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He nods at Trinity again. “Instead of trying to pull him off from the outside, pull your arms underneath and explode outward.”

Trinity does it so fast it’s hard to see and Jake has her repeat the move.

He has her do it a third time, but this time, he captures her wrist as she tries to escape.

“Now she has a new problem,” he says. “I’ll get to that in a minute.”

He releases her and resumes the choke hold. Trinity tightens her body in a slightly different way. Bringing her elbows in to her side, she makes a swift duck and spin move to free herself. Jake grabs for her, but she’s already at the edge of the mat.

“See?” He motions Trinity back to the front of the room. “I won’t choke you again,” he promises.

“Liar.” Trinity stands in front of him with her hands on her hips. “Make sure you duck low enough, so you don’t hit his arm,” she says, explaining why that move worked. “You’re using the weight of your body against his thumbs to break the hold.”

As she finishes, Jake comes up behind her and hooks his arm around her neck, dragging her backwards. “This one’s a little more complicated,” he says.

“Jesus, this is hard to watch,” I mumble.

Mara places her hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Jake wasn’t kidding about it being more complicated. Trinity needs several tries and a lot more effort to unravel herself from the hold. Jake explains the shoulder slip, the mechanics of why it works, and then has us try it on each other.

“I’m too short to play anything but victim,” Mara whines.

“I wish Aubrey could’ve come today,” Jake says. “She’d be perfect.”

“I knew you had to have a girlfriend,” Mara says.

“Nooooo, she’s my brother’s girl.” Jake holds up his hands. “But she’s about your size, maybe a little shorter.”

“Damn,” Mara mutters.

“You can try a stepladder,” I offer.

Mara glares at me. “Not funny. All right, come get me.”

Scared I’ll hurt her, I don’t hold on too tight at first. Jake shows me a better way to place my arms and we try it again.

“Come on, Lilly. Don’t wuss out on me,” Mara coaxes.

I squeeze tighter until she gasps, but she still works her way out of the hold rather fast.

Heidi volunteers to kneel down for Mara so she can finally get to play attacker.

“Good job, ladies. It’s good to practice different scenarios. Not every situation will be as calm and controlled.”

“Nor will we be wearing comfy work-out clothes,” Mara points out.

Jake taps his chin and pauses for a minute. “You make a good point. A lot of the stuff you ladies have to wear to work hampers your ability to properly defend yourself. Sully and I were talking about a class to address that, but not a lot of people want to ruin their work clothes. There are some things we can talk about. Like if you wear heels, using them to kick shins or stab into an attacker’s foot.”

“So violent,” Mara jokes.

“It’s a brutal world.”

It certainly is.

“All right, how about some floor work? This is more…intimate, so I’ll let you practice on each other.”

I see what he means a few seconds later when Hope lies back on the mat and Trinity straddles her hips.

Jake explains the basic premise and then the moves to ward off the attacker.

“This is only because I love you,” Trinity says before wrapping her hands around Hope’s neck.

“Jake.” Hope huffs, already visibly straining to get out of Trinity’s hold. “This feels unevenly matched.”

“An attacker isn’t always going to be a five-foot-seven, hundred-and-thirty-pound woman, Hope.”

“Oh, aren’t you sweet,” she mutters. “I haven’t seen a hundred and thirty since college.”

“Stop yapping and start moving,” Trinity squeezes her legs tighter against Hope’s hips. “You don’t want the guys to show up to find me still pinning you down.”

“Why?” she gasps. “They’d probably love the show.”

“Triceps, Hope,” Jake reminds her. “Hug your elbows in. There you go. Hips up.”

Mara leans closer to me. “I consider this foreplay in my house.”

I burst out laughing. “Of course, you do.”

“Same, girl, same,” Charlotte says.

Heidi rolls her eyes. “Gross.”

Hope grunts and twists. Even though I know they’re both friends, their struggle is hard to watch.

In a burst of concentrated effort, Hope configures her legs just right. She gets enough leverage to flip Trinity onto her back and rolls on top of her. “Finally.” She thrusts her fists up in the air. “Phew!”

Trinity reaches up and tickles her fingers over Hope’s ribs, making her laugh, and roll off her and onto the mat.

“See?” Trinity jumps up and holds out her hand to help Hope off the floor. “Doesn’t that feel better than if I just let you win?”

“Shut up,” Hope mutters. “Dammit, you’re strong.” She hugs Trinity once she’s standing and Trinity says something against her ear that makes Hope laugh.

The realization that I’m a little envious of how close they are slaps me in the face.

Heidi and Charlotte come down together on the weekends, so they’re pretty tight. I don’t get to spend a lot of time with them. Serena hasn’t returned to the clubhouse since the incident with Shadow. I haven’t managed to befriend any of the old ladies at the downstate club yet.

“Who’s next?” Jake asks.

Without thinking about it, I take a step back. No way am I letting anyone, even my friends, pin me down like that.

“We’ll go.” Heidi grabs Charlotte’s hand and tugs her up front.

“Wait, what?” Charlotte says.

Jake squats down next to them. “Heidi knows how to get out of this one—”

“Naturally.” Charlotte rolls her eyes. “So, I get to have my ass kicked by my boyfriend’s little sister. Fabulous.”

“It’s not a competition, ladies.”

It takes Charlotte a few tries, but she manages to flip Heidi over.

“Who’s left?” Jake eyes Mara and me.

I shake my head and back away slightly. Much to my embarrassment, Jake seems to recognize my reluctance and smoothly pairs Heidi and Mara together instead.

There’s a light brush against my arm. “You okay, Lilly?” Trinity asks softly.

“It’s a lot to take in. A different…mindset than how I grew up, I guess.”

She stares at me for a minute like she wants to choose her words carefully. “There was a time in my life where it seemed smarter to be passive so I wouldn’t get hurt even more than…” She sighs. “You can convince yourself of all sorts of lies when your options are limited. ”

I swallow hard and tears prick my eyes. I’m painfully familiar with those emotions.

Her expression hardens. “Now, I’d rather die fighting.”

I blink and stare.

“I think we’ll call it good, ladies,” Jake says. “We’re running over our time.”

Hope wanders over and curls her arm around my shoulders. “Have fun?”

“Sort of.”

A sweet baby’s screams pierce the air. “Oh no. That’s mine.” Hope’s easy, breezy attitude switches off and she runs out of the room.

“She lasted a whole hour,” Heidi says. “Not bad.”

Hope returns with Grace, Alexa, and Chance. Instead of the normal leg-hug I’d normally get, he follows Hope over to the corner where she sits down with Grace and pats the space next to her for him to join her. Alexa sort of side-eyes him as if she’s not sure she likes the addition to the party.

“What did you think, ladies?” Jake asks us. “This is a class I want to do for our YouTube channel and maybe offer here. It’s a little more intense than some others.”

?

?It makes you think,” I answer.

He raises an eyebrow. “That’s good. I want you to always be aware and thinking through different scenarios.”

“So, Jake, either the guys really trust you, or you’re incredibly brave to train a bunch of bikers’ old ladies,” Charlotte says. “Which is it?”

He huffs a laugh and runs his palm over his stubbly cheek. “Both, I hope. Wrath and I have been business partners for years.”

“Wrath’s trained me before,” Trinity adds. “But he’s…very demanding.”

Jake chuckles. “Yeah, it’s hard to train your girlfriend or partner, you know? Either you’re too hard on them because you want them to do well or you’re too soft because you can’t stand hurting them.”

“Wrath’s definitely the first one.” Trinity laughs.

“You don’t say,” Jake deadpans. A little more seriously, he adds, “But also, if your partner has any kind of abuse or trauma history, the last thing you want to do is play attacker.”

“Ah, I see your point.”

“Any real man knows it’s not about some guy touching ‘his woman.’ It’s about the person he cares about learning some skills to defend herself.”

That puts the whole afternoon into perspective.

“That explains why none of the guys showed up,” Charlotte says.

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