Chapter 14
The gym Cole takes me to is not much more than a grey concrete box. With no windows and a single set of double doors in the front, it looks nothing like the gyms I’m used to passing where I live. They’re usually big, brightly lit, glass buildings, showing off everyone and everything inside like you’re viewing a tropical fish tank when you pass them. As though they’re trying to entice you to join.
This, this is not like that at all.
Cold, bleak, uninviting. It looks like a place no one but criminals would visit.
It kinda looks like a mini prison.
Cole doesn’t speak to me as he pulls the car right up to what I assume is the entrance door, stopping on unmarked tarmac, no parking lines or white markings to identify spaces. Without looking at me, he releases his seatbelt, tears the key out of the ignition and slams his driver’s side door shut as he exits. Automatically, I flinch, the little overhead light slowly dimming before suddenly flashing back to life as my own door is wrenched open, causing me to flinch again.
“Out,” Cole grunts, his voice so deep, so silky, it rumbles like the purr of an expensive engine, vibrating all the way through me, right down to my bones.
Releasing my own restraint, I swing my legs around, letting them dangle down over the wet ground. Rain still falls from the night sky, but it’s more of a mist now than full droplets, like what I imagine the air would be like walking through a rainforest, a light dusting on my skin. Reaching towards the dashboard, I rest my right hand on it, my left curling over the top of the seat, readying to jump down, when a big hand clasps my right elbow, stalling me.
I look up, into Cole’s face. His eyes are striking, bright like honey-amber flames, the most orange infused hazel colour I’ve ever seen. A sharp, angular jaw covered in a light layer of black stubble, neat and trimmed short on his cheeks, chin and jaw. Rich, chocolate dark skin, creamy and warm with a deep golden undertone. His hair shaved in a fade on either side of his head, the top just a little longer, black curls tight to his scalp. He smells like smoky whiskey matured for thirty years, and fresh leather, aged and new, all of it wrapped into one.
Cole looks at me with a snarled upper lip, disgust in his gaze as he curls his strong fingers around the crook of my elbow. He lifts upwards, his other hand going beneath my other armpit, fingers stretching up, splaying wide and fastening over the back of my left shoulder blade. Lifting me easily out of the car, placing my feet on the ground, he releases me just like that. As though he got burnt when his skin touched mine, even over my clothes, Blaze’s hoodie on my top half, Phoenix’s joggers on my legs.
Cole steps back, ushering me away from the open car door with a gesture of his hand, allowing him the clearance to slam it shut. Spinning around, I stand, watching him, as he moves to the back of the car, opens the door and retrieves a navy blue duffle bag off of the back seat. His dark grey t-shirt stretches across the thick, flexing muscles in his back and triceps, the rough wind blowing violently, forcing the cotton to cling to him even harder.
I feel my breath catch as he turns back towards me, using his hip to knock the door closed, and staring me down with eyes the colour of whiskey flames.
“You stay quiet in here,” he tells me, that deep, smooth velvet voice like a coaxing. “You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t look at anyone. You don’t talk to me. Look at me. You sit and do as you’re told.”
He turns away from me, giving me his back, and then he stalks towards the red doors, clearly expecting me to follow, his big palms slamming into them as he shoves them open. He turns back to me, silence between us, his summons all in the hardness of his eyes. I hurry towards him, not even considering running off, he’d catch me instantly anyway, but it’s dark and I don’t know where I am.
If I even want to leave.
Slipping beneath his big arm as he holds the door open with a hand above my head, I duck inside the building.
The doors slam at our backs, and Cole walks down the short hallway, the floor bare concrete, the walls an aged cream, posters and notices stuck up haphazardly all over them. There are a few closed doors on either side of us, but Cole doesn’t even glance at those, continuing all the way to the end of the hall and pushing through another set of steel double doors.
Grunts and thuds immediately hit my ears, making my steps slow with caution, but Cole, still standing between the two doors, the same way in which he entered the last set, holding them open for me, eyes me again. Narrowing his gaze until I hurry my arse up and step through them with him.
Standing still, Cole at my side and back, like a big wrap around, protective shield, I peer into the new space. The same polished concrete floor from the hall stretches into the room. A large, raised boxing ring, lined with red ropes sits centrally, punching bags and racks of weights dotted around the outside of it. A big stereo sits off in the far corner, but currently it’s silent. There are windows overhead, long, wide skylights letting in the drab grey night and strip bulbs dotted along the ceiling in the spaces between.
“Come,” Cole grunts, retaking my elbow with surprising gentleness.
He draws me in front of him, curling his fingers just a tad tighter around my arm as we pass a huge man. White-blonde hair pulled up into a bun on the crown of his head, wide shoulders stretching out his black, short-sleeved t-shirt, elbows resting on the ropes of the ring. His startling bright green eyes focussed on watching the two men in the centre of it trade punches with grunts and thumps.
I stare up at the fighters, but they don’t have big, padded gloves on like I expect to see.
“They don’t have gloves?” I ask as we pass the back of the large man, my head lifting, gaze flicking up and back to Cole as he ushers me forward.
He doesn’t look down at me, his gaze set forward as I stare up at him, the underside of his angular jaw wide and covered in neat black stubble.
“They’re not boxers, they’re bare knuckle fighters,” he responds casually, quietly, just loud enough for me to hear.
“Is that legal?” I ask, still staring up at him, feeling his fingers like bites of fire in my flesh.
“No.”
“Wh-”
“Ember,” Cole sighs deeply, the sound like a tremor of violence I feel race right up my spine, tingling in the base of my skull. “Stop talking.”
I twist my lips to one side, wanting to ask more, to know more, but instead, I drop my gaze from his handsome face, focus on what’s in front of me, where he’s leading us. That’s when I realise how many people there are in here. And most, if not all, are staring right at me. I swallow, shrinking back into Cole.
He’s big and broad and tall, he smells like smoky whiskey and new leather and he’s warm, despite his coldness towards me over the last few weeks. He’s the one I feel the safest with.
The other three men in that flat overwhelm me in every way, the way they each track and watch my every move, but Cole’s not like that. He doesn’t see me at all, and when he does, it is with disinterest, perhaps even something more, dislike, maybe.
Still, it feels only natural to sink back into him as he continues to walk us forward, his front brushing my back, something that usually makes me shudder. I don’t like people touching me, but this feels different. His heat seeps into me, calming me, and I notice that he’s always like this, a raging inferno. And now that I’m close enough to feel it, I find it comforting rather than scalding. Cole never looks at me around the house, he leaves the room, avoids my gaze, he sits as far away from me as possible. He stops talking when he spots me, and I find myself always wanting to hear him. The way his tone is such a deep, smooth caress of words, it feels like hands smoothing over my naked skin.
Cole reaches above my head again, ignoring everyone around us as he pushes open a third door, this one wooden with a frosted window in the top half of it, leading into a small dark office.
Gently pushing me just inside of the room, he flicks a switch on the wall making three tall floor lamps turn on instantaneously in each corner of the room, bar the corner at my back behind the open door. The desk is mahogany, a burgundy leather chair on the other side of it, tucked beneath. And there are two chairs set facing it, worn dark brown leather, and a matching third in the far corner to my right, facing into the room at an angle, one of the softly lit lamps standing behind it.
Like this is his routine, Cole closes the door, moves into the room, walking around behind the desk, pulling out the wheely chair and planting himself into it with an oomph. I stand where I am, glancing around the room, noting the shelves of thick leather bound books, framed posters of ‘Friday Fight Nights’ and aged photographs of bloodied fighters with dates and names etched beneath them.
“Sit,” Cole instructs me, my gaze sliding back to his, but it’s not on me, it’s focused down, on whatever papers he has before him.
I take the chair in the corner, my feet flat to the floor, hands clasped in my lap, I look up at the window to my right. I can only see the sky, the night dark and heavy beyond. I watch as the rain starts up again, drops assaulting the glass as they hit it hard, rolling down and across the pane with the harsh thrash of wind.
I wonder how my parents are feeling right now. If they do actually care that I’m missing. If what Blaze said is true. That no one cares. That no one is looking. Do they resent me that much? That they wouldn’t even look. That they wouldn’t want to find me?
Do they even realise I’m gone?
Terry would. One of my dad’s nicer security guards. He would notice. I mean, he chased me up the driveway when I made my grand escape to get to the bonfire night party. My driver would too. Not having to take me to my job at the coffee shop, it would be out of his routine not to have to take me, pick me back up again.
I swallow, maybe I’ve been sacked now, I’ve missed eleven shifts the last few weeks. I wonder if they would notice I was missing, if it weren’t for them probably being short-staffed without me. Surely Della would say something? Tell someone. Right? She’s kind of my friend. She knows where I was seen last because she drove me to the party in the first place. She didn’t drive me home. My phone was in her car. My hoodie. Did she even ask about me?
I blink, my eyelids hot as I stare down at my lap, curling my fingers tightly together.
My dad’s an important man, he’s a prominent figure in our community, surely, he would do something. It’s not like the world doesn’t know he has a daughter, despite how much they tried to hide me. Preferring to parade my older brother, Danny, around at their fancy dos and get togethers. I’m so often overlooked, I’m always quiet, well behaved, I have never done anything to get into trouble. I’ve always done as I’m told.
I wonder if my mother has cried. She’s not really the emotional type, but she would cry for Danny. She looks at him with love, the looks she usually reserves for me are somewhere between regret and disappointment. Not sure she’s ever seen me as much more than the girl that should have been a boy.
When I was little, it was always my brother who taught me things, he’s who got me to take my first steps, my first word, until he just didn’t care either anymore. My mother always told me she wasn’t good with girls. Whatever the fuck that means.
My nails dig into my palms, gouging at my skin until little red crescents start to bloom blood. It feels better already, stress leaking out of the cuts with the small bubbles of crimson.
I draw in a shuddery breath, flex my fingers, seeing the small smears of red on my pale palms. I look back up at the window, re-pinch my hands with my nails as I watch the raindrops streak across it.
Blaze was best friends with my brother for a long time growing up, until one day they just stopped. I never understood what Blaze saw in my brother, to want to form a friendship with Danny in the first place. I’d rather stick rusty nails in my eyeballs than have a ten-second conversation with the arsehole.
But Blaze still watched out for me.
Even after they stopped talking.
Walking me to school, helping me with my homework, reading. He was everything to me growing up. By the time we were moving from the estate, he was eighteen to my twelve, he used to ruffle my hair and shove me in the side, hug me with an arm around my neck. He was the only person to give me any affection. Then I got taken away when my family moved, and I never saw him again.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried myself to sleep on and off for years after we moved to the big house in Amberwood Hills. Even on the night of my eighteenth birthday, with a packed bag, a wodge of stolen cash from my father’s safe and no idea what the fuck I was doing, how I would find him. I tried to get back here. To Blaze.
But then I was taken anyway.
Stolen away from him.
It obviously wasn’t meant to be.
Seeing him now, knowing him now, he probably would have just laughed in my face if I’d actually made it to him.
He doesn’t want me.
He just wants to own me.
Doesn’t he?
Did you ever think of me, the way I have always thought of you?
“Ember,” my attention snaps to Cole, his chin dipped, warm orange eyes lifted to mine. “If you make yourself bleed, Blaze’ll hand me my hide,” he says with all seriousness, glancing briefly down at my hands, before lifting his chin, staring me down. “You’re safe with me, I won’t let anything happen to you, so you don’t have to be anxious. Nothing’s gunna happen to you here,” he licks his lips and I feel mesmerised by it as his pink tongue glides across his dark rose lips, wetting them so they glisten in the low light. “Not with me, Okay?”
“Blaze said he’d beat obedience into me if he had to,” is what I find myself blurting out, and I don’t even know why I say it.
Why I’m wondering.
Because I’m safe with Cole.
Every word of his seeps into my bloodstream like a promise.
I glance down at my bloody hands, my wrists unwrapped now, healing from the slices from the handcuffs, but they’re still sore, a couple of little scabs yet to fall off, hidden beneath the loose, ribbed cuffs of the black hoodie I wear.
“Would he?” I whisper, lifting my gaze onto Cole’s.
Carefully, Cole places down the pen in his hand, and for the first time since I’ve met this large, intimidating man, he shows some sort of twisted emotion. His brows scrunch, and he stares down at his own hands, the dark skin is uneven on his fingers, the backs of his hands, scarred.
He swallows, twitching his nose as he slowly draws his head up, staring into my eyes. It feels like all of the oxygen is sucked out of the room, the piercing gaze of his amber-hazel eyes holding me hostage. I know he doesn’t like me. Doesn’t want me here. But, what if… Maybe he avoids me at the flat because I’m making his space uncomfortable. I always felt uneasy when there were people in my house too, I never really left my room, not wanting to feel awkward around people I didn’t know. Perhaps I’m that to him.
“I’m sorry,” I rush to say then, but the words come out like a whispered exhale, and I’m frowning down at my hands again. “If I’m making you uncomfortable,” I dig my fingers back into my palms, curling my nails in, waiting for the blood to flow again. “I can…” I swallow, “stay out of your way more, eat after everyone else.” I think of mealtimes, sitting at the kitchen island beside Blaze, Flint and Phoenix opposite us, Cole’s seat empty as he seemingly doesn’t eat, even though he always cooks. “I’m invading your space.” I chew on my bottom lip, feeling my heart thumping harder and harder.
Cole stays silent, but I know he’s watching me. A cold wash of shame laps over me, sending goosebumps across my skin. I’m ruining a space that he finds safe, maybe the only place he’s comfortable. It doesn’t matter how I ended up there, just that I am, and it doesn’t appear that I’ll be leaving anytime soon.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” I swallow, nodding, “I don’t mean to be so-” I stop myself, my throat closing, I squeeze my eyes shut tight, nails pushing through my skin.
“So what?” Cole asks, his smooth voice sending my heart flying even harder in my chest.
My hand comes up, splaying over my chest, fingertips biting in over the thick material of Blaze’s hoodie, it smells like him, and I take a strangled comfort in the rich caramel, smoke and spice scent.
“You don’t mean to be so what, Ember?” The way he says my name heats my blood, it’s so deep and silky, I feel it all the way down to my bones.
“Here,” I rasp, curling my fingers tighter into my chest, my heart hammering so hard I feel myself swaying in the chair.
I always feel so large, taking up too much space, like if I could just be smaller, less noticeable, I wouldn’t upset so many people. I wouldn’t be such hard work. I don’t mean to be. Sometimes I think it really would be better to just disappear.
I stand suddenly, my breath too harsh, too sharp, painful with every inhale. Turning away from him, I brace a hand against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut as I try to suck in some air, but black spots explode beneath my closed lids, and I feel my legs wobble, readying to buckle. My hand slips down the wall, and I’m ready to have bruised knees, waiting for the connection with the concrete flooring to ricochet up my femurs, but it never comes.
Cole lowers me to the floor, sweeping my legs out from under me so he can sit me on my backside, prop me up against the wall. His big hand cups my cheek, a silky-rough texture to my cheek that I want to sink into. I draw in a deep breath, flutter my lashes, my lids heavy as I slowly open my eyes. Cole tilts my chin up, the crown of my head against the wall, my curls catching on the rough surface.
“You don’t make me uncomfortable,” he says lowly, licking his lips again, briefly dropping his gaze, before flicking his attention back onto me. “You’re in a new place, with strange people, and you don’t understand anything going on. But you don’t need to be worrying about me, Ember.”
A shiver runs through me, pricking my skin with goosebumps. He grits his teeth, dropping his hand from my face like he hadn’t realised he was voluntarily touching me, and my face instantly feels cold.
“You don’t take up too much space. You don’t put me out. You’re not in the way,” he sighs, glancing towards the closed door beside us as he lists all of the unspoken things I feel. “Just do as Blaze says, okay?” he asks, bringing those burning hazel eyes back to me. “He just wants to keep you safe,” Cole says, some sort of empathy quietly tucked into his softly spoken words. “And he wouldn’t put his hands on you in anger, Ember,” he pauses, his gaze flicking all over my face, “not to hurt,” he clarifies, and it makes my cheeks warm with the insinuation.
Blaze isn’t exactly quiet about fucking me.
I drop my eyes, and we sit quietly for a couple of minutes, my head clearing, my breath slowing, I stare at his feet until he clears his throat, re-drawing my attention.
“You faint often?” he asks, changing the subject as he straightens to stand, extending his hand down in offering.
His fingers curl around mine as I place my shaky hand in his, and he hefts me slowly up to my feet, holding onto my hand until I’m stable on my feet.
“Um, sometimes, just if my blood pressure is a bit all over the place,” I say quietly, embarrassed, because I don’t know Cole, but he’s touching my skin, a fire is lighting inside of me, and he makes my mouth dry and my insides tumble.
“You take medicine for that?” he asks, releasing my hand with a dip of his chin, gesturing for me to sit back down in the chair I started off in.
“Usually.”
“What does that mean,” he questions coldly, “usually?”
I swallow, my mouth dry now for an entirely different reason, I shake my head, staring down at my lap, “Nothing.”
“No,” he says firmly, leaning his arse back against the front edge of his desk, crossing his arms. “Tell me what that means.”
The way he says it, orders me, it feels like he already knows what I’m going to say.
“I haven’t had any of my pills since I’ve been…” my throat gets tight, thinking of Blaze’s words again, no one is looking for you, “away from home.”
And even that word, home, doesn’t feel right.
Cole swears under his breath, scrubbing a hand over his head. Then as though he snaps out of this quiet moment between us, he turns cold again, like the Cole I’ve seen but not interacted with over the last few weeks.
He opens his mouth to speak, but the door bangs open, startling me, and making Cole rumble lowly like a warning growl, but it doesn’t seem to perturb the young man that bursts into the room, a large cardboard box in his arms.
“Coleeee, my man! Look. I’ll do you a deal. I’ve got one left, she’s all yours, bruv, purebre-”
“What have I told you about knocking, Sean?” Cole asks calmly.
The young guy shifts the box in his arms, a mess of sandy blonde hair falling into his eyes, a black tracksuit on his tall, lean body, lime green trainers with purple laces on his feet.
“Oh,” he blinks, as though it would never occur to him to do something so simple. “Right, lemme try again. Sorry, Coach, ‘old on,” he says, glancing at the floor behind him, peering over his shoulder so he can see where to place his feet. “Well, ‘ow about you just ‘old onto the box, that’ll make this easier, won’t it?” he laughs, shoving the box into Cole’s hands and then he dashes back out of the door again, banging it shut.
I blink, looking from the now closed door, the boy on the other side of it, to Cole, and back again as there’s a hard pounding knock on the door.
“Jesus Christ,” Cole grunts.
The door opens just enough for Sean to poke his head in, his blue eyes lifting onto Cole, “Does that mean I can come in?”
“Fucking hell, get in ‘ere already,” Cole huffs, holding out the big box again for Sean to take. “Firstly,” Cole starts, “I don’t want your dog, second-”
“Ohhh, well, what do we ‘ave ‘ere? ‘ello sweet’eart,” Sean purrs, cocking his head at me, his bright eyes running down my body, he licks his lips, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. He saunters towards me, stopping within touching distance. “I’m Sean,” he smiles, looking down at me, “but you can call me daddy,” he laughs at his own joke, but I think there’s a possibility he’s semi-serious.
“Sean,” Cole says calmly, drawing Sean’s eye, “she’s ours,” he informs the young guy, who can’t be more than seventeen, with a deadly sort of calm, but it has the exact opposite tumbling around inside of me.
My heart bangs against my chest, clattering inside of my ribcage at the way Cole almost whispers the words.
I think of Flint, his teasing touches, tickling. Phoenix’s soft smiles, his hand holding.
Ours.
The boy blinks, his brows lifting with surprise. He glances back at me, and then he’s holding his hands up, palms facing outward, he whistles lowly, backing up towards the open door.
“Say no more, Coach, hard limit, I got it, so urr, yeah, keep the pup, fink of ’im as a gift for your lady,” he winks at me, and my cheeks flush with embarrassment.
“Sean,” Cole repeats his name, and then Sean’s spinning out of the room, the door crashing closed at his back, and Cole, well, Cole’s still holding the box.