His text had been vague and accusatory, treating me like a child was his specialty since I was the only female in the immediate family. Gender equality in the hierarchy left something to be desired, like many rights for women. Traditional gender roles were strictly adhered to, and some days I wondered if the males in charge would revoke our right to speak, if it were possible.
“Leave it to men,” I muttered to myself looking guiltily over my shoulder to make sure Heather hadn’t caught my slip of the tongue.
Not as if my guardian had anything to say about it. Yes, we still worked under a male guardian system where my virginity was a prized possession and anyone I wished to date—let alone marry—was subject to scrutiny by the males in my family plus the group as a unit. As a consequence, I was somewhat damn close to celibate. However, my father currently didn’t have a voice in the mix, given that he was currently in a home. Another purpose of Carlos’s text had been an update on our father, who was prone to forgetfulness over the past eight months. Not the greatest trait when you’re trying to stay under the radar when it comes to being a low-level crime family. We’d caught him wandering off to odd places and sharing his old heist stories to complete strangers. It wasn’t just unsafe to let him do as he wished, it was a liability. Which was the reason we asked a few of the people we trusted to keep an eye on him whenever we weren’t around.
Now, any sort of decision-making for the extended family unit went to Carlos by default. Great.
It had been a busy hour and a half before work, I’d hardly had time to down my bowl of Wheaties. I chuckled to myself at my little joke and shoved a toilet brush in the toilet. Oh, it was going to be a long five hours until I got out of work. There wasn’t a question that I loved the kids, they were bright spots in an otherwise dark existence.
“At least it’s not stealing for the mob.”
Back in Spain, had my family stayed there, I would have been recruited as a thief, or the way they called it, a cat burglar, for the family business. Most of the men were trained early on and learned the basics as soon as they hit nine or ten years old. I mean, who really blamed a child when they got caught red-handed? It was the perfect setup. I still knew a good chunk of the training. By the time we’d moved I’d been enlisted in a number of petty pickpocketing schemes, and had done a fair share of solo outings. Thankfully, all that had changed when we’d moved to Texas with the rest of the bunch, and now I was free to do what I wanted with my career. Well, within reason, social bounds, and gender expectations.
My brothers saw my daycare job as a lovely extension of what I’d be doing full time without getting paid in a handful of years anyway. Merely a jumpstart to getting married and popping out a few rugrats.
My stomach flipped at all the rules I was breaking by meeting Liam. Hell, I was still in hot water for helping him while he was kidnapped, so this wasn’t going to go over well. My hand cramped around the brush and I glanced down noticing my knuckles were white. Okay, time to calm down. My stomach flipped and I took a deep breath rolling my shoulders.
One step at a time. So far the motto had gotten me through a lot and I had a feeling I’d be relying on it heavily over the next few hours.
Chapter 3 - Liam
Late afternoon light shot through the half-closed blinds in my father’s office as he leaned back in his chair rubbing his hands over his leather blotter. He had a smile on his face a mile wide. We’d gone through the usual work talk and were settling into more casual topics. Our mutual interests always took priority. Now, however, anything was fair game. Which is why I cleared my throat shoving my sweaty palms across the knees of my pressed khakis. As much as I’d debated my next move, he needed to know what I was now—I couldn’t keep my secret alone—not and survive. I swallowed past the lump in my throat blinking as my vision went blurry around the edges.
For a beat I worried I’d faint away like some Southern Belle. The idea curled one side of my mouth and was enough of a distraction to dislodge my dry tongue from the roof of my mouth.
“Spit it out, son. You look like you’re struggling with something over there.” My father leaned forward on his elbows and poked his tongue into the side of his cheek. An old impatient gesture that somewhat eased the fear coating my insides.
There was no easy way to do this, not really, might as well come out with it. Once it was done, we could sort through the fallout. I closed my eyes and popped them back open knowing the flashbacks that would race across my thoughts if I gave them access to me. I wouldn’t relive it while he sat there and watched it all. It could wait until I was alone—I would make it wait.
“Recently, there’ve been some…changes…to my lifestyle…”
“Do you need money? Is this what this about? Because if that’s the case you’ve always been impeccable with your accounts, it won't bother me to—”
“No, Dad. That’s not it at all.” I waved my hands in the air to cut him off.
“Are you gay?” His brows drew down, and he rubbed his gray five o’clock shadow with a low grunt.
“Dad, no! Not that it matters if I was, just Christ, that’s not what I’m trying to get out here, okay?”
“Well, you better speak up before I keep coming to my own conclusions, hmm?”
I rolled my eyes and prayed for patience. Meanwhile, the silence lengthened between us.
“They’ve made me into a goddamned animal inside, Dad. I lose it at the drop of a hat, sometimes for no reason at all. It’s like nothing will help me let go of the anger…and please, don’t bring up counseling. What those bastards did to me can’t be fixed by talking to some stuck up book-smart idiot with a flashy couch in his office. I tried that for a month. It was a complete waste of time, do you understand?” My voice was hoarse by the time I was done. I couldn’t even look right at my father.
He hadn’t moved an inch. His face was impassive, only a slight hint of a pucker to his lips at either corner. Certainly no sign that he was going to run screaming from the room. Or that he was going to pick up the phone and reserve me a white padded cell after he committed me. My fingers bit into my flesh through my pants. All of my energy focused on the man sitting in front of me. His eyes roved over me, occasionally flicking away and then coming back again.
“Say something. Please.”
He cleared his throat and leaned back in his sleek oversized office chair with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. I knew from experience that this was his thinking stance. Evidently, I was getting somewhere with him. Whether it was somewhere I wanted to be was another story.
“Liam.” He cleared his throat scrubbing a hand down his face. “Are you okay?”
Unable to come up with words, I merely shook my head.
“Good. That’s good.” He looked down for a second before his stare zeroed in on me again and we locked eyes. “What else did they do to you?”
The memories that crowded my thoughts. Wait, this was his reaction? How was my father readily accepting this information without wanting to have me examined by someone in a mental hospital? There was no sense to it.
“You…it seems…” I fumbled over my words still forcing my way through the idea that he might comprehend the new world I’d stumbled into by accident. “You thought they did more to me? The torture wasn’t enough? Wait, has this happened to you?”
“Don’t put words into my mouth, Liam. I understand well enough that those thugs weren’t just greedy bastards. Sometimes, they just want to stick it to people like us. And no, I was never kidnapped, but your uncle Ryan was. About twelve years ago in Europe. Those men were serious bastards. By the time it was all said and done, he was missing two pinky fingers.” His head tilted to the side, and he rubbed his chest. “Do you need anything?”
I flashed him a glare. “Well no, Dad. I don’t see any point.”
His almost imperceptible chuckle of a laugh made me shrug.
“I’ve been trying to keep myself together for the most part. It’s been…rough. Stupid things set me
off easily. I’ve got the hormones of a teenage boy.”
“It will pass. Give it time.”
Was this guy even serious? His solemn face told me he was. I’d never thought of it in those terms, but it made some sense, in a twisted, fucked up way.
“Maybe you need a vacation, son.”
“Dad…do you care at all that…about what I went through?”
I was still unable to keep the grimace off my face. I couldn’t picture a life where I would someday be okay with the cards fate had dealt me, but I needed Dad’s reassurance.
“Liam…you’re still my son. That’s the end of it. I don’t want to hear any of that nonsense, got me?” He waved his hand dismissively, and reaching into an open drawer on his right. “Here are the contract extensions for the fixed-term staff in procurement. I figured you’d want a look at them before I ship them off for the workers to sign. What do you think?”
“Give the paperwork to HR. I’m fine with all of them.”
“Take a look, son,” he insisted.
So, we were back on solid ground. As if nothing and everything had happened all at the same time. I reached for the papers, and he gave my shoulder a fatherly squeeze. Before I knew what he had done, he withdrew the touch. We both knew what it meant. I rolled my shoulders and put my brain to work.
Business—this was my grounding in a life filled with chaos and pain.
“You know me well, old man, but get me something with more meat next time,” I murmured under my breath, mostly to myself.
Chapter 4 - Liam
After the less than compromising meeting with my father, it seemed important to get out in the world and do things that couldn’t be accomplished behind a desk. My grand reveal had made me itchy. When Tanner got a call from Chuck wanting me back at Kick3 Sports facility and grounds, the invitation couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Give us twenty. We’ll be there,” Tanner told the man on the other line before he hung up and shoved the phone in his back pocket. “You want me to drive?”
I gave the big man a sideways glance and unbuttoned my three-piece suit as we grew near my Porsche 718 Cayman. My expression must have spoken volumes. I swear the big, burly man pouted behind his beard before he slid into the passenger seat with a sigh of pleasure.
“No one drives this baby but me. I’m sure you get it with your bike, right?”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth. Lucille is my other woman.”
“You named your motorcycle?”
“It’s a fairly common thing. Why are you acting like I have five heads?”
I shook my head as I made a hairpin turn onto the highway on ramp.
“No real reason.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, okay? I happen to think that Lucille is a classy damn name, especially when it’s after one of the funniest comedians known to man who had a career that rivaled most dickheads of her day.”
“You named your motorcycle after Lucille Ball? As in I Love Lucy?”
“Yeah, so? And?”
There was no need to look across the small space in the car to see that my bodyguard had gotten prickly with my commentary. At least we were close to the main grounds. My foot pushed on the gas, kicking the acceleration up a notch. As my pulse pounded in my ears, skin tingling with adrenaline, the resentment and anger and broken parts inside me uncurled itself and braced for impact.
At least there were some things that soothed it.
“Couldn’t have come in anything faster, could you?” Graham’s eyes roved across my prized possession with a smirk and raised one eyebrow. “You’re gonna make me feel bad, city slicker.”
“You look any harder at her and your face is going to stick that way,” I lightly teased, leaning toward the Kick3 Sports General Manager for a handshake that would transition into a pat on the back bro hug. “You guys wanted to see me?”
One thing I’d learned quickly about Kick3 Sports is they may have kicked one another’s asses and gone over the top with the testosterone-filled fighting displays, but they were a unified front when it mattered most.
“Come with us, young Jedi.” Chuck gave a nod, and we all moved as one around the property until we got to the scrub bush and desert backyard.
“Anyone wish to fill me in now?”
If I saw things correctly, then I was staring at an obstacle course. An elaborate one. My nostrils flared with the shifting winds, and a caught a whiff of…something.
“Is anything on fire?” I glanced around wondering why no one was worried.
“Oh, you figured out the hoop. Good for you.” Gideon patted me on the back hard enough for my body to jolt forward as I covered my sputter with a fist to my mouth turning the abrupt noise into a cough.
“Hoop? Um, guys, what is this? Some kind of gladiator initiation right? Because I’ve got to protest, my clients really love me in one piece. That, and my business kind of depends on me having a pulse.”
“Exactly. Hence, the surprise.” Tanner stepped up next to me moving his hand through the air in front of him. “Behold, all that the light touches shall be yours.”
“Yeah, I’m still confused.”
I took in the line of tires on the ground, the pool filled with ice, a line of men presumably waiting to kick my ass, and the flaming hoop. Someone needed to do some better explaining—and pronto. Adding fire to the equation was over the top.
“Welcome to ultimate self-defense training for newbs, Liam. You’re about to learn everything there is to know about protecting your own ass from a bunch of guys who’ve been around the block a few times. Stoked or what?” Chuck crossed his arms and waggled his eyebrows with a cocky grin.
“Excuse me? That’s what this is for?” I blinked not quite comprehending their continued generosity. “Haven’t you done enough by saving my life in the first place?”
“What’s the point of being one of us if you don’t know the perks as well as the pitfalls, right?” Graham threw something in my direction, and I caught the bundle on impulse. “Gym clothes. Go change out of your sweet duds in the bathroom and meet us back out here in ten. Let the crash course get rollin’.”
I don’t know what I’d expected, but not in my wildest dreams had it included an obstacle course and baggy shorts that were a little too big with stretched out elastic at the waist. If I’d known something of what was going on I could have at least supplied my own gear. That was my inner nitpicker. The rest of me was thrilled and a bit scattered as I fumbled in the small bathroom to get everything together—both physically and emotionally.
When I came outside Tanner was rubbing his hands together with a look on his face that worried me. Absurd glee mixed with something a notch more primal. They were all going to have way too much fun. Hopefully, I got to join in too. It wasn’t just a pick on the new guy thing. Though, if it was, I really wasn’t going to complain. The fact that they were doing this at all was above and beyond the call of duty.
No one said anything as I started a few warm up stretches casually roving my eyes across the yard again.
“Okay, that’s enough beating around the bush, pansy. Time to get to the real stuff.” Chuck lifted his lips and showed his teeth in a psychotic grin. “I’ll walk you through the ropes first, cool?”
I nodded, and before I could take a deep breath, he was off.
Chuck vaulted through the tires as though his life depended on it, both graceful and determined. His years of self-mastery helped, but when he swam through the icy cold water—so cold I expected to see ice floating in it—I wasn’t sure whether to wince or view it as a welcome relief from the Texas heat. By the time he’d made it to the fiery hoop, I was wondering if that was an actual requirement, or merely something to screw with me. I got my answer when he somersaulted through the thing.
“Oh. Easy. Right, how could I think otherwise,” I talked to myself under my breath, palms fisted at my sides.
When Chuck came jogging back toward us, he hadn’t even broken a sweat. He cracked h
is neck, and had a cocky grin on his face.
“You’re up, stud. Go as fast as you can and trust your gut. You’ll get through it. Don’t forget to breathe. Don’t hesitate.”
“I don’t get anything else? Just that?”
It seemed pretty damn sparse as far as advice went when I was going to throw myself through fire. While I debated turning right around and going back to the car, all eyes were trained firmly on me.
“Come on, buddy. We’re not timing you.” Tanner squeezed my bicep and wagged his eyebrows. “Sooner you do it, sooner it’s over, right?”
“It’s not a Band-Aid or a bend over and cough exam, dumbass,” Chuck ribbed his brother and locked eyes with me. “Do it, man. We need to know what we’re working with and these obstacles are set up to give us an idea of your triggers. Trust. Trust and Zen. It’s in our interest to keep you alive. Think of it this way. You can’t pay us if you don’t have a pulse.
I smothered a laugh behind a cough and grinned at him. True, they wouldn’t kill me. But hell, they sure could hurt me. A prickle of apprehension raised the small hairs on the back of my neck. Fuck it, what did I have to lose?
“We put in the tires first just so you’d get something fucking familiar before we threw in the curve balls, buddy.” Graham leaned against a trash can in the corner with his arms crossed over his white t-shirt. “Give you a little earth under your feet before everything fucking crumbles.”
“Gee, thanks for that analogy,” I threw over my shoulder before launching myself forward at the first long line of tires on the ground.
With my luck, they were filled with drying cement.
I plunged forward into the weird obstacle course reminiscent of a high school gym class. My muscles pulled with tension. Unlike high school, I cleared the tires with little effort. The pride didn’t last long, though. I found myself chugging forward on the rope bar hurdle, and fell so hard that the rest of the world became a blur. Something about the hard hit to the ground woke up a memory of being captive. I’d never welcomed the trauma, only shoving it down until I choked on its all-consuming presence. With every movement forward that balance shifted and then, it snapped as I ran forward through the course.
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