"I don't see the point in this," Isa sighed, curling her legs up underneath her on the blanket I'd set out for exactly that purpose. She’d showered and changed after her sonogram, looking too appealing in her clothes that hugged her curves tightly. "Shouldn't it be me you're fighting?"
"If you think you stand a chance fighting men like us in an even match, then that's exactly why you need to see this," I said. Joaquin nodded his agreement, kicking off his sneakers until he too stood barefoot in the grass. For the purposes of a demonstration, bare feet hurt far less than shoes. "I can think of other things our time would be better spent doing right now."
"Gross," Joaquin grunted, kicking out a foot and aiming for the top of my knee. I jumped back, evading the strike and glaring at him before I turned an exasperated glance to Isa where she watched with rapt attention.
"I don't know what this fuckhead taught you when you two earned your brands." I paused, watching Isa narrow her eyes in protest. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for me to get to the point. When the woman dug her heels in on what she wanted, not even goading her into an argument could distract her from the task at hand. "But youronlyadvantage at this point is the element of surprise. Men like Pavel and Dima have been trained to fight and kill since they were children, just like us. Until you have that kind of training, you won't stand a chance at winning a fair match."
"Even when youhavehad that kind of training, the odds are stacked against you. You're a relatively small woman. Women naturally have less muscle mass than men, so men hit harder." Joaquin held up a hand when outrage crossed her face at his blanket statement. "I'm not discriminating. There are some fierce women out there who give highly trained men a run for their money, but they're the exception, not the standard. It will be a long time before you're ready for that level of training, if ever," he said.
"So what are we doing here?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "If this is all pointless?"
"It's not pointless. Pointless would be to teach you to fight the way we do. Your best fighting strategy will be to not get trapped in a fight at all. You wait for your opening and you strike fast and hard," I said, turning my attention back to where Joaquin stood very still.
The shadow of Ibiza's greatest strength came in staying hidden, in calling the least amount of attention to himself as possible and using that to his advantage. Mine was in killing quickly and ruthlessly, which was so at odds with how I liked to torture my victims.
The dilemma was real once it became personal, but under normal circumstances I was more likely to snap a neck and be done with it.
"Play to your strengths," Joaquin reiterated, stepping toward me in the center of the clearing. "Rafael can't do that unless he kills me, and then he has to deal with your wrath." The fucker had the nerve to laugh, chuckling as if he thought me being caught in a fake fight was entertaining.
I struck.
A fist zipping past his face, Joaquin jerked his head back at the last second to avoid the hit. He grabbed my forearm, jabbing an elbow for my face that I narrowly dodged, and then the fight continued. Punch for punch. Kick for kick.
Joaquin and I exchanged a volley of hits and strikes at the rapid kind of speed that only came when we sank into the feeling of a fight. Letting the violence wash over us and the world narrow down to nothing outside of the buzz of adrenaline in the air and predicting one another's movements quickly enough to block and evade.
He grunted when my fist connected with his stomach and then his eye in rapid succession, and the sound of Isa's gasp in reaction nearly pulled me out of the moment. Joaquin recovered without pause, hooking his foot behind my legs and aiming for my face so I had no choice but to take the hit or give up my balance.
My lip split and the taste of blood filled my mouth, but I jabbed an elbow into the side of Joaquin's neck to repay him for the blood he'd drawn.
"Okay! Okay I get it!" Isa yelled, but laughter tinted her voice. Joaquin and I drew apart instinctively, having no desire to bleed one another unnecessarily.
We'd fought enough to know that we could go on for hours, with neither of us ever being willing to concede to the other. Gabriel was the same way, though he much preferred to win fights before they ever began, through manipulation and control. Joaquin was the brother who used the raw power at his disposal.
"I don't stand a chance against that," Isa laughed.
"You don't," I agreed. "That's why you either end the fight before they touch you or you wait until your moment and kill them quickly, but only if you're sure they'll die, because if they don't then you've lost your advantage and the consequences will be severe. Protecting yourself isalwaysa ‘for when all else fails’ plan for you. Do you understand me?"
"I do," Isa agreed, appeasing the nightmare that wanted to lock her inside my bedroom and never let her leave for fear of the danger she might fight outside those walls. What I'd come to learn about my wife in the time since we'd met made that an impossibility if I wanted our relationship to be a partnership.
She'd lived her life in a pretty cage of expectations, and she would never let someone make her feel like a prisoner again.
Not even me.
Joaquin went to the bag at the edge of the clearing, pulling out a throwing knife. "We'll teach you to use both these and a gun," Joaquin said, not even glancing at me as he threw the knife toward me. I caught it between my palms, the smooth edges of the blade gliding along my skin and making the thinnest of cuts along them as it came to a stop inches from my chest.
"But odds are there will be no weapons if you're in danger. So you make one," I said.
"Make one?"
"The environment around you. A fork, a light fixture," I said pointedly. She pursed her lips as she fought back her chuckle.
"How did you catch the knife?" she asked, her gaze snagging on the blade and the thin trail of blood as I shifted my grip to the handle. I glanced at Joaquin out of the corner of my eye, nodding to tell him his part was done.
I fully intended for the next part of the lesson to be much more hands on, and he had no fucking business seeing my wife when she was getting fucked.