Page 137 of Sins of Arrogance

Brice stops and turns to watch, the rest of his crew fol­low­ing suit. Our sol­diers take up po­si­tions along the wall to watch.

Brice tosses a roll of ath­letic tape to me and Rory gets one for Wraith. We wrap our wrists and hands in si­lence.

“Gloves?” Brice asks.

I nod.

We don’t use box­ing gloves in train­ing, but open-fin­gered ones like MMA fight­ers. They pro­tect our hands enough that we don’t usu­ally break bones, but al­low us to grap­ple and strike like we would in a fight with a real en­emy.

Some­times, I forego the gloves, but the fury that burns deep in­side me is too close to the sur­face. I want to ex­pend some of it, not kill my new re­cruit.

Brice hands me a pair of black MMA gloves. “Don’t kill the new guy boss. I like him.”

“He barely talks.”

My lieu­tenant se­cures and tight­ens the glove on my right hand. “That’s why I like him.”

Rory helps Wraith and we’re both gloved and ready to go.

I shake out my shoul­ders. “We go full con­tact, but no in­juries that’ll keep you out of com­mis­sion.”

Wraith cir­cles me the mo­ment I raise my fists.

He’s smart and doesn’t lunge. He watches, gaug­ing my moves and speed as I warm up.

“You ever train in Krav Maga?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Some.”

“Show me.”

He moves first and fast, an ef­fi­cient strike aimed at my ribs. I block, counter with an el­bow feint and step into his guard.

He doesn’t flinch.

Good. He knows that pain’s part of the process and isn’t try­ing to avoid it.

This might be the fight I need.

We trade blows, mea­sured at first, then harder. He lands a hit to my jaw that snaps my head back.

Adren­a­line surges and I grin at him through the sting. “That the best you got, fecker?”

Wraith doesn’t waste his breath taunt­ing me back. We cir­cle again. The si­lence stretches, punc­tu­ated only by breath and move­ment.

Strike. Block. Feint. Hit. Re­peat.

It’s a lethal dance we both know the moves to. He’s good enough that I start to re­lease some of the frus­tra­tion rid­ing me like a pissed off jockey.

The more Kara pulls away, the harder it is to hide the mon­ster in­side. The need to stake a claim she can­not deny gets stronger with ev­ery beat of my heart.

She’s up­set about the St. Michael’s medal­lion I gave Dier­dre. What she doesn’t know and I’m not about to tell her be­cause it’s mob busi­ness, is that I’m the one who lost the neck­lace.

I stole it and re­placed it with one with a tracker in it. We need to know where Dier­dre is go­ing when she and her body­guards leave the man­sion.

I could have put the tracker on her neck­lace be­fore find­ing it, but I knew if I gave Dier­dre some­thing new, she’d wear it ev­ery day to ir­ri­tate my wife.

What I didn’t ex­pect was for Kara to be up­set by it. We be­long to each other on such an el­e­men­tal level, Dier­dre isn’t even a buzzing fly in our life.