Chapter 1
Water sluices down from the shower head, washing away the sheen of sweat that covers my body. Droplets cling to the red roses on my right arm, trailing down to drip from the end of my amputated limb.
Fighting one-handed is hard as fuck, but I’m getting better at it.
Muscles I never knew existed before are sore from my training sessions with Ryland, and even though we’ve only been doing it for a few days, I can already feel my body strengthening and adapting.
Good. We’ll all need to adapt fast in this changing landscape.
I roll my neck as I step directly under the spray, letting the heat seep into my body. We just finished a two-hour sparring session where Ryland helped me make adjustments to the fighting techniques he’s teaching me to compensate for my missing limb.
He was nominated to be the one to teach me all of this stuff since, out of the three men, he’s the one who has formal martial arts training. Theo and Marcus are good fighters because they have to be—they’ve all learned to defend themselves with any weapon at their disposal—but Ryland has actual training in Jiu Jitsu and a couple other forms.
And now that we suspect Luca and the Viper are the same person, all three men want me to know how to defend myself.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been five days since our visit to Luca’s house. Five days since that quick glimpse at the tattoo on his wrist sent me reeling, my mind putting together the pieces of an elaborate puzzle and finally seeing the complete picture.
Luca has been playing everyone. His “game” was an elaborate setup, a distraction designed to pit the most powerful families in Halston against each other and allow Luca to fortify his control of the city.
We still don’t have proof.
All we have is the certainty that we’re right, a gut feeling that this entire situation is utterly fucked.
That’s enough for me, and it’s enough for the men.
But if we’re going to convince the other players that Luca is the real enemy, we’ll need a hell of a lot more than just our word. We need fucking evidence.
Unfortunately, that’s proving harder to find than I’d hoped. Luca has done a good job of distancing himself from the Viper, keeping the connection between those two names basically non-existent.
We’ll find something though.
We have to.
Letting out a breath, I grab the shampoo bottle from the small shelf set into the shower wall and pour some onto my dark hair. Then I set the bottle down and begin to work the shampoo into a lather. Sudsy water pours down my face and neck, and when I hear the quiet click of the door opening, I don’t open my eyes.
I know who it is.
There’s the soft shuffle of clothes being discarded, and a second later, the shower door opens. Even through the spray of the water and the sweet smell of the shampoo, I can pick up the soft bite of leather and the clean scent that I recognize instantly as Marcus.
He steps up behind me, the broad expanse of his chest brushing against my back as he takes over massaging the shampoo into my hair. He’s already half-hard, his cock pressing into my lower back, and his touch is both tender and rough as he rubs his fingertips against my scalp.
I make a soft noise in my throat, leaning back against him with my eyes still closed. “You could do that lower if you want.”
He grunts, but once he finishes with my hair, he moves his hands down to my shoulders, leaving the suds in my dark locks. His strong hands knead away the tightness in my muscles, sending a pleasurable shiver down my spine.