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Then she and Gideon storm out of the room.
None of the men move to show them out. In fact, we all stay perfectly still until we hear the front door shut behind them.
As soon as the sound echoes through the house, my shoulders relax, tension I didn’t even realize I was carrying draining away. My fingers uncurl, the joints stiff from being clenched so tightly. I can feel little spots of pain along my palm where my fingernails dug deeply into the skin.
I turn to face Marcus fully, finally meeting his gaze for the first time since I burst into the room.
There’s something on his face that breaks my heart, and I realize with a horrible ache in my chest that he just lost what was left of his family.
He still has me, Theo, and Ryland. But that connection to his past, to his childhood, to his sister, is gone.
Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have come in here. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
Before that thought can take root too deeply, Marcus steps toward me. Palming the back of my neck, he brings my face toward his, resting his forehead against mine just like he did yesterday.
“Thank you, angel,” he murmurs softly. “For loving me.”
When he draws back, I want to grab him and pull him toward me again. I want to hold him close and not let go. But I can see in his eyes that he needs time, needs to be alone, and the least I can do is give him that.
“Always,” I whisper, holding his gaze for a heartbeat.
A smile twitches at the corner of his lips, and even though it doesn’t fully form, it’s something. Then he steps around the couch and leaves the room, his footsteps heading down the hallway and up the stairs.
Theo blows out a breath. “Fucking hell.” Then he grins. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, Rose.”
I can tell he’s trying to lighten the mood, and I appreciate it. But my heart is still aching for Marcus, and adrenaline and anger are still whipping through my veins so fast I feel like my skin is buzzing.
Ryland pushes off the wall, rubbing one hand over the inked skin of his forearm as he takes a step toward me.
“Hey. You want to start our training session early today?”
My hand clenches into a fist again, and I nod viciously, my mind already filling with images of Norah and Gideon’s faces.
“Fuck, yes.”
Chapter 4
Theo presses a quick kiss to my lips before Ryland and I leave the room.
I follow close behind Ryland as we head toward the back of the house, where Theo has set up a large room as a home gym. There are some free weights and machines that we’ve mostly ignored so far, concentrating instead on the heavy bag in one corner and the empty area in the middle of the room. It gives us enough space to work on fighting technique and practice footwork, blocks, and attacks.
My future as an MMA fighter is pretty fucking bleak, but that’s not the point of any of this. The point is that I’ll hopefully be a little less likely to die if I find myself in a position where I’m being physically threatened.
Ryland glances over his shoulder as we walk into the room. “I know you just wanna hit shit today, so we’ll do a little of that first. Then I’m gonna teach you some disarming techniques.”
I nod, stretching my fingers wide before clenching them into a fist. He’s not fucking wrong about that. I don’t think I’ll be able to focus on anything else until I get some of this rage out of my system.
His hazel eyes gleam as he looks at me, and I can’t quite tell what the emotion is behind them.
Before I can decipher it, he turns and crosses toward the far wall where a stereo system is set up. He turns on music that matches my mood perfectly—loud, harsh, and angry. Then he grabs a hand wrap from a small cubby along the same wall and walks back to me.
I hold up my hand as he nears, and he gets to work wrapping my knuckles.
He glances up at me as he winds the long piece of cloth between my fingers. “I’m glad you said something back there. They needed to hear it. Marcus needed to hear it.”
I grimace. “I hope it wasn’t the wrong thing. Marcus looked pretty fucked up after they left.”
“Yeah.” Ryland shrugs, returning his attention to his task as he wraps the cloth around my hand and down my wrist. “He will be for a while. But he’ll be all right.”
