Into the Black

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

“UGH, WHAT THE hell is this?” I asked.

“Green tea with pomegranate,” Toby replied, and I wasn’t imagining the smirk on his face.

“Am I supposed to drink it? Or use it to ward off evil spirits?”

“Green tea’s good for you. It’s full of antioxidants.”

“It’s full of something. Can I have my coffee back?”

“No,” he answered, pouring it down the sink. “You’re on a detox this week.”

Super. Rabbit food for every meal. The last time I’d been on one of Toby’s detoxes, I’d been forced to sneak out in the middle of the night for a cheeseburger. Somehow he found out, even though I burned the wrapper and buried the ashy remains in a flower bed.

Toby went through my new diet plan with me. It could have been worse—at least I was allowed solids. Last time, everything had been pureed like baby food, which made me kind of queasy.

Grilled asparagus, steamed turkey, carrots with every meal. Mountains of protein. Not the tastiest in the world, but it saved me from having to think about what to eat. All I needed to do was look at the chart stuck to the fridge door, find the correct meal inside, and heat it up.

“See? I’ve labelled each box with the day,” Toby said.

Even with my brain’s current underperformance, I could manage to decipher that.

I got out this morning’s breakfast, a bowl of chopped fruit with yoghurt and nuts, and Toby took a seat opposite. I don’t think he trusted me not to break out the waffles as soon as his back was turned.

And for good reason, I had to admit.

I’d just finished the last mouthful when Alex walked in. f**k. Who told him I was back? Alex was my personal trainer, and he made it his mission in life to send me on a trip through all nine circles of hell every day I saw him. When he walked into my kitchen that morning dressed in shorts and a vest, cracking his knuckles, I knew I was in trouble.

“You’re not dressed.”

I waved a hand at my jeans. “Uh…”

“Workout clothes. Now.”

Stalin’s modern incarnation made me run interval sprints for what seemed like an entire year. When my legs were so painful I could barely stand up, he moved onto my upper body, forcing me to do push-ups and pull-ups and dips until my arms gave way midway through a push-up and I collapsed into the mud.

Then the bastard refused to give me a piggyback ride back to the house, although he did offer to drag me if I couldn’t walk.

I staggered.

Alex let me have a brief respite over a lunch of quinoa salad with sliced turkey—thanks, Toby—then announced we’d be doing fight training in the afternoon.

“Who am I fighting?”

Please not him. I might as well lie on the driveway and get someone to drive a truck over me—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth—because it would have the same outcome but save an hour or so.

“Nick is here.”

Oh, thank goodness. Seconds later, Nick pushed the door open and stepped inside. I flung my arms around him out of relief.

“Whoa! That’s quite a welcome. You feeling all right?”

No, of course not. What was I even doing? I never showed emotion like that. Hurriedly, I dropped my arms and took a pace backwards. “How were things in England? Is Tia okay? And Luke?”

“Tia’s got a therapist helping her, but she misses you. You should give her a call.”

“I’m not sure Luke would like that. We didn’t exactly part on good terms.”

“He might have thawed a bit. I got the impression he’d been doing a lot of thinking.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing? What if I make things worse?”

“Promise me you’ll consider it.”

“I will.”

I didn’t promise I’d act, though. I’d already thought through the situation over and over as I lay awake at night, but I was no closer to working out what to do.

A shadow fell over us as Alex came over. “Are you ready?”

Nick seemed to shrink an inch or two under Alex’s piercing gaze, and I couldn’t blame him. Nick normally used his own trainer, but he’d heard my tales of Alex’s particular brand of motivation. Or punishment, depending on how you looked at it.

“We will start off in the cage,” Alex told us. “No gloves.”

“At least you’ve already done your quota of nose breaking for this week,” Nick said.

“Bradley’s got a big mouth.”

“He seemed quite annoyed. Apparently he got blood on his new Vans.”

“That mugger was damned inconsiderate. He made a hell of a mess.”

“Stop talking and fight,” Alex interrupted. “I am not waiting around all day.”

For twenty minutes, fists flew. And feet, and curse words.

“The man’s a sadist,” Nick muttered during a brief water break. “How do you put up with him?”

“Because he is so tough on me. The more I sweat in training, the less I’ll bleed in a real fight.”

“Or you’ll just die in training instead.”

“Well, that would mean I wasn’t f*****g good enough, wouldn’t it?”

And that was unacceptable.

Because I had to be f*****g perfect. My husband had drilled that into me over the years. At first, I was convinced I wouldn’t make it through the training tasks he and Alex set for me, but every time I cracked one of their evil games, I became a little bit stronger. Eventually, I’d believed I could do pretty much anything.

That confidence had taken a knock over the past few months, but every jab, cross, hook, and uppercut stirred my inner b***h. She was wide awake as I attacked the final sparring session of the afternoon. Alex made Nick come at me with a knife first, then a gun. It was my job to disarm him and take control of the situation.

“Nick, you’re not giving it everything. You’re holding back on me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You probably won’t, and if you do, it just means I’ve got improvements to make. If I’m fighting with somebody who’s trying to kill me, they’re not going to back off because I’m a girl or because I’ve had a rough couple of months. Now f*****g get on with it, will you?”

I’d always done that part of my training with my husband, and he’d never given it less than a hundred percent. I once had the broken arm to prove it. But I’d learned from that mistake, and he never came close to doing it again.

“Okay, okay. I’ll push harder.”

Nick flew at me, almost, but not quite, taking me by surprise. I blocked him by the skin of my teeth, and for the next half hour, we must have looked to the outside world as if we were trying to kill each other.

“Enough!” Alex said, his Russian accent still thick despite having lived in the States for years.

I sank to my knees, sweat dripping onto the mat. A purple bruise already marred my pale thigh, skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in too long.

Nick passed me a towel and laid an arm across my shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry I grumbled at you earlier.”

“Forget it. I knew you trained hard, but I never realised it was that bad.” He jerked his head at Alex. “Is he always like that?”

“Sometimes worse.”

Alex cleared his throat behind us. “I will be back in the morning.”

“I can hardly contain my excitement.”

Alex only laughed.

“I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow,” Nick said as the door closed behind Alex.

“Lucky you. I don’t get time off for good behaviour.”

“Just tell him you need a break. You’re paying him, after all.”

I sat down on a weight bench and propped my elbows on my knees. “Tempting. But the training’s good for me. My body’s the best weapon I have. If I take care of it, it’ll take care of me, and best of all, there are no problems getting it through security checks at the airport.”

“I wouldn’t want to come up against you in a dark alley,” Nick said, chuckling.

Like a switch had been flicked, memories welled up inside me. Despair overflowed as I dashed out of the gym, trying to outrun feelings I didn’t know how to cope with. Without thinking, Nick had reminded me of how I’d met my husband. The official story was that we’d got chatting in a London wine bar, but in truth, our paths had crossed in a far less civilised manner, and yes, there had been a dark alley involved.

How could I stand my ground against a mugger but not face up to my own mind?

As I sped blindly through the house, the slap of rubber soles on the tile told me Nick was following. My head told me I should stop, but something deeper inside controlled my feet.

I ran faster.