Page 38 of Steel Rain

“Why?” She pulled from my grasp. She picked up her purple belt and tied it around her waist. She was trying to close the intimacy again. “It’s no one’s business but mine.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, not letting her create space between us, physical or emotional. One mistimed breath and her chest would graze mine. “What did he do to you?”

Her eyes changed. They turned into a blank slate. Empty.

“If you don’t need me to mop the floor, then …” she reached for the mop again, ready to drag it back to the supply closet. “I can go.”

“Tell me what he did.” I grabbed her bicep, pulling her into me again. The feel of her arm against my chest ignited something deep. A need to kiss her. To steal her air.

“Why? So that you can do the same?” She pulled her arm out of my grasp, and I let her go.

She walked toward the exit, her back to me again. Just like it had been in the alleyway when she walked away.

“You think I’manythinglike that guy?” I called after her.

“Of course, you are.” She turned her head over her shoulder, not even bothering to fully look at me. “You’re all the same.”

Chapter 18

Sin

“It’stimetotesther,” Eoghan said, standing at the edge of my mat. He wore the same Gi as the rest of us, though while ours were white, his was a deep emerald Green. The color, the name, the Irish flag was an obsession for him.

“Am I hallucinating, or are you telling me how to run my class?” LeBlanc lifted a brow, and smiled, teasing Eoghan.

The challenge was real, but Eoghan was still the boss. LeBlanc wouldn’t challenge him outright for authority.

“We can test her during your class,” Eoghan said, toeing off his shoes at the end of the mat and bowing. At least he respected the customs of this gym. That was more than what most mafia bosses would do. “Or I can test her later when she’s exhausted. What do you think, coach?”

He was putting LeBlanc in a spot. A bad spot. He gave LeBlanc power over my fate. And it was a power that he did not want.

I got to my feet, taking the choice away from him. I’d test - whatever the hell that meant - and I’d pass. Because I had no choice.

LeBlanc’s dark, brown eyes landed on me, his beautiful, thick lips coming down into a thin line. His brows knit, then he nodded.

He stepped back and with a waving motion, gestured for Eoghan to go ahead.

“Good to see you Keith,” Eoghan said with a smile, clapping him on the shoulder. “Welcome home. At least for a little while, aye? How was the city?”

“The boys and I have it all under control. Eugenio Durante is cowering behind his high walls,” Keith said with a charming smirk that made my stomach turn. Not because of the smirk itself, but because of how I had once thought that smirk was a sign of attractiveness. How I had thought he was the hero of all my little girl fantasies.

“Have you met Keith,” Eoghan turned to Ajax. “He’s an essential part of our organization.”

Ajax gave a curt nod to my former fiancé but said nothing else.

Then Eoghan and Keith’s demeanor changed the moment they turned to me.

Of course, this was how it was. The men would all be friends and equals. I was an outsider. I was a woman. Less than.

A man’s friendship should never mean anything to a woman.

“Well, Shiny,” Eoghan said with a slight frown. “Are you ready to prove yourself?”

Still, it was hard for me to differentiate Eoghan from what he was now, from the boy who had once been my friend. Eoghan, I had thought, was a good person. Misunderstood? Yes. Haunted? Definitely. But ultimately, I thought we were friends. Like our years together would mean something. But it hadn’t back then, and it wouldn’t now.

I stood in front of him, my mouth clamped shut.

The corner of Eoghan’s lip lifted, and he looked at Keith.

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