Bound (Mastered 1)

Find the eye of the storm and center yourself against it.

Ronin counted to sixty.

No change. His rage still fought to get free.

Again. Look deeper for the calm.

He counted off sixty more clicks on the clock.

Then sixty more.

And sixty more after that.

When he reached the three hundred mark, he’d lost any semblance of control.

Ronin picked up the closest chair and hurled it against the window. Glass shattered and the wall shook from the force of impact. But the explosion of sound quieted the fury that’d overtaken him.

Good. He’d found a coping mechanism. He grabbed another chair and threw it into the wall. Harder than before. It bounced off the counter, sending the coffeepot crashing to the floor.

He’d reached for the next chair when the door behind him opened.

Knox said, “Jesus, Ronin. What is going on?”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

The next thing he knew, Knox had broken his grip on the chair and had shoved him against the wall, wrapping his hand around Ronin’s neck in a submission hold.

For once, Ronin didn’t bother to fight back.

Knox snarled, “There’s nothing to see here,” to someone who’d entered the room. “Get back to class and shut the goddamn door.”

Normally Ronin would worry that one of his students had seen his loss of control, but right now he didn’t give a shit.

After the door closed, Knox hissed, “What the f**k is wrong with you?”

“If you ever want to use this hand again, you’ll remove it from my throat right f**king now, Shihan,” Ronin snarled.

“Convince me you won’t go on a rampage, Sensei, and I’ll back off.”

“I can’t. So why don’t you just beat the hell out of me?” Ronin grabbed Knox’s wrist, forcing more pressure against his own throat. “And you’d better make it count because I won’t go down quietly.”

Knox didn’t back off. In fact, he increased his choke hold. “Don’t tempt me. But since I know your preferred method of dealing with pain is to get the shit kicked out of yourself, I’m gonna pass.” He let go of Ronin and stepped back, but blocked him against the wall. “The better torture for you is to make you talk. So what happened?”

“Amery.”

“What about her?”

“She walked out.”

“Why?”

“She found out . . .” Jesus, he needed to get some modicum of control. He inhaled and let the air out slowly. “My sister set up a private meeting with Amery and revealed my family connections to Okada Foods.”

“Your sister is here in Denver?”

“Apparently. I’d like to wring her neck. Send her back to Japan with a clear message for my grandfather.”

Knox opened his mouth. Shut it.

“What?”

“You’re blaming your sister for Amery leaving?”

“Who else am I supposed to blame?”

Knox raised his eyebrows. “Yourself? Since you should’ve told Amery months ago about your family? Then it wouldn’t have been such a huge shock.”

“Fuck off.” Ronin jammed his hand through his hair, dislodging the elastic band holding it back. “For three and a half years I’ve refused any direct contact with my family’s business. Three and a half years,” he repeated. “And the first time I tried to do something to help someone, they immediately start meddling in my goddamn life again.”

“Then fix it. Track Amery down and talk to her. Then deal with your family shit. You’ve been avoiding it for too long.”

“I can’t go to Amery now.”

“Christ, Ronin, you are the most stubborn—”

“Look at me.” Ronin held out his hands. Normally so steady, even after hours of working out, but right now he shook violently. “I can’t trust myself around her when I’m like this. I don’t have any control. The last time I felt this way and I ignored it?” He finally met Knox’s gaze. “I ended up hurting her. I don’t leave a f**king mark on her when she’s bound, but the one time . . .”

“After the match in Fort Collins?” Knox finished for him.

He nodded. “So I can’t even be in the same room with her until I’m calmer.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, showing Amery how her leaving affected you.

“Along those same lines, you’re done teaching today.” Knox pointed to the destruction in the room. “Clean up your mess. Before you do anything else.”

“I plan on it.”

But Ronin wasn’t talking about broken windows and dented walls. He’d fix this mess with Amery—no matter what it took, no matter what it cost him.