CHRISTIAN
Osama gruntedas he got back up to his feet, wiping away the blood from his brow. The idiot laughed like I didn’t just punch him in the fucking face.
“You would think,” he released a heavy breath as he ran his taped hands through his hair. “That you taught me how to fight instead of the other way around.”
Sweat pooled at the back of my neck while I bit back with a smirk. “I didn’t take you as a sore loser.”
Osama guffawed and winced at the pain. “Fuck.”
“Are we done or are you planning on getting beat up even more?” Without letting him answer, I started unwrapping the tape around my hands.
Hand-to-hand combat became my coping mechanism because of Osama.
He’d been doing it his whole life and when we met in college, he convinced me to start doing it with him. There was nothing better than punching another person withoutthe repercussions of a lawsuit. The sweat, the pain, theadrenaline…It was an aphrodisiac.
The dingy warehouse smelled of sweat and oil. When I first bought the place, it was shit. Turning it into a personal gym was the best fucking decision made.
My eyes darted towards my phone resting on a worn-out bench.
“You realize you keep looking at your phone?”
Today was in the works for a while.Careful.Calculated.Controlled. Precautions were set in place for every possible mishap, but with the plan I curated… nothing would go wrong.
Osama strutted towards the ropes. “You realize the shit you pulled is insane, right?”
“How many times are you going to ask me that?”
“It’s a rhetorical question, smart-ass.”
Osama muttered something under his breath before following me out of the ring. He smelled sweaty as shit.
Grabbing a towel and my phone, I scrolled while wiping my neck.
She was everywhere.
Everything about Adelaide changed. Her short blonde bob-cut grew into long luscious strands of hair that reached mid-back. My fingers itched to run through them—-wrappingit around my hand. I squeezed my eyes shut.Fuck. I can’t think of her like that.Her tiny, lithe body conformed with extravagant dresses.
Adelaide once exuded confidence; I tightened my fingers looking at her now meek expression.
She was fine.
Even if she isn’t, it’s not your fucking problem.
Adelaide Mikael looked like the kind of woman little girls called a princess. All bright and full of smiles. She was the green in a field of black. She was rain after a drought.
Fucking nauseating, is what it was.
Scrolling further down, a video of reporters I sent popped up. She stared into the camera like a deer in headlights. My lips tightened when an all too recognizable man came into view and pulled her out of the shot.
“You might as well prepare for a war because if Eda finds out what you did, she’ll come for our throats.” I’d been prepared for the past seven fucking years.
“Eda won’t find out.” I shoved the phone into my shorts pocket. “Until I want her to.”
“This partnership you’re talking about is forcing Adelaide to marry you, Christian. It’sunethical. And when she finds out that you’re responsible for the girls…”
“Osama,” I snapped. “Adelaide won’t find out.”
She wasn’t a part of the plan. Sure, she was unintentionally going to help me succeed, but I wasn’t putting her in harm's way. Her use was temporary and afterwards, I’d make sure she wouldn’t be involved. Breaking up never meant hatingher, but it did mean hating those surrounding her.
