7. Tristian #2
She resisted for a second… then went limp, collapsing into me like she couldn’t hold herself up anymore.
“O-OK,” she sniffed.
I led her back inside—past the thinning crowd, past the gawking men—and into the locker room. It was empty, thank God.
I settled her on a bench. “Hang on,” I said quietly.
At my locker, I pulled out the grey tracksuit I’d worn earlier and grabbed my towel.
I knelt beside her.
She was shaking.
Stooping down beside her, I pulled at the hoodie I’d lent her. She looked nervous, biting her lip.
“You’re wet,” I said. “Night like this, you’ll freeze if you don’t change.”
She searched my eyes for a long moment, then gave a tremulous nod. Timidly, she allowed me to pull my soiled hoodie down her shoulders.
Keeping my gaze locked on hers so she knew I wasn’t looking anywhere else, I lifted the drenched pink top over her head and set it aside. She snatched the towel immediately, covering her chest as she dabbed herself dry.
“C-can I have the hoodie, please?” she stammered, nodding to the grey fabric on the bench.
I passed it to her. “It’s a little sweaty, sorry.”
“It’s fine.” She hesitated. “T-turn around, please.”
I obeyed. Not that I didn’t want to see her body—I did—but I didn’t want to like this.
She pulled the hoodie over her head. This one didn’t have a zip: it was all one piece of fabric.
“You can look now.”
I turned back.
“There,” I said, leaning down. “Feeling better?”
She nodded. “Th-thanks.” She seemed unable to keep my gaze, yet also seemed to want to look at me, like when we took a walk to the tattoo parlor the other night. Instead, she looked down at the sleeves of the hoodie. “S-sorry I ruined your other one.”
“You didn’t ruin it,” I said, sitting down beside her, close enough that our knees were brushing. “That jackass did. And hopefully while we’ve been in here, Kane has let him know exactly how much of a jackass he is. Anyway, a little beer will wash out.”
Ingrid nodded. She fiddled with the sleeves. They hung past her wrists, close to her fingers.
“Your arms are a little longer than mine.”
I smirked, trying to lighten the mood. “How about I help you with that?”
I reached forward, rolled up the sleeve past the wrist—and froze.
A shadow on her skin caught my eye. My thumb traced the dark shape before I could stop myself. Ingrid gasped softly, shoulders tensing as she moved her arm, but I was already pushing the sleeve higher. Past her wrist. Over the forearm. All the way to her elbow.
It was a bruise—the unmistakable shape of a handprint, fading but ugly.
My blood turned cold, my voice coming out darker. “Did someone give this to you?”
She bit her lip, looking away for a heartbeat before shaking her head. “No.”
I didn’t believe her for a damn second. The protective instinct that had been simmering since the café flared into something far more dangerous, hotter than the adrenaline from the fight. “Ingrid?”
“I’m sure,” she whispered, the softest lie I’d ever heard.
I wanted to press her, but in her search for anything to look at but me, her eyes landed on the clock on the wall above the door. “It’s getting late. I’d better go.”
I gave a slow nod. “Your parents don’t want you out past ten, huh?”
She didn’t confirm it—just whispered, “My abuelita gave me permission.”
My jaw ticked. If her grandmother had to give her permission, then her father definitely didn’t.
Had he put the bruise on her? He hadn’t been happy the other night when she got back late. It seemed likely—but I couldn’t push, not yet. Instead, I rose and said, “I’m going to jump in the shower for five minutes. Once I’m dressed, I’m taking you home, okay?”
She nodded, looking small and quiet.
I headed for the showers, but my mind wasn’t on the water or the fight or the winnings.
It was already spinning with questions.
Because all I could see was that bruise.
And all I thought about was how many bones I’d have to break to make sure it never happened again.
I paced the length of my apartment. Every time my feet hit the floor, I felt the vibration of my own heartbeat, my knuckles still stinging, my adrenaline still up from the tournament and now from him.
My father had called.
I had made the mistake of picking up.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Noah’s voice was a low, controlled roar, vibrating with the kind of cold fury that only a man of his stature could manage. “A back-alley tournament, Tristian? Fighting again? And with that low-life Darragh?”
I stopped in front of the window, staring at the city lights but seeing only my father’s judgmental face in the reflection. “Darragh wasn’t involved this time.”
“Oh, so you’ve made one positive change at least.” He huffed. “When are you going to get your act together and join the family business?”
I set my jaw. “I’m not.”
“Fantastic. So I’m just going to have to spend the rest of my life cleaning after my grown man-child son.”
My knuckles tightened, white. “I didn’t ask you to do that. That’s on you.”
“You think I want to do this shit?” he snapped. “You’re a Locke. You belong in a suit, in this office—not bleeding for pennies in basements like some goddamn degenerate.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “Let me rot if it bothers you so damn much.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t care at all?” His voice dropped an octave, turning deadly quiet.
“Nope,” I shot back, ready to end the call.
There was a calculated pause on the other end.
Then he said it.
The one chain he knew I couldn’t break.
“If you go to jail... or if I stop making things go away... how will you be able to keep track of how your mother is doing? How will you pay for the care she needs?”
My blood turned cold.
Noah always knew how to get under my skin, how to make me feel inferior by using the one person I loved the most.
“Why do you always bring her into everything?”
“Because the only reason you’re such a pathetic excuse for a man is that you refuse to listen to me and still cling to your mother.”
I kicked a chair in the corner, sending it skidding across the floor. “Fuck off. All you do is leverage everything I love to get what you want.”
“And yet here we are,” Noah said, unmoved. “If you’d actually take care of yourself, I wouldn’t need to control you. Join the firm. Drop the underground bullshit with Darragh before someone puts you in a grave.”
“I have a damn job,” I growled. “It may not be as corrupted as yours, but at least it’s something.” Fighting back the urge to punch the damned wall, I spat, “And for the last fucking time, I am not working for Darragh.”
Noah took a deep, rattling breath. “Tristian... you need to stop getting into trouble and try to learn from your mistakes—”
“Fuck you,” I grunted, cutting him off.
He sighed. “You know what you need to do if you want your mother to continue living the way she is. Think about the partnership I’m forming. Think about your future—”
I ended the call and hurled the phone onto the sofa.
The silence that followed was worse than the shouting.
With a roar of frustration, I lunged forward and buried my fist into the drywall.
The plaster crumbled around my knuckles, the intense pain a welcome distraction from the suffocating pressure weighing me down.
I leaned my forehead against the wall, breathing hard. Pathetic excuse of a man… I felt like exactly what he’d called me. And I hated him for being right.
Slowly, I pulled my hand back, white dust coating my bruised skin. I looked toward the sofa where my phone lay.
Ingrid.
The thought of her cut through my rage. I remembered her face at the tattoo parlor when she pored over my sketches, the way she looked at me—like she saw something in me that wasn’t broken.
I snatched my phone back up, scrolled down my contacts.
She still hadn’t texted or called. I thought she might after last night at the gym, but nothing.
I wanted to call her. I wanted to hear her voice, to tell her I was sorry for disappearing, to ask her to help me forget who my father was.
But as I looked at her name, I paused. My hand was still shaking, and my anger brimming.
I shouldn’t let her hear me like this.
Blood on my hands, rage inside of me.
I threw my phone back down on the sofa.
The last thing I wanted was for her to get tainted by me.