Page 38 of Worth

He sighs, the sound relieved. “There’s that look, Kitten. Fuck, I missed it. Don’t ever let it go away again, okay?”

I don’t know what look he’s talking about, but I don’t fucking care. Blake’s on her feet and doesn’t look like she’ll be crawling back into bed to rot anytime soon. Mission accomplished.

I stride past them to the door without a glance back, but I can tell without looking that Blake has her gaze trained on me. The only problem is, I can’t tell if it’s out of gratitude…

…or if she’s planning how she’s going to murder me in a more ridiculous way than my brother.

Chapter 13

“Again.”

I swipe at my forehead, smearing sweat over the back of my hand. Aiden gestures impatiently for me to attack him again, and he’s panting from the exertion of the last hour. Our training sessions have become harder and longer since Zander forced me to get up a couple of weeks ago, making me sore and bruised from the exercises in a way that Aiden hasn’t let me get before.

I know why. I can feel his desperation to draw me out; to bring back the Blake that wasn’t ice cold. Except, the problem is, if I’m not detached, I fly into a rage. Aiden has twice the amount of bruising to prove it. Regardless, he seems to prefer that to the emotionless version of me.

Once he realized using weapons would bring me out of that place quicker, after a few days of trying to pull it out of me, he started having me work with different ones. Every day he’s been having me practice maneuvers and offensive attacks with guns, switchblades, axes, machetes, and more. I don’t want to admit it to him, but it helps ease the rage burrowed inside me when I get to decimate things.

Today, though, he wanted to focus on hand-to-hand combat.

I keep light on my feet, guarding my face, and launch my right leg into a kick. Aiden leans into me, catching me around the thigh and yanking me off balance. He drags me as I try to find leverage to pull away. With a twist, I’m spilling out to the ground, rolling to a stop flat on my back. Without stopping my momentum, I swing my legs up, catching him at the ankle.

It doesn’t take him down, but it does make him lose his footing. I use that to my advantage to find purchase and rip myself from the ground, catapulting myself into him, my shoulder slamming into his ribs as I embrace him. We hurtle backwards, toward the ground, and Aiden grunts as he smacks into the grass. I stick my pointer finger into the side of his neck before he can recover, mimicking putting a knife in his jugular, effectively ending the fight.

I push myself off Aiden without pause, getting to my feet and shuffling back, bringing my hands up to guard again. On the balls of my feet, I shift back and forth from left foot and right, ready to go as soon as he’s up and ready.

But he doesn’t get to his feet. Instead, he sits up in the grass with a groan as he stretches. When it becomes clear that he isn’t planning to get up, I lower my arms and look away, across the property to a cluster of trees.

For a brief second, I let myself think about the kiss we shared; about how much I’d wanted him to touch memorethen; about how much it had surprised me I was receptive to that.

Now, that feeling is gone. I’m empty. I feel vengeance and resolve to learn enough to take down those who have wronged me. Beyond that, though? I have blocked out everything else.

“You’re good, Kitten,” Aiden says, drawing my attention back. “In a physical way. Technique is there. Posture, stance—all good. You’re a natural. But other than basic proficiency, your hits mean nothing. I was hoping, when I felt you holding back before, that you would grow into letting it happen. Instead, we’ve gone the other way. You’re worse than you were before The Warehouse.”

I furrow my brows. “I just took you out.”

He shrugs, hopping lithely to his feet. “I could have killed you one hundred different ways before then.”

I let out a frustrated noise and plant my hands on his chest, shoving hard enough to make him stumble. “Why are you taking it easy on me?” I spit.

One second Aiden is eyeing me with a dissatisfied expression, and the next his hand is knotted in my hair, yanking my head back. My breath catches in my throat as he comes nose-to-nose with me, his eyes burning with molten fury.

“Because,” he snarls. “If I were tonottake it easy on you, you would get hurt. You’re going through the goddamn motions, Kitten.”

“I am not go—”

Aiden’s hand tightens, and a whimper escapes my throat. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asks, and I instantly know he doesn’t mean the way he’s pulling my hair. “It hurts every day. You wake up hurting, go through the day hurting, and go to sleep hurting. You consider how much less painful it would be to die. And youwantto die. Don’t you, Kitten?”

I can feel the ocean of pain battering at the dam I’ve cemented into place in my head. “No.”

“Yes. You think I haven’t wanted to die, Blake? You think every time I was sold again as a kid, or every time I was whipped for trying to eat something besides my owner’s food scraps, or every time a man bought me so he could stick his dick in my ass while I screamed, that I didn’t want to die?”

I’m crying, tears streaming down my face. I try to close my eyes, look away; to keep from seeing the pain reflecting into mine from Aiden. He won’t let me. With a yank of my hair, my eyes fly open to stare back into his again.

“You can’t shut down what you feel if you want to win,” he says, his voice softening. “You have to draw from the pain. You have to embrace every fucked-up thing that was done to you. You have to focus everything you’re feeling into your strikes. You have to pull strength from your anger.”

He lets me go, and it takes everything in me not to slump to the ground. Without preface, he lifts his hand into a guarded stance and cocks a brow at me with a silent challenge.

Sweat pours down my face as I move into the correct stance, and it isn’t from exertion or heat. My hands tremble when I lift them.

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