Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
She tore into it, drinking greedily from the tap with the red plastic cup he'd left with her tray.
She fell asleep some time later, cold, uncertain, sad for the life—and people—she left behind. But also confident in her decision, knowing this was the right path for her, believing she had what it took.
It took only half an hour of training the following day—after getting startled awake by pounding on her door—to genuinely wonder if she had what it was going to take.
She'd sparred countless times in her young life, had fought those her own size as well as men much larger. It was always hard. She often lost. But she had always felt she stood a chance.
Holden Ryker gave her no chances.
Heaving, drenched in sweat, every muscle screaming, head pounding from a punch she took to the temple, she couldn't help but wonder if all those people she'd trained with before had truly gone as hard on her as they had claimed. Or, if like a caring parent letting their kid win at checkers, they had simply wanted to encourage her by letting her think she was better than she was.
Distracted by those thoughts, she took another hit to her jaw, flooding her mouth with blood, letting her know that the tooth that had been wiggling from a hit she'd taken in the basement days before was finally knocked loose.
"Are you crying?" he asked, voice frustrated.
"No," she yelled back, though it was clear that she was.
"You wanna quit? You wanna give up on your first fucking day? I thought you cared about all those women."
"I do!" she insisted, raising an arm, swiping the offensive tears off her cheeks, quickly replaced by new ones.
"Right now, somewhere in the world, some woman is being dragged up off the floor, she is being forced down on a bed, she is having her clothes ripped off."
"Shut up," she demanded, feeling her lower lip quiver at the recognition of the truth in his words and also her clear inability to do anything about it.
"Some man is taking off his clothes. And he is getting on the bed."
She learned that first day that she had a trigger. And once even a breeze too strong blew against it, it was engaged.
The rage came from somewhere deep inside, a bottomless well that flooded up through her system, overtaking her entirely, bathing the world in stark contrast, making every sound in the room—the huff of her own breath, the steady cadence of Holden's, the irritating fly buzzing around—louder than they should have been, making her pulse slow, making her instincts kick in.
She still got her ass kicked. Decimated, even. But Holden stopped poking at her, finding himself too busy fighting off her endless advances, leaving him more than a little impressed by the determination he found in this kid with the so easily breakable body but unshakable spirit.
She never cried again.
Not when his fist broke her eye socket.
Not when she'd fallen and busted her ankle.
Not when she got right up off that floor and kept fighting through the pain.
And not when she was utterly alone in her room, nursing her wounds, feeling the girl she used to be slipping away moment by moment, night by night.
The nights were the longest.
The solitude crept in, whispered uncertainties, told her how much easier it would be to go home, forget all this.
There would be no pain.
There would be no uncertainty.
She wouldn't be sweating through the summer and freezing through the winter without heat or air.
She would have body wash and lotion and a warm shower.
Even as she would lie there with those thoughts swirling, even as she listened to Holden tearing through the gym, wrecking it once again, lost in his own memories, lost in his own mind; even when he turned that anger on her door that she had smartly reinforced with three giant planks of removable wood after the first night he almost got in, almost mistook her for some unknown man from his past, almost killed her; even as this new life bent and broke and remolded her both inside and out, she knew she couldn't give up, she knew that all that mattered was the mission, was the difference she could make in the world.
So she stayed.
She stayed.
Until, one day, she didn't.
Three
Vance - Present Day
West was getting his ass handed to him on a group chat with his sisters. It was maybe the highlight of my week—no, month—to see him pacing around the clubhouse, running a hand across through his blond hair, mumbling "Yeah, I know. You're right" over and over, until I was sure the words were burning a hole in his vocal cords.
What can I say, it was a treat to see the club's resident ladies man get taken down a peg by the estrogen-dominant part of his family.