Page 114 of The Venom We Bleed

She’s the kind of girl that’ll burn your house down and then fuck you in the ashes, and if that doesn’t make her the hottest woman I’ve ever known…

“You taken care o’ her?” Cory asks.

I take a step back from the old man and move to the cubbies as I call an answer over my shoulder. “Don’t worry about her, Cory. She’s tougher than she looks.”

“That ain’t an answer, boy!” Cory shouts.

I grab my bag from the cubby I’d chosen earlier and swivel to eye him across the room. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that Juliet Donovan is Scorpion property now, but I don’t. I hold it in. Juliet isn’t mine. She’s not any of ours—no matter how much we might want her to be.

“See ya later, old man,” I say instead, giving his frowning expression a wave as I turn and head to the exit.

The sound of footsteps behind me stops me from fully leaving the building though. Surprised, I turn back just in time for Cory to drop the iPad he’d been holding onto the front counter before heading in my direction. My brows lower and I pause, waiting there with my hand on the door handle.

“You let her know she’s welcome here whenever she needs a good bout of stress relief,” Cory says, his tone brooking no argument. It's not a question but a command.

I arch a brow. “That how it is?”

“Yeah.” He places his feet shoulder-width apart and stares at me. “It is.” It’s easy to forget that Cory wasn’t always just a small-town gym owner. He’s a calm presence that has a way of smoothing over even the roughest of guys. All kinds enter his gym from fighters to gangbangers to regular bar brawlers. They work out here to let loose some of their masculine anger, but it’s not the machines or the always well-maintained fight ring that brings them around again and again. It's this man right here.

Cory is a big man, but not the biggest I’ve ever known. Everyone around Silverwood knows Cory’s got some good connections up north in a place called Eastpoint. Unlike a lot of kids from southern Silverwood, he’d gotten out for a time—entered a talented program at a university there. Why he’d ever come back, no one knows, but one thing is for sure, Cory never let anyone get away with shit that wasn’t right.

He’s a great personal trainer, but he’s an even better ally. His strength isn’t in size, but in the way he cares about people, and to him, Juliet is one of those people now. When no one else gave a shit about her, he did. He taught her. He took her in. He gave her a place to release her anger.

Did Juliet know that when she came into his gym that first time or was luck just on her side?

I reach into my duffle and pull out the keys to my Firebird. “She’s gonna be just fine, Cory,” I assure the man. “We’re looking out for her.”

His brown eyes move from my face to the keys dangling in my grip. Cory flicks one of the longer dreads hanging down his shoulder back before leveling me with a wary look.

“You ain’t messin’ with her, is you?” he demands. “You and those boys o’ yers?” A cold sort of look enters the older man’s eyes, and for a second, I feel as if I’m staring into the face of a man who could go against my own father.

I put a hand up to ward off Cory’s anger. “She’s under our protection,” I tell him honestly. “If anyone can use it, she can.”

Cory’s eyes narrow. “You three ain’t known for offering up your protection for nothin’,” he says.

I repress a groan. Convincing Cory that we don’t mean Prep Girl any harm feels more daunting than the idea of seeing Allen Donovan, her actual father. “She’s … fuck, Cory,” I grit out. “I don’t know what to tell you. She’s different—at least, for us she is. We’re not fucking with her. Even if we were, do you really think she’d stand for it?”

Cory gazes at me for a bit longer before the tension in his body eases again and he rocks back on his heels with a decisive nod. “You right,” he admits. “She’d knock yer asses out.”

Yeah, she would. I shake my head and push open the door. “Now, I really gotta go or I’ll be late—and if you’re right, she’ll knock my ass out for that too.”

The husky laugh from the other man follows me out the door into the cold morning. A smile graces my lips and my hands clench around my keys. I start to reach for my phone in my pocket to let Juliet know I’ll be there soon when I realize I left it in my car. With a sigh, I head around the gym building and cross through the alleyway to the back lot.

I’m so focused on getting to my car that I don’t hear the sound of footsteps at my back until it’s too late. Frowning, I turn slightly just as something hard and rounded slams into the side of my head. Staggering as the jolt of agony shoots through my skull, I slam into the opposite wall of the empty building next door, hands scraping against the stone exterior. My duffle drops to the ground. My keys slip free from my fingers and my knees hit concrete. Air whooshes out over my head, but I misjudged my opponent, and a knee slams directly into my face on my way down. My vision tilts and blood spurts from my nose.

“Fuck!” The garbled curse ricochets up the walls as a body slams on top of me.

Ignoring the pain in my head and face, I kick out, my sneaker connecting with someone’s leg. There’s the deep baritone of a male voice and then a fist comes swinging towards my face a second time. I roll away, rocks and gravel digging into the thin barrier of my t-shirt and shorts.

The sweat still on my skin makes the dirt and grime stick to me as I struggle back to my feet, swaying. Liquid drips down over my upper lip and the vile taste of rust and blood fills my mouth. When my vision clears enough for me to see my attackers, I grit my teeth. There are three of them—covered in black from head to toe, black balaclavas over their faces to hide their identities. The first dives for me, fist outstretched, but Ispin out of his reach and shove him, face first, into the wall. There’s no time to enjoy the sound of bone on brick crunching and his responding scream before the second and third rush me at once.

I take a right hook to the face as I kick out at the other’s legs. Blood. Sweat. Pain. It fills me from the inside out. I fight—punching, kicking, panting, cursing. I struggle against them until my vision blurs again, going black at the edges. Something wet oozes down the back of my head and I realize that the first hit must have been done with an actual weapon of some sort.

I’m bleeding both in the front and back. Something slices through my t-shirt, right over my abdomen, and I gasp as pain cuts through my flesh—freezing in shock. The man with the knife leans in close, pressing his lips almost against my ear as he speaks.

His voice is even and clear. “We were asked to deliver this message,” he says. “Leave the Donovan girl or else.”

The knife is ripped free and I go down hard on my knees, the bits and pieces of rock and gravel on the alleyway floor cutting through the skin of my kneecaps. A cloud of dust rises around the front of my shorts as I cup two palms over my stomach.

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