the nights are still warm enough to forego a jacket which means my sleeve tattoo is on full show tonight. I stare at my reflection, at the copper hair already kinking and curling atop my head and my wide green eyes that seem almost too big for my face.