Pain shoots through my cheekbone, but I wait. Wait for an opening. For the moment he tires. Straight after his first sloppy blow, I drop my guard for a moment. Lowering one fist, I take another knock to the face. I ignore the pain and jab his right rib hard.
His thighs release their hold on me.
He rolls onto his back.
Lesson settled, we pant side by side, flayed open on the mats. Blood trickles down my face and into my mouth. When I taste the warm metallic substance, I spit it out.
Clenching my teeth, I bury my groans deep in my chest. "Not bad for an old man," I rumble.
"You're getting good," he states emphatically, his voice steady and unaffected. "You should consider boxing. Get you away from freezers."
Wiping the blood and sweat from my forehead, I point out, "I don't want to box."
He jumps to his feet without a single show of discomfort. But when his blood-stained white shirt catches his eye, he scowls with disapproval.
With furrowed brows, he states, "We don't always get what we want, Max."
As he turns to leave, I sit up on the mat, lifting my knees up and leaning forward on them. "I'm going to kill him."
"I know you are, son," he says over his shoulder as he approaches the door. He stops with his hand on the door handle. "Can you wait?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"We always have a choice, Max." He turns and levels me out with stern eyes. "I told you I would take care of it. I told you to keep your cool head. You made the choice not to listen."
Cassidy
"Wow,Max has really lost his mind over this," Flick says, staring through the window and across the moonlit street to Carter's parked car. Max wasn't kidding when he said Carter doesn't sleep. It's 10:00 p.m. and he's out there. Of course, I can't see him through the tinted windows, but his car is there either way.
Closing the lounge room curtain, Flick sighs and wanders over to me. "So he's always going to be around? You'll never be alone?"
I don't want to be alone.It's a truth I can't say aloud because it's completely embarrassing and completely not me. I used to love being alone. But now I take great comfort in Carter's lingering presence. "He gives me privacy. He barely looks at me, and for such a big guy, he seems to be able to make himself invisible."
"And what if Dad calls the cops? Have you spoken to him about your new shadow?"
"No," I admit. "Not yet." It's a fair question. But even though my dad is a protective man, I know he won't call the cops. He knows more about Max's family than he's letting on. The secrets around us are like an intricate web. At times, I'm eager to put a torch to it just to see if I can burn it all down. But I don't know who will burn along with it.
My big brother, Konnor, maybe?
Max, definitely. . .
Flick sits down opposite me, her hazel-green eyes pinned to me, holding back so much emotion. She drops her line of sight to my bruised cheekbone and then to the jagged gash running the length of my forearm. "The guy that did that-" She winces and takes a big breath in. "He's dead. . . isn’t he?"
Swallowing hard, I nod. It's all I can manage.
Her eyes widen even though she's clearly not that surprised. "Max killed him?"
I nod again, hating that I do, even though it's what he would have wanted. The fact that I pulled the trigger is a secret between Max, Bronson, Xander, and I. Carter probably assumes as much, but he never saw the deed done. Butch might suspect it, but the words were never uttered aloud.
She breathes out fast. "That's so fucking heavy."
My heart picks up pace when the idea of Flick sharing this information hits me. "You can never tell anyone. No one." She's quickly beside me as my body beings to tremble a little.
Her arms go around me. She rests her cheek on my head while her molten-red hair cushions my face on her shoulder. "I won't tell anyone. I promise. Does Stacey know?"
"I don't know." I sigh. "I haven't seen her since the auction. I presume so. I presume Xander would have told her everything."
A stream of light moves across the curtain as another car parks across from our house. My arms release their hold on Flick and drop to my sides. I stand and wander over to the window. Sweeping the fabric aside, I see Max's Range Rover idling beside Carter's car. He switches the headlights off.