Page 35 of Steel Rain

“Your point?” he said, raising a brow.

“Maybe this is the new normal for her,” I said off-handedly, feeling the effects of the alcohol on my mind. “Life has a way of hardening women. And the change is often permanent.”

Chapter 16

Sin

“Well,ifitisn’tmy missing fiancée!” The familiar voice bellowed down the gymnasium.

I had woken this morning with a sense of terror. A complete ache in my heart, and a dread in my limbs like a cold front was coming. I should have stayed in bed.

The chatter in the gym silenced.

The place was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. I felt my blood boil in my veins, wanting to spill over and turn into a punch, a kick, a jab … something. A murderous energy that coiled the muscles under my skin, even as I chose not to fucking move. We had just finished sparring, and were ready to close out class.

A few more minutes, and I would have been out of here. Out of Keith’s reach. At least for now.

“How long has it been, Sinead?” The voice kept on talking, but I could hear it moving from one side of the gym, away from the door, closer. He was approaching me, his steps as silent as the grave. As silent as it had been when I was eighteen years old. When I was still shiny and new. The day he destroyed my innocence. “Ten whole years, aye? Tenverylong years.”

I heard him chuckle as I felt the mat shift near me. A small vibration that told me where he was.

“I’ve been worried about you, my love.” His breath was near my ear.

I wish I didn’t remember it. I wish I didn’t remember with distinct clarity what this man felt like. How he displaced the air around him. How he could steal all the light and bend it as though it shone only on him. On his features. His gorgeous, disgusting features.

The way he made my skin crawl. The way he made me want to tear into my own flesh, and rip off any part of me he ever touched. To pull my hair out, strand by strand so he could never hold me down with it the way he had a decade ago.

“Are you ready to do your part?” He finally came into view. First at the corner of my eye. Then circling to come right into my personal space. “Ready to finally meet me at the altar?”

He had the same shit eating grin he always had. The one I had once thought of as charming and intelligent was now just that of any man. And all men were alike. Liars. Cheats. Willing to hurt a woman to satisfy their own fragile egos, or their base desires. I was never a person to Keith. And maybe I never would be to any man.

He leaned down, and I didn’t move. I was frozen. From stubbornness. From latent fear that still buried itself deep inside me from ten years ago. It was a dormant cancer that I hadn’t been able to cut out. A malignant tumor that I didn’t know was a problem until right at this moment.

He leaned down, his blue eyes piercing through me. Eyes I thought were so beautiful that I had imagined them on our children when I was young and stupid.

“I already sampled the wedding night …” he said in a low whisper.

My hand shot out, a cross punch that was wide, and full of energy that it practically windmilled. He easily blocked it, with a lift of his hand, his forearm catching mine.

He laughed, pulling back into a fighter’s stance that I mirrored.

“They said you were a good fighter, Sinead,” he taunted. “I’m disappointed. That was amateurish.”

He was right, and I fucking hated him for it.

I had let my feelings get the best of me. I had lost my cool. I had punched like a fucking amateur and now I had lost my shot. I had lost the first chance to get him. I had surrendered the first battle. But it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t.

“That’s enough!” A deeper, darker voice boomed. Ajax stepped between us, his hands at his sides, one shoulder towards each of us. He looked back and forth between us, his nostrils flared in irritation. “Whatever personal shit you have going on, get it the fuck out of my gym.”

He didn’t shout. It was a simple statement and because he had said it, it was true.

I straightened and put my hands to my side.

“Right you are coach,” Keith said, extending a hand to me as if to shake it.

I practically snarled at his outstretched hand.

Then I did something I hadn’t expected. I spit at Keith. Some of it landed on his hand. The rest on the sweat-dampened blue mat.

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