But maybe his father was right. Only monsters made it out alive.
CHAPTER 5
NORTH CAROLINA
Adria dodged the first blow and shot her right fist across her body.
“No, Adria, what do I keep telling you? You have to keep your hands up,” Eric said, taking a step back.
He moved behind her and adjusted her stance.
“If you want to hit me with this arm,” he grabbed her right wrist, “you need to twist at your waist and keep the left hand up, NEVER let your guard down.”
Adria nodded. “Again,” she said.
The two of them ran through drills until Adria’s limbs were jelly and sweat poured off her.
It had been a little over two months since the boys had left, and not a day went by that she didn’t think of them.
Thankfully, Frances hadn’t offered her any new work.
She needed some time.
They hadn’t gotten a chance to talk about what working would look like for her. Would the brothers think of it as cheating? Would they want to partake?
Adria shook her head. It was dangerous to think that they would care at all.
She wasn’t even sure how she felt about any of it. The only thing she knew was there were ten more months left in their contract. Ten more months with Elena.
Whoever she was.
Bryson had said that she wasn’t a girlfriend and Adria believed him. But she was still a beautiful woman, and eight weeks had gone by and she hadn’t heard from any of them.
“Shower and then dinner,” Eric said before patting her on the head and moving out of the sparring area.
Adria lay on the mat, breathing heavy. She was getting better at close combat. Eric was teaching her upgraded self-defense along with a style called Jujutsu. In this style of martial arts, the person’s size didn’t matter. Instead, it focused on your opponent’s size, and using it against them. That, along with unarmed strikes and immobilization techniques.
Boxing, Adria wasn’t so good at. Jujutsu, however, was right up her alley. She excelled and enjoyed the sparring matches with Eric. She had even almost won—once.
Adria passed the kitchen on the way to the shower.
The scent of moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew, filled the air, simmering gently on the stove. Eric was trying to cheer her up by feeding her one of her mother’s recipes.
A few weeks ago, the two of them had started going through her father’s office. Before the Winters boys, she couldn’t even walk down the hall to the north wing without breaking into a cold sweat. Now she was moving in and out of the room with ease. And for the first time in her life, she was able to go through her father’s boxes and files.
Most of it was junk, but they had found a purple tattered and yellowing cookbook that appeared to belong to her mother.
Its presence was a miracle—the item somehow overlooked during her father’s methodical erasure of Sofia Farias from their lives. Each stained page was a lifeline to a woman whose facegrew hazier in Adria’s memory with each passing year. When she traced her fingers over her mother’s handwritten notes in the margins, or inhaled the lingering scents of turmeric and bay leaf trapped between pages, Adria could almost hear her mother’s voice again, and could almost feel her presence in the kitchen.
“What do you think?” Eric asked between bites.
Adria took a large spoonful into her mouth, garlic and spice hitting her tongue. It had some heat, but the coconut milk cooled the tongue before the spice became unbearable.
“Really good,” she said, nodding.
It was the truth. The soup was delicious; however, it didn’t have its desired impact. The flavors were subtle and palatable, but when her mother made it, they were bold and intense. Adria couldn’t help but notice her absence and, as a result, ruminate on the other absences as well.
“Why don’t you just call her?” Eric said.
