Page 20 of Savage King

Jorge lifted his trembling chin and straightened his shoulders.

“They belong to the Raiders.”

The gym echoed with the sounds of grunts, groans, the sounds of slapping flesh, pounding heavy bags, and the clank of weights. It was a regular Friday night at Steele Fist.

“One more, Tessa, don’t limp noodle on me now, woman,” Skathi barked. “One more!”

Tessa, sweating and grunting, finished her final round of side kicks, nearly collapsing to the mat once she was done. Chest heaving, she grinned at Skathi.

“That was some brutal shit, Sky,” Tessa said, rasping through her panting breaths.

Skathi grinned at her friend, pride filling her. “You do brutal, and you do it well. Tanya Collins isn’t going to know what hit her.”

“Fuck yeah, and I have you to thank for it, my Sky,” Tessa said, her smile bright and warm. “With as damn hard as this training is, I cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it was to actually train to be a fucking Jaeger. I’ve seen the documentaries and heard the war stories—Jaegers are fucking badass.”

“Until you get a SEAL between their legs and they turn into pussies,” a mocking, laughing voice from Skathi’s nightmares intruded, making both women turn to face him.

Gods, why did the jerk have to be so good looking? For all the beauty on the outside, the inside was a festering pit of hideousness that oozed from his pores and all over those that got too close. Like her—a woman so naïve and eager for love that she believed every lie he spoke, even the ones he’d murmured into her ear in the dark of night, lying beside her in the marriage bed. Promises of a future with children, a big house in the suburbs, and many years of devoted, undying love.

Lies. All of it. And she was left holding the bag when he stole every last one of her dreams.

Seeing him now, the twist of the knife didn’t hurt as much as it had in the beginning, but a knife wound still ached, still bled, still aggravated the flesh. She just wished he’d leave her alone and take the knife with him so she could heal.

“Well, if it isn’t Fuck Face and his Tiny Whore Dancer,” Tessa sneered. Having known Tessa since she’d moved to Vegas, the other woman had been there when all the ugliness with Aaron happened. Tessa had been there for Skathi when all Skathi wanted to do was go hunting for SEAL…then when all she wanted to do was curl up and die of heartbreak, humiliation, and betrayal. Tessa had been there through all of it, supporting her, loving her, giving her a verbal and physical punching bag, and just being the kind of person Skathi needed the most.

Aaron and Shannon were standing there in their expensive clothes and flashy jewelry. The giant diamond stud in Aaron’s left ear was new—and obnoxious. It screamed douche so loudly that the other men training in the gym could hear it. A few of them turned to watch what they knew would be a “shit show”. It always was when Aaron decided to cross the well-drawn lines they’d put in place after the divorce. Aaron got his mistress, their baby, and the house Skathi bought when she first moved to Vegas, and Skathi got Aaron’s absence at her place of business. Too bad Aaron didn’t care about Skathi or her desire to never see him again.

The fat diamond ring on Shannon’s hand was glaring in size and meaning; Aaron valued his new wife more than his old one, who’d proudly worn only a single gold band because Aaron hadn’t wanted to waste the time on an engagement. Aaron, still as physically beautiful as he was when she first fell for him, slipped his hands into his designer jeans and pinned on the smile that said “I’m better than you are but I’m faking humility.” Shannon didn’t even bother hiding her contempt. She’d been jealous of Skathi’s relationship to Aaron in the beginning, but there hadn’t been a need to be jealous. Aaron was never really hers—marriage vows be damned. The man hadn’t kept a single vow outside of his oath as a SEAL in his whole life. It was too bad Skathi had to learn that the hard way.

“Fuck you, Tessa,” Shannon snarled, her talons curling.

“Fuck you, Whore-bag. Why are you even here? Don’t you have a married man somewhere to suck off and lure away from his wife?”

Shannon gasped, her taloned hand with gaudy ring flying to lay flat against her plastic enhanced chest. “How dare you—”

“Why are you here, Aaron?” Skathi cut in, crossing her arms over her chest and pinning him with a blank gaze. He would never know how much he got to her.

His smile turned predatory, as though he were going in for the kill. As if a SEAL could ever kill a Jaeger.

“I stopped by to let you know that I am buying this place.”

Shock rippled through her, straining against her desperation to keep her emotions off her face.

“You’re buying Steele?” she asked, dropping her arms to plant them on her hips. “I didn’t know Steele was selling.”

“Everyone has a price, Skathi. I found his. And now, I will own the gym…and you.” The diabolical glee in his voice was nearly enough to make her snap—and drive a fist through his throat.

“I do not work for Steele. I am an independent contractor.” Tessa and others like her—fighters looking to train with former military with specialized fighting training—hired Skathi to come to the gym and train them. While Skathi had permission to train fighters at Steele in MTM—man-to-man—close combat and JK hand-to-hand style techniques, she wasn’t actually employed by the gym. It was uncomplicated, and Steele got a percentage of Skathi’s training fees. It worked well for both Skathi and Steele. But now the man was selling? Why?

“I’m assuming business is going well if you can afford to buy this place,” Skathi remarked off-handedly. During their divorce, Aaron had shown just how much of a prick he was. She hadn’t yet established herself in the Vegas professional fighting scene as a trainer yet, even though she was training Aaron in specialized hand to hand techniques. She’d saved up what she made as a Jaegerkorpset but she hadn’t gone into the marriage with much more than that. During the divorce, the lawyers had gone digging and realized she was the granddaughter of a Danish shipping magnate. Once they learned that, they viciously grasped for every dime they could get, thinking she had access to his multi-billions. She didn’t. Her grandfather was a loving patriarch, but he never liked parting with his money, especially to litigating sharks. In the end, Aaron got her house and little else, which hadn’t pleased her greedy ex-husband.

Now, he was flashing cash, his expensive tastes, and his bejeweled new wife.

Skathi knew MMA winner’s purses could go into the millions, but Aaron “The Brick” Mason hadn’t fought in close two years, only having one top ranked win under his belt. So where did he get enough money to buy a gym as big and successful as Steele?

Why does it matter? If he buys the place you’ll have to decide whether to stick around and continue training from here, or find another place almost just as good to work.

Thankfully, Tessa answered that dilemma for her. “If you buy this place, I can give you a list of members who will break their membership contracts in a second before paying fees to a place owned by a lowlife like you.”

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