“When you’re fighting with someone, I doubt they’ll wait for you to get into a stance like that,” Ezekiel remarked. “Or you’ll want the element of surprise on your side, in which case standing like that is a dead giveaway.”
I dropped my hands to my sides. He was right. I knew that. This wasn’t my first time around the block. I wasn’t new.
But being here with Ezekiel, I felt new. I felt like I could ignore everything else going on in my life and just focus on the man in front of me. The anger that had filled me during the engagement dinner had dissipated, replaced by another emotion, one I was starting to realize I couldn’t fight.
He moved to stand before me, two feet between us. We were in the main aisle, on the red carpet, right before the altar. The air in the church was cool, colder than the actual night air outside, and I attributed that to the chill that swept up my spine.
Without a warning, Ezekiel came at me. I had to jump to the side to avoid him, and in doing so, something in my stomach strained. I bit back a groan, but it must’ve shown on my face, for he said, “I knew it. You’re not healed enough for this.”
“I’m fine,” I hissed.
“You are not fine.”
I whirled around on him, my gloved hands curling into fists, and I lunged at him, my goal to punch him in the gut at least once, show him that I could handle this, that I didn’t need more time to heal.
Ezekiel was faster than me, and he must’ve seen the move coming, for he redirected one punch with the back of his hand, and then grabbed my other fist with his, stopping it dead in its tracks. “Once again, you let your anger take control of you. It makes you easy to read.”
I jerked away from him, and he released my fist. I tried attacking him again, and it ended up in much the same way. My stomach ached with a familiar pain that told me I was moving too much, too fast, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. His smirking only fueled my rage, my annoyance, and I kept at him.
Ezekiel fended me off easily. It was like I was nothing but an ant he could squash beneath his boot. Like he was only doing this to humor me. He either redirected my blows or caught them and twisted them back around on me. He never broke a sweat, never wore an expression that told me anything. And, the most annoying part?
He never attacked me back.
“Come on,” I groaned after one horribly failed attempt at tripping him. “You’re not even trying—”
“You’re not one hundred percent,” he told me what I already knew. “I’m not going to risk hurting you more, Giselle. Do not ask me to. The answer will always be no. I told you we would start slow—this is not slow.”
I didn’t fucking care. Couldn’t he see that? I literally couldn’t give a rat’s ass about this, about any of this. Me being hurt? My stomach screaming out at me like I was slowly killing myself by doing this? I didn’t care.
Even though I wanted to prove him wrong, I was too lost in my anger, my rage. It was like I put all of my fury at the world, at my father, into what I did next. It was the only reason I succeeded in the move, with all of my strength and my entire body behind it.
I grabbed his shirt, fingers curling in the fabric, and then I pulled. I pulled and twisted my body, throwing Ezekiel down to the floor. His large body came all too willingly, keying me into the fact that he could’ve stopped me but chose not to. I flexed my hands in my gloves, listening to the leather crunch in the process.He landed on the floor with a thud, on his back.
Ezekiel did not get up right away, but he did prop himself up on his elbows, staring up at me with a twinkle in those deep blue eyes.
“Why aren’t you doing anything?” I moved to stand over him, setting a foot on either side of him. Slowly, I lowered myself to my knees, a gloved hand curling around his throat. His neck was thick, so thick I couldn’t exactly choke him; instead of choking, I simply held it—and he let me. “I don’t care about being in pain. I’ve been in pain every single day for the last three years. This is nothing new.”
I was sitting on him again, just like I’d done that night, when he tried to give back Father Charlie’s cross. And just like that night, he was letting me. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why wouldn’t he do something? Why was he just lying there, letting me squeeze his neck? He was lucky I couldn’t choke him out, because right now, I felt the need to destroy something—and Ezekiel was the only thing nearby, besides the wooden pews and the altar.
“What happened three years ago?” Ezekiel asked, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every word he spoke. I could feel it move through my glove. “Why are you in pain every day? You told me once that you were having a hard time a few years ago, and it’s how you found your Father Charlie.”
Shit. I’d forgotten he and I had a talk when he’d visited me in the hospital. I’d totally forgotten everything I’d told him. He knew I was a killer, that I’d killed Father Charlie’s murderers, that those men were Greenback Serpents. He knew so much about me, and yet… yet there was still more to the story.
The hand around his neck loosened, and I rolled off him, sitting beside him. The movement made my stomach tighten, a low ache spreading from where I’d been shot, and I rested a hand above my shirt, over the past wound.
Ezekiel sat up, crossing his legs like he was in kindergarten, sitting on the floor and waiting for his teacher to speak. He watched me, not saying another word, probably because he knew he didn’t have to speak again. He’d already gotten to me, somehow.
“Three years ago, everything changed for me,” I whispered, unable to look at him. I’d already told Luca, so why not tell Ezekiel too? “I never would’ve gone to Father Charlie’s church if… if certain things would never have happened to me.” I stared at the gloves I wore, growing quiet.
“Is that when you started wearing gloves?” Ezekiel questioned.
That got me to look at him. Even Luca hadn’t asked about that. “How did you—”
“As you said, one pretender knows another,” he replied. “You wear the gloves to keep the world at bay, to help keep everyone distant. You don’t like touching strangers, if I had to guess. Or perhaps it’s more for people in general.” I didn’t have to ask him how he knew, for he explained, “It’s not hard to see. You become rigid when you’re forced to be near someone you don’t like. When I first saw you, you weren’t wearing any gloves, and it looked as though you wanted to crawl out of your skin to get away from that party and everyone in it.”
He’d watched me more that night than I’d thought he had. In the beginning, I might’ve found it creepy, but now? Now we were past that point. Now there was too much between us; the man had killed for me, for fuck’s sake. And that was ignoring his appearance in that sex dream.
“No one has ever noticed,” I said. “They just think I’m weird.”