Shattered (Anderson Special Ops #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,52

past as she watched her only child throwing punches, giving kicks, and tossing an oversized dummy around as if it was nothing more than a store mannequin. She knew from when he’d first begun his training at the age of twelve, that the dummy was a martial arts tool used to simulate the weight of an actual human, and how to train a person to flip what was best described as dead weight.

The dummy Smoke was using was bigger than what he’d used at the height of his training at home. She got him involved in Krav Maga as she became worried he might be getting involved in the wrong crowd. She’d done everything in her power to lead him in the right direction — and from the man he’d turned into, she gave herself a pat on the back for a job well done.

He didn’t see her standing there, and instead of snapping at him as she’d been planning on doing for waking her, she leaned against the door frame and watched him work. He picked up the dummy in a bear hug and flung it and himself to the ground, then jumped back to his feet in a flash as he swung one arm beneath the dummy to lift it high before slamming it back down to the ground again with a force that made her shudder. She couldn’t imagine being a live person on the receiving end of all of that power. It was humbling to her that he’d once been a baby in her arms. Her little boy was certainly a grown man now.

She watched his routine for a solid fifteen minutes, watching him move with grace and precision. He’d improved so much from his teenage days. She’d seen many of these moves so many times in the past, she could practically do them herself — well maybe not right then, given how sore she was. Hell, she’d have a difficult time bending down to tie her shoes at the moment after her unexpected night of dancing.

She was about to turn away, deciding not to scold him for waking her, when she stopped and really looked at his face as he continued to destroy the dummy. There was an aggression in her son she hadn’t seen in quite some time. He was pushing himself hard — harder than normal, and he seemed to really want to destroy the dummy. She watched him go through a few more rounds and she had no doubt he was hurting — and not physically.

“Boo, what in the world are you doing to that poor doll?” she finally asked, startling Smoke. The fact he hadn’t seen her there watching him showed just how off he was. She’d never before been able to sneak up on her son, not since he was about eight. He’d had a natural instinct to know everything happening around him, even as a child.

Smoke stopped and looked at her, sweat dripping from his forehead, his breaths coming out in pants. He was pushing himself, but he wasn’t anywhere near as exhausted as someone should be with the intensity of the workout he’d been performing.

“What kind of training is this, Boo? I’ve watched you since you were twelve, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” she told him.

“Like what?” Smoke asked, obviously still lost in his thoughts.

“What in the world are you doing to that dummy? You’ve always trained hard, but something besides training is going on here,” she said, stepping forward from the shadows as Smoke moved over and grabbed a towel, wiping the perspiration from his gleaming forehead.

“Did I wake you, Mom?” he asked. Before she could answer, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I obviously did. I couldn’t sleep, and I was trying to clear my head,” he told her.

“You clear your head by destroying inanimate objects?” she asked. “I don’t remember Mr. Yaniv teaching this type of a lesson. I remember him being a perfectionist.”

Smoke smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “If you’re going to do something, do it again and again, and get it right every single time,” Smoke said, repeating a phrase from his teacher from years before.

Laysha wanted to parent Smoke. She knew that would never end. She’d always been hard on him, not allowing him to make excuses when he did something wrong. It worked. Because of the neighborhood she’d been forced to raise him in, she’d known she’d have to push him harder than anyone else in his