Page 99 of Yours for the Taking (Falling For A Rose)

More power-driven punches.

She said she loved him.

More punches.

Told him she was in love.

“Aaaaaah!”

He punched and punched, as bridled anger became scalding fury. Tears burst from his eyes, and he screamed, then dropped to his knees as the bag swung back and forth.

In an abundance of despair, awful agitating pain sliced through him like daggers.

He was a man broken, and the announcement of Carla at his gate went unnoticed over the wail of his cries.

* * *

Over the next several days,Jacob was MIA, and when the knock on his front door went ignored for the third time, Jonas used his emergency key to enter and search through Jacob’s home.

“Yo, Jay!”

Empty rooms greeted him, and they appeared untouched as if no one had lived there.

“Jay!”

He entered the kitchen and found two pieces of china in the sink.

“Well, that’s something,” Jonas said. “At least I know he’s been eating.”

He exited the room and strolled down the hall. After speaking with Luke, Jonas was worried about his brother.

Finding out that Carla was in the company of Lennox Jenkins, of all people, while dating his brother was more than disturbing.

As a natural fighter because of his ex-championship boxing skills, Jonas wouldn’t deny that his initial thought was to find Lennox and get down to the bottom of it in the ring or otherwise. But his brother could fight his own battles. At the moment, he was there for support alone.

“Yo, Jay!”

“I’m downstairs.”

Heading to the end of the hall, Jonas glanced down the thirty-something stairs into the basement to see his brother in basketball shorts, his chest bare, with boxing gloves on his hands. Next to him, Jack wagged his tail, then barked, his way of greeting Jonas.

Taking the steps two at a time, Jonas entered the full gym and immediately removed his shirt, flipped off his shoes, and grabbed a pair of Jacob’s sneakers that sat against the wall.

Grabbing the boxing mitts, he strolled up to his brother, who had gone back to the punching bag.

Glancing over at Jonas, Jacob eased up off the bag and turned to him, throwing punches at the mitts as Jonas held his hands up.

They worked in sync—hands up and down, two punches here, three here, a round of singular back-and-forth punches.

“You’ll get past this,” Jonas said.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

More punches as he worked the mitts.

“You always have. This won’t break you.”

Jacob’s punches became more vigorous, his gaze tight, focused as power pushed through his gloves.

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