by T M Kelly
I hopped up. “What? That sounds serious.”
“He’s done this before. He’ll go missing for a few weeks and then show up finally.”
“Julian’s okay with this?”
Malik laughed. “Fuck no, but the kid knows how to give a great sob story.”
“Maybe Kac should set him straight.”
“They stopped talking years ago.”
I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. “Two of the same personalities?”
“You guessed it.” He walked over and grabbed his jacket. “Journey and Lincoln have eyes on the property. You okay with hanging out for a bit solo?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I didn’t want to tell him I was scared shitless. He needed to help Julian. “You won’t be that long, right?”
“No, maybe at most two hours.”
I sat back down on the couch and put my legs up under my body. “Go, I’m a big girl.”
He leaned down and placed his hands on either side of my body. “Stop trying to be so tough. You can trust me now. You know that, right?”
I placed my palms on the side of his face and pulled him closer. “Yes, sir.” Then I kissed him lightly, but we quickly realized that was a mistake. The kiss became heated and before I knew it, he was sprawled on top of me. “You need to go.” I giggled and peppered kisses all over his face.
“Yes, go.” He cleared his throat and hopped off the couch.
As he walked by, I smacked his ass. “See you soon.”
He pointed a finger at me. “I plan to finish what we just started.”
“You better.” I winked and watched him leave. I rested my head back against the couch. It was hard to prevent my mind from wandering. Visions of Ray barging through the front door ran over and over in my mind. The next few hours alone would start to feel like an eternity.
Me: You there?
Anora: Yup. What’s wrong?
Me: Malik had to go to the gym.
Anora: Kac needs do that real soon.
Me: The man driving you mad?
Anora: He’s lucky he’s easy on the eyes.
Me: You’re not, are you? You know.
Anora: Sleeping with him? Oh, hell no. Give me more credit than that, Jenny.
Me: Sorry, I had to ask.
Anora: But while we’re on the subject.
Me: What? Malik is easy on the eyes, too.
Anora: I was able to avoid the sex part.
Me: I didn’t want to.
Anora: Kac let slip that there is a secret mission in four days.
Me: That’s open fight night.
Anora: Yeah, you caught that, eh?
Me: Think I’m making the wrong choice by putting myself out in the open?
Anora: No, Ray needs to be taken down.
Me: I don’t want him to hurt anyone else.
Anora: Then you know what to do.
Me: I will write after the fight and let you know what happened.
Anora: And share how you won and will be fighting for Spartacus soon.
Me: That’s the plan.
Anora: Be safe, Jenny.
Me: Love you.
Anora: Love you.
I set my phone down on the coffee table and curled up in the corner of the couch. The TV was turned to reruns of The Big Bang Theory. The show was the perfect distraction from the hell I currently lived in.
“Get up,” a voice yelled from beside my ear.
My eyes flew open and I was suddenly face to face with my husband, the very man I feared. “Ray.” I tried to back up against the couch but there was no way to move away from him. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“You thought you could hide from me. I’ll always find you,” he yelled and fisted his hands in my hair to pull my body up.
I wrapped my hands around his wrists and tried to use the strength I knew I possessed. Something was wrong, though. I was weak. Every time I tried to pull his hands away or kick my leg in his direction, my body stayed still. What was happening?
I screamed and Ray started to laugh. He placed his mouth next to my ear. “Get up.” He tightened his hold. “Get up.”
“Wake up. Jenny, wake up.” Suddenly Ray’s voice became Malik and my eyes flew open. “Jenny. Are you okay?”
I threw my hand to my chest and tried to take in several deep breaths and let them out slowly. “Malik.”
“Yeah. You were dreaming.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “It looked like one hell of a dream.”
I lay back down on the couch, still struggling to catch my breath. “You have no idea.” The dream felt all too real. Ray’s voice played over in my mind. How was it so real? “Are you sure I was dreaming?” I stood up. “No one broke in while you were gone?”
Malik grabbed my hand. “Let’s check.” He took me into the office where the monitor sat in the center of the desk. I watched as he took the tape back to the moment when he left.
I watched myself grab my phone and knew that’s when I was talking to Anora.
“How’s Anora doing?”
“Fine. Worried about me.”
He went through the full two hours he was gone. All you could see was me twitching and turning on the couch. I obviously did have one hell of a nightmare. The last part of the video I watched as Malik entered the room and knelt down beside me. “No one was here, baby.”
I wrapped my body around him. “I really thought Ray was here, and I didn’t know how to get away.”
“You couldn’t fight him?”
“My body wouldn’t let me. It was too weak.”
“That was definitely a dream, because you are definitely not weak.” He pulled out the chair behind the desk and sat down. I climbed onto his lap and rested my head in the crook of his neck. “The Lioness will never be weak again,” he whispered beside my ear and rubbed his hand up and down my back.
19
“This house is great and all, but damn I’m tired of being inside these four walls,” I said and snuggled my body closer to Malik.
“Only a couple more days and you can be set free for a few hours.” Malik rubbed his hand up and down my arm.
“Just a few hours?” I leaned up on my elbows and visibly pouted.
He laughed and grabbed my bottom lip. “That’s it. I’m nervous as it is.”
We had given up on hanging out in the living room and decided to just occupy the bedroom. There was a TV and just enough space to grapple. Of course, it was the bed that was being used the most.
“I’ll be okay. Journey and Lincoln will be there,” I said and leaned up to kiss him. “Julian, Tyler, and Brooks I would assume will help out, too?”
“Yeah, Julian’s already given the heads up to be on the lookout.”
“My husband would be dumb if he tried to kill me in a room full of fighters.”
Malik sat up and grabbed my hand. “Don’t talk like that.”
“What did I say?”
“Don’t talk about dying in such an easy fashion.”
I sat up and let the sheet fall from my body. “Malik, I’ve felt what it’s like to almost die.” I reached for his hand before he stood up. “That’s not what you want to hear, but it’s my reality.” His chest expanded and then he let out a deep breath. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking it, too.”
He knelt down in front of me. “What am I thinking?”
I combed my fingers through his hair. “That the son of a bitch needs to get a taste of his own medicine.”
“Wow, that was not on my mind, but I like your thoughts better.”
“I just want that part of my life over.” The sheet was wrapped around my foot, so I had to untangle myself before standing. “Let’s take a bath.” I grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the bathroom. “But we’re not allowed to discuss him anymore.”
Something happened after Anora left a few nights ago. My friend triggered a light inside of me. It took me a few days to understand what I was feeling, but I realized the p
erson who lived in the perfect home with the shitty man was not me. I had kept the real Jenny hidden.
Practicing on the mat showed me there was so much more I had to offer. I found it easier in my past to just give in to what Ray wanted. Then I flipped Charlie onto her back and put her into a submission hold. At that moment I knew I wasn’t weak.
“Bubbles?”
“Is there anything else?”
Malik made his way into the bathroom and started to search the cabinets for bath soap. “There’s this?” He held up a ball.
“Oh, a bath bomb.”
“Then this is okay?”
“It’s better.”
He stepped over and started the water. “Well now I need to know what makes it better.”
I was standing behind him. I leaned in and wrapped my arms around his waist. We were both naked and I loved feeling his skin against mine. I rested my head on his back. Walking around nude in this way was another new thing for me. I discovered I loved walking around in the nude with Malik. He made me feel comfortable in my own skin. I felt beautiful with him.
The cameras in the bathroom and bedroom were turned off when we were together. Those were the rules set by Malik. Thankfully. The cameras were actually a bummer because I wondered how I would feel walking around the house with him. Would I feel comfortable in the kitchen nude? The thought made me smile.
“What are you thinking about back there?” he said and lifted his arms to turn to face me.
“Have you cooked in the nude?”
“Look at you getting adventurous.”
“What?” I bent to check the temperature of the water. “I’m curious.”
“Keep an eye on the water.” He bent to kiss the tip of my nose. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“You’ll see.”
I sat down on the edge of the tub and swished my hand around the water. It was perfect. I carefully stepped into the tub and sat down. The warm water wrapped around my skin and pulled me down further into a calm state.
My eyes were closed when I heard someone entering the bathroom. Something came over me and I had this fear it was Ray. I leaned forward and splashed water all around the tub and onto the floor.
“Whoa, whoa, you’re okay,” Malik said and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.” I felt embarrassed by my reaction.
“Nope, don’t apologize remember,” he said. “Now stop hogging the space.”
I loved how he knew just the right thing to say. “We may need to let out”—he stepped into the tub and sat down a little too quickly and water went everywhere—“some water.”
“Done.” He shrugged. “Show me what that does?” He pointed to the bath bomb.
“This.” I dropped it into the water and watched it immediately fizz as it fell deeper into the water.
He reached forward and tugged my body toward him. “You’re too far away.”
“Oh, well let’s fix that.” I straddled his legs and settled onto his lap. “Better?”
“Much.” He cupped his hands around my behind and squeezed lightly.
“What were you just doing when you left the room?” I wiggled my butt and leaned in to nip at his bottom lip.
“Turning the cameras off in the house. They’re watching the grounds.”
I leaned up. “What? Really?”
“You can walk wherever you want now.” I attempted to stand up, but Malik wrapped his hands around my hips and kept me in place. “Later. Right now, we need to tend to something.”
“And what would that something be?” He didn’t say a word. Instead, he lifted my body slightly and reached between us. I felt him touch my core and helped guide him in the rest of the way. “Oh, that.” I moved slightly to take him deeper. “That is way more important.”
“Journey and Lincoln are going to start to wonder about me. Us. What we do all day.” I almost threw on a T-shirt but held back the urge.
“They already know.” I groaned at his words. “Oh please, they so would do the same thing. Hell, I’m sure they have.”
“Tell me about them.” I turned on the light over the sink in the kitchen. “Have they always worked together as agents?”
“No. Actually, Lincoln was thrown into a case because the suspect was after the person Journey loved most.”
I turned around to face Malik. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yeah, the killer went to her house and captured them both.”
“And?”
“Journey has to finish that story.”
“Because you don’t know it?”
“No, because it’s that bad.”
“Give me a hint.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I won’t say a word.” I put my three fingers up. “Scout’s Honor.”
“To stop the killer from taking down Lincoln, she had to agree to go with the asshole. She spent several months in a cell, in the middle of nowhere, in a foreign country.”
“Oh, my word.”
“Yeah, Lincoln found her, but she was worse for wear.”
“Lincoln found her, so he was an agent by then?”
“No, not yet. After he went rogue and located the place where she was being held, then he decided to become an agent.”
“That’s serious. Are they married?”
“Yes. They met in a gym when they both were fighters.”
“Wait. Did Lincoln know what Journey did for a living when they met?”
“She told him she worked for the CIA. She was allowed to say that, but nothing else.”
“I thought you couldn’t say even that?” I grabbed a pan from the cabinet.
“Depends on how deep you are in the job and what area you work.” He grabbed some bread and cheese from the refrigerator. “Kac can’t say anything about what he does.”
“Which is why you call him Ghost?”
“That and it’s his favorite mixed martial arts move.”
I placed a pad of butter on the pan and moved it around to coat all the sides. “That’s a move?”
“Yes, and I won’t be showing you anytime soon.”
“Not your favorite, eh?”
He leaned against my back and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Not even a little bit.” He reached around my body and dropped two slices of bread in the pan. Then he placed three slices of cheese on each piece of bread. “I think we read each other’s minds, which is kinda creepy.”
“Kinda? It is.” I laughed and rested my head back against his chest. “We have been making grilled cheese for four days straight, though. That may have something to do with it.” I placed the other two slices of bread on top of the cheese and pushed down with my spatula. “I can’t imagine going through what Journey went through.”
He turned me to face him. “Jenny, you kind of did.”
“Not true. I wasn’t held by a killer in a cell and forced to—” I stopped talking when I realized what I was saying. My mind replayed my life. Ray was the very definition of an attempted killer. He would’ve been a killer if he had succeeded at the last beating. He hated when I left my house, even when I just had to get groceries. There were so many things he forced me to do just to please him, which was why I began to hate sex. It was a chore he’d managed to always make uncomfortable.
“Hey, let it go from your mind.” Malik softly spoke the words and brushed his fingers down the side of my face. “He can’t ever hurt you again.”
I wanted to believe him, but something told me it wasn’t true. Ray always got what he wanted. A part of me wondered if he would finally get the chance to kill me.
“I hope you’re right.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Do you smell that?”
He leaned over my shoulder. “I see it.”
“Oh shit.” I turned and quickly pulled the pan off the stove. “Well, so much for having grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“Don’t throw them out.” He pulled the pan back over to the stove. “Let’s cook t
he other side.”
“But they’re burnt.”
“Crispy.” He flipped the sandwiches over. “There’s a difference. A good flavor enhancer.”
“With a hint of burnt on the side,” I teased and rested my head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “I plan to always keep you safe, Jenny.”
20
“Don’t drink too much water,” Malik said from the side of the ring. “You have one more hour of training in here.”
Julian and Malik put up a make-shift ring in the gym in Julian’s basement a few days ago. It wasn’t a perfect setup, but it definitely helped with training. Especially since I couldn’t go to Fight It Out.
“I may need an excessive amount when I’m done.”
“First, we need to make sure you have the armbar submission perfected.” Lily stepped up beside me and bumped her hip against mine. “Then we’ll force Julian to make us one of his amazing recipes.”
“Pasta?”
“He has a killer Bolognese sauce he loves to make.”
I may have just drooled a little when she mentioned the sauce. I was craving a good home-cooked pasta dish. The meals from a box were getting old. There’s only so much mac n’cheese a girl can take.
“What am I making?” Julian said as he descended the steps to the gym.
“Your world-famous recipe,” Lily said and leaned against the side of the ring.
“That can be arranged.” He smiled and reached for her hand.
“After you practice the armbar a few more times,” Malik interjected.
“Slave driver,” I said and threw my mouthpiece back in.
The fight was tomorrow night, and I had been practicing for several hours the last two days. My body was demanding sleep. It begged for food. Lily, Julian, and Malik helped curb my cravings and kept me focused. There were moments I wondered if I was cut out for this life. Then Ray would pop into my mind and I knew I was doing the right thing.
“I’ll be right back.” Malik lifted his phone and stepped away from the ring.
For the last few days, the topic had been about the fight and if I should expose myself in a public setting. Journey and Lincoln were not excited about open fight night with Spartacus, but agreed it was the best option we had. There were a lot of risks involved, but I knew I wanted my life back, which meant the fight had to happen. I couldn’t hide out for the rest of my life. As much as I loved spending time with Malik, I was going stir crazy in the guest house. It was funny; when I thought about the fight, every scenario I spun in my mind showed Ray finding a way to grab me from behind. The thought of him taking me in a public setting seemed crazy, though. Yet, the man was crazy.