Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“I didn’t ask what you wanted. I am your trainer and you will do as I say. Pack your fuckin’ things.”
It’s been a while. Seven years, actually. And I’ve grown used to having opinions. But he’s not wrong. If I want to kill the people responsible for the death fights and killing camps—and I do—then it needs to be my life.
It’s kinda sick. I get that. If I had to explain any of this out loud to, say… Nandy, she would call me psychotic.
But in my head, I feel like this goal of killing bad people is something. And I’ve got nothing, really. No purpose at all. I’m living, but I feel dead.
If I’m in training, then I have a purpose.
And if I’m in training, then I need to do as I’m told.
I don’t relay any of these feelings out loud. I simply gather a tote bag hanging off a bar stool, fill it with training clothes and toiletries from the bathroom, and walk back over to him. “I’m ready.”
I can tell he wants to say something about my packing. Don’t you need more than that? Perhaps something other than training shorts and tank tops? But he holds it in. Just nods and we leave.
We pick up the jog again, but I’ve had a long while to rest and my tote bag isn’t heavy, just cumbersome, so it’s an easy jog up Ocean to the same oceanfront building where I saw him pause the other night.
It’s a very trendy area, and the building has shops underneath it–a coffee shop, a clothing boutique, a pizza place, and an Italian café. We cut past all those places and enter the building on the side. Same door I saw him at before. But this time he goes in and I get to follow.
This isn’t the main lobby, just a side entrance. But still, there is a doorman and a small desk. “Good afternoon, sir.” The doorman at the desk tips an imaginary hat at Eason.
Eason pauses and makes a thumb gesture towards me. “This is my guest. If she ever needs anything, you’ll take care of her, right?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Good.” He’s short and curt with the doorman. But I don’t think it’s personal. Eason doesn’t come off as a snob. I think he just hates people in general.
We take the stairs up—because of course we do—and it’s a long way. I mean, I’m all for the stairs, but nine floors after a twenty-something-mile run? I’m over it.
However, the view, once he opens his penthouse door, eases some of my pain. “Holy shit, Eason. What the hell is this?” I turn to look at him, find him smiling. Dare I say… even proud?
Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.
“It’s nice, right?”
“It’s…” I walk past the kitchen on the right, through the living room that has ceilings as high as a church, and practically press my nose up against the glass doors leading to the terrace. The ocean is fuckin’ turquoise from up here. And the sand… “Wow.”
“Impressive?” Eason folds the glass doors open and the salty sea breeze hits me in the face.
Now, I’ve been living near this very beach for years now, so of course I know it’s beautiful. But I’ve only ever seen it from the ground. From up here, it’s… “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Eason chuckles as he walks over to the terrace railing and rests his elbows on it. “Sometimes, Irina, I swear, it really does feel like I’m living inside a reality show.”
I smile and walk up next to him, leaning my chin on the railing, because I, of course, am much shorter than he is. “This was your prize?”
“Does it make you want to fight for money?”
“No. Well—”
He laughs. “It wasn’t the prize. Not exactly.”
“Have I earned the right to ask what that means?”
He lets out a breath. Like he’s considering my question. But he doesn’t answer me. Not outright, anyway. He does, however, give me something. “Those guys at the gym that morning? Davis and Wade?”
“OK.”
“Davis is my trainer. From before. And Wade is… just Wade. Anyway. We were… presented with an opportunity a while back and we took it. And this opportunity made us rich.”
“Wow. Despite using quite a few words, you told me absolutely nothing.”
He grins at me. And it’s a real one. I’ve made him happy. I know this because that smile reaches all the way up to his green eyes.
I pause here, lost in them for a moment, thinking back to that night on the beach when they were silver under the moon and how he reminded me of Cort.
“Nothing gets past you, Irina.” Eason looks back out at the sea.
“Do those guys live here with you?”
“No. They live… out there.” He kinda waves his hand in the general direction behind us. Meaning Miami proper, I guess.
“Are they from the Ring, Eason?”