Page 35 of Devious Knight

Any man with eyes would be attracted to Isabelle Kolyav. Those same men would do their best to get with her, but my friends aren’t going to do it on my watch.

Dmitri and Logan also like sharing girls. I don’t share like that. And I will never share her.

“We were just getting warmed up.” Dmitri takes off his skull mask and tucks it under his arm.

“Exactly. So I’ll take it from here.”

Dmitri smirks, catching my meaning. “As you wish, boss.”

I give him a clipped smile. He likes the idea of messing around with Isabelle, but that’s because he can’t have who he wants.

He’s never told me this but I know he has a thing for Mackenzie. He just won’t touch her because of the feud between their families. He won’t risk pissing off his asshole father who has always compared him to his brother.

“What are you going to do with her now? She’ll be curious.”

“I’ll play it by ear.” I glance back to the bushes, staring at the empty path as if I can still see her there.

“And the Malina snitch?” Logan asks with a wicked smile.

The snitch is the first on my list to eliminate. “Now that’s where the real fun begins. Tomorrow night we’ll kick his ass and destroy his drug den.”

“Alright.” Logan and Dmitri high-five each other and I grin back at them.

That drug den brings in half a million a week. It will be the perfect first move to light a fire under Nickoli’s ass. The best part is he won’t know who started it.

“You’re going to need those masks.”

We used to wear those skull masks at Halloween when I moved up to New York. They were perfect for getting up to all kinds of trouble.

It was Dmitri’s idea to resurrect them. They worked well to scare Isabelle and we’ll make use of them again tonight to scare the real bad guys.

I have everyone exactly where I need them to be.

Especially the girl.

I can’t wait to make my next move.

Sunlight streams through the large windows, highlighting the dust particles that dance in the high beams of the training room.

Thorne raises his bo staff into the air, his stance solid and centered. I do the same with mine, stepping forward, getting ready to strike.

We’ve been doing a Kung Fu-based training every morning at five a.m. for the last three weeks.

We train for an hour, fighting with everything we have.

Thorne strikes, flipping his staff around his body at lightning speed before thrusting it toward me.

I evade, surprising him like I did yesterday.

All these weeks of training and it was only then that I was fast enough to move out of his way.

He almost smiles and I feel a sense of hope spark inside me. I can see in his eyes that he thinks I’ve improved.

That’s a big deal. Thorne Ivanov is one of the best fighters I’ve ever come across.

The wooden floor creaks under his feet as he advances forward with a series of quick strikes. I counter each one with my staff, feeling the impact reverberate through my upper body. The exchange is fast, almost too fast to track, each of us testing the other's defenses and reflexes. His movements are sharp and precise, a testament to years of disciplined training.

I am the student humbling himself in front of the master so I can learn from him. To be him. And better.

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