30
A flash of red hair caught my attention as I stepped out of the office and into the lobby.
“Mal?” I shouted and hurried in the direction the girl had gone. I rounded the corner leading to the locker rooms just as she threw the door open.
“Mal,” I shouted again and she paused in the doorway with her back to me.
As I approached her, I noticed that her black leather jacket was covered in dust, or was it dirt, and her loose hair was a complete mess as if she’d been rolling around on the ground outside.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and she jolted slightly, then hesitantly turned to face me. My jaw dropped at the sight of her. Blood was smeared on her face and neck. I cautiously scanned her body, taking in the not so subtly concealed weapon under her jacket, and the knives strapped over the top of her leggings.
She swallowed hard and pushed her hair away from her face. “I’m fine,” she said firmly before I could ask. “I need to shower and change, then I’ll be out. Please tell me you aren’t busy?”
I was frozen, unable to move, I could swear for a moment that my heart had stopped, but I forced a breath from my lungs and managed to speak. “I’m not busy,” I confirmed in a small voice.
“Good, I won’t be long,” she said, her voice slightly wobbling, and as she straightened her spine she winced.
“Are you sure you’re—” I began, but she cut me off.
“I’m fine, Toby.” She glared at me, her deep green eyes darkening with fierce anger.
I stepped back and shook my head, then blew out another long breath. “I want an explanation,” I said and turned to walk away and wait for her in the gym.
“You won’t get one,” she muttered so quietly that I almost didn’t hear her. Almost.
I looked over my shoulder at her and raised my brows in a challenge. She sighed and headed into the locker room.
Once I was in the gym I began pacing, the large room was busy, but it would soon begin to clear out. I had no idea what she needed, she didn’t look like she would be able to do a lot, she looked like she might collapse in all honesty. Combat training was definitely off the table. She looked stressed, yoga would probably be perfect for her, but I was no yoga instructor, and she would probably slap me if I ever suggested it as a serious idea.
Or stab me?
“I’m ready, Tobias. Do your worst,” she said as she slowly approached me. I raised my brows at her again, and then looked her up and down.
“Where did you get those?” I asked, waving my hand up and down at her body. She had emerged fresh faced and dressed in a bright purple and turquoise matching shorts and bralette set, and had nothing on her feet. Not once in the last year had I seen her in anything so brightly coloured.
“Doesn’t matter,” she huffed and pushed past me, heading over in the direction of the punching bags. She grabbed a set of gloves from the shelf. “Come on,” she urged.
I watched her for a moment as she cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders.
“Do you really think that is a good idea?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips and staring her down.
“I’m fine, but I’m getting sick of repeating myself,” she snarled and began to rapidly pound into the hanging sack.
I surveyed her for a while, not giving her any direction or motivation, just watching, and giving her my best ‘you’re an idiot’ look.
“Argh.” She screamed as she stepped back a fraction and slammed her bare foot into the bag.
A couple of girls over on the treadmills turned to look at her. She shot them deathly glares and they quickly went back to focusing on their workouts and gossiping about their neighbour’s new boyfriend. Mal cursed under her breath and sagged to the floor beside the still-swinging bag.
“Are you done?” I asked in a clipped tone, making my way over to her.
She looked up at me and tears filled her eyes. Guilt washed over me for the way I had just spoken to her, and I dropped to the mat, sitting down beside her and tilting my head to one side, forcing myself to not touch her, hold her, no matter how much I wanted to. “Come on, Vixen. Tell me what happened.”
She blinked back the tears and cleared her throat. “No Toby, I can’t.”
She looked torn though, as though she desperately wanted to tell me something, but was what? Scared?
My mind whirled through various reasons for her turning up here in the state that she had, and it kept falling back to one unpleasant thought.
“Did he do this to you?” I asked quietly, and her eyes snapped up to meet mine.
Her brows pinched in confusion. “Who?”
“Lorenzo?” I whispered and leaned closer to her.
She sucked in a sharp breath as the realisation of how much I knew must have hit her. She tugged the gloves off of her hands and sighed.
“Not here,” she said, rising to her feet, then held her hand out to me.
I hesitantly took it, still not completely sure if I could trust myself around her. I cared for her, I wanted her, and I needed to hear whatever she was willing to tell me, but the second her skin touched mine I felt it, that instant pull that made me almost forget the consequences. The pull that made me want to take her away and say fuck it all.
She towed me out of the gym and down the wide corridor towards the double doors that led to the pool. She opened the door and searched the room; I didn’t bother to tell her that I’d known it would be empty. James had closed the pool off from the public half an hour ago, but I also knew he would still be around somewhere.
She pulled me through the doorway and dropped my hand as she went to go and sit at the side of the main pool. I moved past her and headed towards the door at the end of the room, it was just a storage cupboard, but I’d found James in there before, binging on chocolate. He had been mortified, but I promised I’d keep it a secret. I, on the other hand, didn’t care who knew what I ate. I might have been in the best shape of my life, but I still liked to indulge.
Once I’d ensured that the cupboard was empty, I sat down beside her and slipped off my trainers and socks. We both lowered our feet into the warm water, and I leaned back onto my elbows and waited for her to speak.
She gazed into the water, watching her feet as they kicked gently back and forth. Eventually, she opened her mouth.
“It wasn’t Lorenzo,” she said quietly, then turned to face me. “Why did you think that it was?”
She frowned down at me, but her eyes had softened, she wasn’t angry that I knew. Instead, she seemed confused.
I wrinkled my nose, trying to decide how much to say.
“You and him, you’re dating or something,” I said, more as a question than a statement, I wasn’t actually sure what they were. When Grey had come to warn me off, he had referred to Mal as Lorenzo’s girl, that could’ve meant anything now that I thought about it.
“Or something,” she agreed with a tight smile before turning back to face the water.
I pulled the elastic that had held my hair in its usual topknot, letting my hair fall loose, and ran my fingers through it. I wasn’t sure how far to push her, but I was worried about her.
“How the hell did that even happen?” I blurted and she twisted sharply back to face me.
“How the hell do you even know?” she snapped back, clearly irritated, but not at me, that was obvious by the way she pulled her lip between her teeth and cursed under her breath.
I was just a punching bag right now.
“Doesn’t matter,” I muttered. “What matters is that he’s a bad guy, little one.”
Her eyes flashed with some emotion that I couldn’t pin-point, but I continued. “I’m worried about you. You come in here tonight in that state.” My voice wobbled slightly, and I coughed to try to cover it up and sat upright. “Mallory, you were covered in blood.”
I knew that lines of worry were etched deeply on my face, but there was no way she could think that she could walk into my place of work like that and not worry me. Even though I had been pushing her away, she must have known that I would care.
“Not my blood,” she said, but it wasn’t enough,
I scoffed at her. “That’s not the point, what the hell is going on?”
I reached over to her and twisted my fingers between hers. She didn’t pull away. She let me take her hand, and she sighed heavily.
She looked down at where our fingers were entwined, and her grip tightened before she spoke. “I know he’s a bad guy, Toby. But so am I. You don’t need to worry about me, and I’m sorry for scaring you like that.”
“What do you mean you are too? You’re not giving me anything here, Vixen,” I pushed gently, running my thumb over the back of her hand.
“I’m one of them,” she said quietly and looked up at me, dragging her bottom lip between her teeth as she anxiously watched me for my reaction.
What? She was what?
“You’re… you’re a Brother?” I asked, almost certain that I was getting it all wrong.
She nodded, still chewing on her lip, and I released her hand. She bit harder, but I pinched her chin between my thumb and finger to gently tug her lip free.
“Stop that,” I gently chastised, “and explain, properly.”
She looked around the pool hesitantly. I stood up and walked over to the entrance, locking the door and giving her a reassuring smile. “Go on, Vixen, no one will hear.” I sat back down beside her and dipped my feet into the pool again.
“I’ll give you the short version,” she decided, and I nodded. I’d take any version so long as I got even a tiny piece of the truth from her.
She reached over to me then abruptly pulled away. I grabbed her, held her hand again, just like I had a moment ago, and gave her a stern look.
“Okay,” she said with a heavy exhale, “I joined The Brotherhood when I was nineteen, Lorenzo offered me protection if I joined them. I had done something that had caught his attention, but the consequences of my actions were likely to be really bad for me if I didn’t get help. At first Jason had tried to talk me out of it, but one meeting with Lorenzo was all it had taken for him to decide to join me and start initiation instead.”
She smiled sadly as she spoke about her brother, and I felt a stab of sadness for her.
“Jason died.” She looked up at me. “As you already know, and I was a mess, as you also know.”
I grimaced at the memory. She had tried to hide it, but she really had been a mess. In the end she got stronger, she was not that same girl anymore.
“I went after the guy who killed him, and I thought I had avenged Jase. I was on such a high, and I ended up in Lorenzo’s bed, well, not his actual bed.” She blushed. “But you don’t need details.”
She was right. Knowing that he’d had his hands on her, had done every filthy thing that I longed to do to her, it irritated the shit out of me. I still wanted her, no matter how badly I tried to convince myself that I didn’t.
“Lorenzo wouldn’t hurt me, not on purpose. As my boss he has to put me in dangerous positions, but it’s also my choice to be there too.” She grinned at me, the sadness leaving her eyes in a flash. “Toby, I am really fucking good at what I do, and a lot of that is down to you. I have quite the reputation in certain circles.” She squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to worry, tonight didn’t go to plan, but I survived it. And my bad mood, that’s mostly down to some complete arsehole who constantly insists on pissing me off.”
“What did they do?” I asked, curious to know what pisses this girl off enough to have her screaming at a punch bag.
“He saved my ass, then he almost kissed me,” she spat. And I choked on a laugh.
“Fuck, Vixen. This is a lot.” I threw my head back and stared at the ceiling. “Certain things are starting to make sense now though.”
She hummed in agreement. “Most accountants don’t take combat classes do they?”
I had meant that Grey’s threat made sense now, but I was glad that she’d presumed I meant something else. I didn’t need to be grassing up her Brothers and causing any tension for her at work.
“Are you even an accountant? Or is that just some big cover story?” I asked.
“No, I’m actually an accountant. Being an ass-kicking criminal isn’t as fulfilling as you’d think. Oh, and my name isn’t Mallory Clarke, It’s Mallory Fields.” She laughed lightly, and I smiled.
That wasn’t news to me, Grey had already dropped that bombshell on me, it hadn’t made sense at the time, but now it did. If I had been smarter, I could have asked around and aimed my questions towards the right people and found out who Mallory Fields was a lot sooner. But her hidden identity had been the first thing that I had pushed to the back of my mind. After his threat, all I had been able to think about was keeping my feelings to myself.
Mal flicked her feet a little harder in the pool, and grinned as she sent splashes of water into the air. It had appeared that opening up a little had diverted her bad mood, and although I was still attempting to process it all, I was happy about it. I’d do anything to see this girl smile.
“Do you feel better now?” I asked as she began to play with my fingers.
“I do,” she admitted. “I didn’t think that I would, and you’re taking it all really well.” She sighed and sadness flickered across her face.
“Did you not want me to?” I asked, confused.
“I guess, seeing as I’m being all open and shit with you tonight, no. I’ve been convincing myself that you’d never be able to understand my life. It’s been my way of making your rejection sting less.” She looked away, and my stomach knotted. I hated that I’d hurt her. I hated that I was hurting myself. “Now that I know you wouldn’t have freaked out, it makes it suck so much more.”
“Vixen,” I whispered and bit my lip, holding back the words I longed to say as she looked at me from under her lashes.
“You were lying when you said you didn’t want me, weren’t you?” she asked, raising her chin and searching my face.
I removed my hand from her hold and ran it through my hair. I couldn’t tell her the truth, even though she had just laid her own bare for me to see. But I also couldn’t repeat my lie to her again. “You’re a smart girl, make smart choices,” I told her. “That’s what I’ve done.”
I lifted my feet out of the pool and grabbed my trainers, making my way towards the door. My fingers hovered over the lock, and I turned back to her. She was staring at me with narrowed eyes, like she was trying to work out what I’d meant, wondering if there was a deeper meaning.
Like I had said, smart girl.
“I don’t want to,” she said sadly.
“Three men want you, Vixen. You can’t have them all, so you make the smart choice. Please.” I unlocked the door and walked out, leaving her sitting by the pool, in her clearly stolen gym clothes, and cursed under my breath.
Why the fuck had I just pushed her away, again?