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I make a move toward his balls.
He jumps back and leaves go of me.
Wiping sweat from my face, I try to match his casual banter. “A species has developed, through the violence of their own kind, physical ways to prevent rapists from procreating with victims. Wasn’t there a weird senator who claimed a human female’s body did the same thing?”
“Yeah.Dick. Like women are raped as much as ducks and evolve that kind of shit.”
“What? No, I meant—”
He hits me with a series of fast, hard, and angry strikes.
Too fast.
Unexpected and not evencloseto the playful way we’d been sparring.
I step back.
He keeps coming.
I put up my hands, expecting a hit.
He sweeps my legs out from under me.
My head bounces against the mat.
Cushioned or not, that shit hurts.
Breathing heavily, I stay down, stretch my legs out.
Tony comes over and offers me a hand.
Hmmmm. Accept his hand, or use it to retaliate? I’m angry. Why change the tone of our sparring?
Ah hell. Iknowto expect the unexpected.
I take his hand.
He pulls me to my feet. Once up, I slap his arm. “Charming story, Tone.”
“It’s easy with you, Justice. You bring out the charm in people.”
That edge of anger in his voice confirms my early thoughts. “Some kind of lesson in that story?”
Grabbing some towels and floor spray from the cleaning station, he hands them to me because loser has to clean. “The lesson is, even the cold gaze of evolution knows when something is dead wrong and so do you, so stop using this guy and his charity; it’s not right.”
I figured that he’d heard about Sandesh. I also figured everyone in this loud, opinionated family would have something to say. Inviting new people into The Guild is a big deal, but I hadn’t expected this objection. “Sandesh knows the score. And, for the record, using the IPT wasn’t on me. It was Momma’s decision.”
He snorts. “Just because Momma decides it’s okay, doesn’t make it okay. She’s shitting on The Guild’s greatest strengths—independence, closed ranks, and family teams—and you’re following along to gain a new cover? It’s not right.”
Unable to answer, to tell him what I can’t fully admit to myself—that I don’t give a shit about the cover, that I want Sandesh to be part of my life and this family—I begin to clean the sweat-soaked mat.
He shifts on his feet as he talks. “And, just for the record, it’s bad enough Momma fucked with this guy’s company, but you’re fucking with his heart. How long before he begins to see that you’re always going to choose The Guild over him?”
My shoulder blades draw together and my neck tenses.Tony. This was supposed to be about me getting underhisskin, not him getting under mine.
I wipe the mat angrily, grateful when his next session is announced. “Why do I have to choose? He knows what I’m about, knows why I do what I do, and he’s okay with it.”
He barks a sound that easily tips over from humor to sarcasm. “Sure. Mr. Peace, Love, and Charity is fine with you being an assassin.”
