𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂 ❶

𝟐𝟗. ✭ 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐒𝐀 ✭

"Come on, fists up." Dani lets out a frustrated breath. The girl has zero muscle mass and an hour of training has left her out breath, barely able to hold her arms up. I shake my padded hands with, "just a few more sets and we can take a break.

"That's what you said several sets ago." She throws a few jabs to my right hand and then my left. "I don't get what the point of training me is anyway."

"The point," I toss both pads to the ground, "is that when someone does something like this," I make quick work of putting her in a guillotine choke, "you'll either know what's going on before it can happen and be able to defend yourself or," she lifts her arm, trying to get me to loosen up which does nothing but further choke her, "I wouldn't do that. Like I was saying, or be able to defend yourself."

"Mom—" I loosen my grip and let her go. She drops to the mat like a sack of potatoes, fighting to regain her breath. That has Torey catching my eyes angrily through the mirror as he lifts an immense amount of weight back and forth between arms. "You can't throw everything at her on the first day."

"Well, someone has to. She needs to be prepared for anything because you and Brooks might not always be around to save her. A woman must learn how to save herself." I hold a hand down to her but she just glares at it. "You have a son that needs protecting. If not for anyone else, learn for him." She reluctantly takes my hand and lets me pull her up. Her legs are a bit wobbly when she tries to get her footing, they've been that way for the entirety of our training. "It appears you've had a night full of entirely different type of training. You've been wobbling around like a baby giraffe." Her face reddens at that and I hear the weights in Torey's hands fall to the floor.

Dani and Torey's eyes meet and I see the passionate fury raging in my son's blazing-blues. Even as a child Torey hated to share. It appears he's still much the same way. Dani, seemingly needing to be relieved of the intensity of his stare, looks over her shoulder at Brooks. The man hadn't heard my statement, clearly, by the way he's power-running on a treadmill. Dani doesn't need to verbally confirm because the look on her face tells me everything I need to know. Brooks had kept her up late working out in a much different fashion.

Her face is hungry, anticipatory. The little minx pretends she doesn't have the stamina to continue here. She's definitely got the stamina. I laugh silently to myself.

There's an angry grunt off to my left which has me glancing back to my son, who is taking his lifting gloves off in agitation. He's pissed. His eyes are boring holes into the back of Dani's skull through the mirror.

Good thing he can't see the way she's looking at Brooks.

When we'd eaten dinner last night he'd skulked over the entire meal to the point where I had to kick him under the table to get him out of his funk. He'd acted like a twenty-eight-year-old toddler.

"Knives and guns after we eat lunch." I said to Dani, breaking her sex-stare from the blond man covered in sweat. When her eyes find mine again she looks a lot less enthusiastic. That man must be killer in the bedroom. I wonder if he's got a big di—

"I know how to handle a gun so why do I need to learn how to use knives?"

I give her a devilish grin. "Because it's family tradition, of course."

"She's not family. She just had my kid. That's it." Torey throws his gloves on the ground before stalking off to the showers.

Dani watches him, looking like she almost wants to cry. That has me giving her an angry huff with, "if you let him treat you like that then he's going to continue to. I mean, if that's your thing then whatever but Torey needs to be put in his place. You shouldn't let him talk to you like that."