like worms in damp soil.
“She’s lucky that’s all I did. I could have dragged her to the training rooms and handed her off to Colton.”
Franklin chuckled, leaned a shoulder against a wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
“She’s asking for me. I assume she believes I’ll sweep in and rescue her.”
Straddling the bench, I continued toweling my body off, every muscle locked tight across my bones. It wasn’t enough. Rage ticked inside me like a volatile bomb that needed to remain steady, one wobble in the wrong direction and I would explode.
The next fights weren’t for another week. Holding off that long felt like it would destroy me.
“She screamed for a solid fifteen minutes after we locked her in that room. I stood outside for most of it. Her anger was a nice flavor for my morning coffee.”
Lifting my eyes to him, I grinned. “I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I did.”
The corner of his mouth quirked.
“Yes, and now I get to go handle the meltdown. What should I tell her?”
“That she’s a maid in our house now. And that she won’t be leaving for a very long time. She has a debt, and it will be repaid.”
“And if she refuses?”
“Then take her to the lower level floors and introduce her to the parts of her father’s business she never saw when she was a kid. I’m sure the truth might snap her into submission.”
His voice was careful with the next question, only because he was smart enough to know I’d already asked it myself.
“And if it doesn’t?”
Teeth grinding so hard that it locked my jaw, I tried not to think about what would happen if I were forced to take care of the problem.
The bitch affected me in ways I was struggling to ignore.
“Then I guess I’ll be the one to manage it.”
I shrugged, wrapped the towel around my neck and held it tight, my hands gripping the ends of both sides.
“As it stands, Gretchen knows to assign her to the worst this place has to offer, and if Lisbeth so much as whimpers in complaint, then she’ll be given a new job. The mansion is bad enough, but I suspect she’ll be begging to come back here if she were to be dragged to the pit.”
The bench seat creaked as I pushed to my feet, air rushing in to reshape the padding once my weight was no longer crushing it flat. I had no doubt that Edward and Gretchen would see to it that Lisbeth was punished in my absence, her grating screams driving them to the edge of their tempers within minutes.
Franklin was the only person who didn’t appear convinced, but I wouldn’t let it bother me.
“Speaking of, I think I’ll head to the pit myself. There are a few practice matches I’d like to watch. I hear Moritze is introducing his fighters to the arena now that the mess has been cleaned and the ground is solid again.”
He arched a suspicious brow.
“I hope you don’t think you’ll be stepping foot into that arena when the fights start again. Not until we have a better idea of how the new fighters behave. You’re far too important to be risking your life for vanity’s sake.”
Vanity.
It was the downfall of every member of the Rose family. For some, it was their beauty. For others, their intellect. For me, it was the driving need I had for violence, my hands aching with the need to crush bones.
I wasn’t worried about the new men Moritze had discovered. Most were common thugs pulled from the streets, no skill inside them other than that they’d learned to survive.
The arena was a hell of a lot more dangerous than the streets. Especially when two men entered, but only one would remain alive.
If it hadn’t been for the families that were wiped out on the night of Lisbeth’s ball, Moritze would never have risen up as a power within the circuits. If anything, the man was a bottom-feeder, a leech that played dirty because he didn’t have the balls or the intelligence to compete.
Every new man he brought to the arena was worse than the last. None lasted long, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to feed the slaughter. He was determined to prove himself as something more than the low level drug runner he’d been ten years ago, his patience thinning with each passing day.
Refusing to acknowledge what Franklin said, I grinned and grabbed my water bottle to swallow