A Taste of Darkness

Chapter 8: Sweet Dreams

Scarlett

When I entered the gym, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a room with a few treadmills, punching bags and weights, but not this. Somehow they found a way to perfectly design this room just as well as all the others, while this one room remains to be bigger than my whole apartment. There are multiple machines, deadlifts, weights, punching bags, and even a professional arena type boxing ring at the top of the room. To say I was impressed was an understatement.

"You're good. They only thing that we really have to work on is how to hide your tell. While we were sparing I noticed that you clench your right cheek every time you punch," Tatum points out. When I first walked in here, she was already waiting for me. I ended up learning that that she, the scar-faced woman who I met when I woke up in the other bedroom yesterday, is my selected trainer, which she told me after she introduced herself when the name of 'Tatum', along with Gianna, the green-eyed blond who I also first met when I arrived here yesterday. I knew I didn't need much training, I had already trained myself thoroughly in self-defence after an event that made me realise that it is an essential skill in life, and she seems to have noticed. She surprised me by also identifying my tell, no matter how hard I tried, I could never get rid of it. It was something that irritated me to the core, a weakness. Ever since a particular fist collided with it a couple years ago, it's never been the same since.

Some other men and women are here too. I guess it's a routine thing for them to all train together early in the morning. There were six of them apart from Gianna and Tatum, a woman and five other men. One of the men looked quite like Gianna, now that I looked closer. The same honey-coloured hair and emerald green eyes. The dark-skinned man who walked me to Julio's office yesterday was also among them, standing beside three other men I had never seen before.

"People could use it against you if they notice it when fighting you. But other than that, you're a natural," she adds to her previous statement, crossing her arms. I can see surprise in her eyes, but also respect and interest. She's curious about me.

I don't like it.

"Then let's work on it," I agree. Despite my hostility towards these people at the moment, I can't pass up an opportunity to get rid of one of my many annoyances.

Suddenly, I hear a sound of a door opening from behind me which causes my reflexes to turn around instantly to identify the cause of it.

I don't like the cause of it either.

Julio. He stands tall in the door frame, observing all of us quietly. It is then that I notice the lack of clothing covering his body. Gym shorts. Only gym shorts. His bare chest is out for everyone to see, the one thing I was right about was my previous judgement that the suit he was wearing yesterday hid a very sculpted body. It didn't do him justice. Hell not even what he was wearing now did him justice. He had eight very pronounced abs packed closely together covering his stomach, peaking out and standing taller than his level skin- Wait. . . I just counted them, didn't I?

His body was covered in tattoos, black ink dressing his beautifully tanned skin. There were so many that the majority of them blended together to make one large tattoo, I couldn't deny that they were beautiful designs. He was like a living piece of art.

But it's simply just a chemical response. It's nothing special and there's no underlying meaning behind this feeling. Frankly, I don't care. It doesn't change anything, I'd be crazy if it did. This deceiving appearance doesn't change the fact that I hate him, nor the fact that he's a criminal. And the worse kind, a mafia boss.

"She should fight with you, Julio," Tatum suddenly suggests out of the blue, out of nowhere.

I'm sorry. . . what?