"Whoa, man. Sorry," I say, backing up a step. It's like he was waiting there for me in the shadows, ready to f.u.c.king pounce.

He doesn't say anything about the fact that I almost crashed into him. He does pierce me with a very appraising glare, though. "Must be weird walking through the door when it's already open, huh?" he says. His voice sounds like it's coming up from somewhere around his G.o.dd.a.m.n boots. Vin Diesel's got nothing on this guy.

"Yeah, a little." I attempt a smile, but it feels all wrong with him staring at me like that. I feel like I should be groveling or something. Shame my pride won't ever let me do that. "So...you said I could train here, remember? With you?"

"Oh, I remember." He doesn't say anything else. Just stands there with his arms folded across his chest, his freakishly large muscles bulging out of the long-sleeved black shirt he's wearing. He keeps staring at me; it's starting to make me sweat.

"If you're busy, I can come-"

"Oh, I'm not busy," he says, with a grim, downturned smile on his face. "Come with me." Turning, he stalks off through the gym, apparently oblivious to the looks he's given as he pa.s.ses people sparring or just working out. Every last guy in the place follows him with their eyes like he's some kind of f.u.c.king G.o.d. They watch him until he reaches a metal stairway, jogs up them and disappears through a lit doorway at the top. I stand at the bottom, wondering whether I'm supposed to follow him. That question is answered when he appears in the doorway again, and leans against the doorjamb. "Come the f.u.c.k on, Mason Reeves. You expecting me to carry you over the f.u.c.king threshold or what?"

I rush up the stairs, kicking myself for not just following him straight up. Now I look like a d.i.c.k. Perfect.

I find myself in a small, incredibly neat office. The huge guy with the muscles pulls out a chair from behind his desk and places it right in front of me. "Sit down."

"What? Why?"

He glowers at me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I get the urge to turn around and run back down the stairs, but I don't. I can't. I can't ever turn my back on a problem. That's exactly what this guy could be to me, it seems. "Just. f.u.c.king. Sit. Down," he growls.

I grimace, but I do as I'm told. The guy walks around me and faces me, arms crossed again. "You into drugs?" he asks.

"No."

"You steal s.h.i.t?"

"No."

He crouches down in front of me so we're at the same eye level. "You run cars?" By the way he asks, he knows exactly what goes on across the road at Mac's place.

I look him right in the eye and firmly say, "No."

He stares at me some more, probably trying to work out if I'm lying. After a second he straightens up and starts pacing the room. "You involved with the Italians? The Russians?"

I know about the Italians. A couple of brothers from out east, expanding their business, raising some h.e.l.l here and there. The Russians, I know nothing about. I shake my head, letting him know I don't work for either group.

The guy a.s.sesses me some more. The way it feels like he can see straight through me is more than a little unnerving. "You about to ask me out on a date or something?" I snap.

"Watch your f.u.c.king mouth. You wanna walk down those stairs in a moment or you want your a.s.s thrown down them?"

I refuse to answer him. Instead, I just fix my gaze on the wall, clenching my jaw. The guy paces again, and I avoid looking at him.

"My name is Zeth. Like I said yesterday, you can come here and train with me a couple of times a week. But you step outta line f.u.c.king once, and you're gone. You hear me?"

I suddenly feel really G.o.dd.a.m.n sick. Zeth? I may not know a great deal about the organised crime in this town, but I sure as h.e.l.l know that name. Mac used to have to pay dues to Charlie Holsan before he died. Nearly twenty percent of his profit from both his legit and illegal businesses went into that crazy English b.a.s.t.a.r.d's back pocket. News spread like wild fire when he was killed, and there was one name on everyone's lips: Zeth Mayfair.

Mac closed the shop early the day he heard. He bought three bottles of Johnny Blue and kept pouring shots for his employees until every single one of those bottles was empty. Each time he lifted that shot gla.s.s to his mouth, the toast went to Zeth Mayfair. Does Mac have any idea that the guy who nearly gave him alcohol poisoning runs the gym over here? f.u.c.k knows. I sure as s.h.i.t ain't gonna tell him.

I can't believe I broke into his f.u.c.king gym. No wonder the guys down on the floor all look at him that way. The guy's notorious.

"I said," Zeth ducks down in front of me, "do you hear me, a.s.shole?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course, man. I won't step out of line, I swear." Not now I know who you are, anyway. I'm not f.u.c.king r.e.t.a.r.ded.

"All right. Go down to the lockers and grab a pair of gloves and a head guard. Mauy Thai today. Wait for me by the cage. I have a phone call to make."

It was one thing being in a ring with this guy when I didn't have a clue who he was, but now that I know he's a stone-cold psycho and he wants to shut me in a cage with him, I'm having second thoughts. He can probably feel my hesitation pouring off me. "You don't want to, that's fine by me. Go hit a speed bag for forty minutes on your own, see what you learn. Either way, get the f.u.c.k out of here so I can make my phone call."

He doesn't need to tell me twice. I'm up out of the chair and jogging down the stairs before he can blink. The door to his office slams closed behind me, and I feel a bead of sweat run down between my shoulder blades. Jesus Christ. I should get out of here before he comes down, and I should not f.u.c.king come back. The guys training around me shoot me curious looks, as though they weren't really expecting me to make it back down here again. I shake my head as I pa.s.s them, counting myself lucky that I did. I should just go home and grab Millie. I can figure out another way to train for the fights without the risk of a.s.sociating myself with a guy like Zeth f.u.c.king Mayfair. But even as I'm hurrying across the gym floor in a direct beeline for the exit, my mind is already racing. What other option do I have to train? Especially an option that's as good as this? I mean, training with him? That's like being trained by De Silva or something. He might be crazy and he might have killed the worst mob boss Seattle has ever seen, but that also means he's the best. Where else would I get training like that? And for free?

I know, even as I'm slowing down, that I'm not gonna make it to the exit. The sigh that works its way out from deep inside my chest feels like resignation, tinged with a little panic. This could go bad for me. This could go really f.u.c.king bad. As I make a course correction, reluctantly heading for the lockers, I look up and see the man himself watching me from the window of his office. He's holding a cell phone to his ear and his mouth is moving, but it's clear his attention is solely fixed on me.

I wonder why the h.e.l.l he's doing this.

Chapter Six.

Sloane "No, that's fine. I don't mind. I was...I was kind of hoping to go out for a drink with Oliver tonight anyway." I don't lie to Zeth. I know he won't like me going out with Oliver, but he's not my keeper. He's never tried to be. And besides, it sounds like he's got his hands full with this new kid at the gym. He called to tell me he was going to be home late, so he really can't say anything at all about me heading out after work.

And so he doesn't. Not a word.

"Zeth? Are you plotting ways to kill my friend?"

"No. Just thinking."

"You're not angry?"

"Should I be? Is he gonna try and lay his hands on you?"

"No."

"Then Oliver Ma.s.sey is of little concern to me, Sloane." I can hear the wicked smile in the tone of his voice. "I mean, why the h.e.l.l would I need to worry about him when you have me, anyway?"

He's an arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d sometimes, but he makes me laugh. He also has a really good point. There isn't a man alive on this planet that can come close to being anywhere near as s.e.xy, thrilling, scary, alluring, or terrifying as him, all in one go. "Good to know your ego's fighting fit this evening," I laugh.

"Every part of me is fighting fit, Sloane. Always."

"Oh, G.o.d, I'm going before your modesty overwhelms me and I fall to my knees in worship."

"I like when you're on your knees, worshipping me. Or worshipping a certain part of my body, anyway."

Just hearing him talk about me going down on him makes my body tremble a little. I thought my inexperience in that field would mean I would be terrible at it, but turns out, despite how Zeth has command over me at every other single moment we're in bed together, I have total power over him when I use my mouth.

As I hang up the call, being wrapped up in him, feeling his hands over me, his mouth on me, my mouth on him... it's all I can think about.

I don't think I'll ever get enough.

My thoughts of Zeth are rudely interrupted three minutes later by my pager-911. An emergency. Great. And there was me thinking I was going to get out of the hospital at a reasonable hour tonight.

A drunk driver smashes through the central reservation of the freeway, hits a school bus carrying twenty-three teenagers home from a trip to McCaw Hall, where they were seeing Swan Lake. Five teenagers are dead. Thirteen are injured. The drunk driver went head first through the windscreen of his Tacoma, and the EMTs have reported visible brain matter on the scene.

Who do you help first?

Oliver is shouting something over the bedlam taking place in the emergency room. I can barely hear him, but I've gotten pretty d.a.m.n good at reading lips since I started this gig. He has a kid with internal bleeding who needs an urgent CT scan. He's taking her upstairs right now. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with the guy on the gurney who, I'm pretty sure, would go up in smoke if he were anywhere near an open flame. Flammable skin, flammable clothing, flammable breath, for crying out loud. By the smell of it, his pungent odor is because he's been bathing in Jim Beam. And drinking his bath water while he was at it.

I hear Oliver this time. "You gonna be okay down here?" he yells.

I give him a short, curt nod, which is all he needs before he vanishes through the swinging doors toward the elevator with his patient. Somewhere on the ER floor, a girl starts screaming at the top of her lungs. She's not in pain. I know what agonized screams sound like all too well. No, she's grieving. Make that six dead from the school bus.

As doctors, we're not allowed to differentiate between our patients while we're helping them. They could be serial killers, ma.s.s murderers, rapists, drug dealers...we're not allowed to treat them any differently than we would if we were treating any other civilian. That's not to say staying calm is easy, though. And it sure as h.e.l.l isn't easy to refrain from cursing them as you a.s.sess the damage to their bodies.

"f.u.c.king a.s.shole," I growl, unwinding the temporary bandaging the paramedics have put around the guy's head. He moans something, maybe in pain, and I nearly drop the shard of his skull that falls out of the packing material. Holy s.h.i.t. They weren't wrong about the brain matter. The guy has a two-inch wide hole in his head, and I'm holding the missing piece of his cranium in my hand, complete with scalp and hair.

A long time ago, I remember when the very sight would have turned me green and had me vomiting in the intern's bathroom. Now, the piece of this guy I'm holding in my hand is nothing more than a broken part of a machine that I have to fix.

Hours later-hours, and hours and hours-I emerge from the operating room, feeling rather pleased with myself. Not only did I manage to fix the hole in the driver's head, but I also had to think fast and mend his internal bleeding. Jerk didn't deserve the time we spent on him, perhaps, but hey. At the end of the day, it's not my job to judge people. It's my job to make sure they're alive so someone else can in a court of law.

When I hit the locker room, Ma.s.sey is waiting for me with a grin on his face. "How's your brother?" I ask.

"He's stable and conscious. Hence the s.h.i.t eating grin I'm wearing right now. Time to celebrate."

Relief floods me when I hear Oliver's news about his brother. I've been thinking about him constantly, wondering if we did enough to guarantee his recovery. "That's amazing, Ol. Thank f.u.c.k for that, huh? But as for celebrating... once again, we're finishing work after the bars have closed. Looks like we're gonna need another rain check on that drink."

"Nuh-uh. You're not getting out of it that easy, Romera."

"Unless you're planning on drinking the swabbing alcohol, which I highly do not recommend, then I'm afraid we have no other choice." Truth be told, I'm exhausted now. Bed is sounding like an amazing option.

Oliver grins at me some more, sliding his hand into his backpack and pulling out a bottle of red wine. "I have another one of these," he says. "Just in case. You and me, we're going up to the roof and we're not coming down until this is empty."

I'm weary right down to my very bones, but I can tell just from looking at him that Oliver is wired. He's clearly right: I'm not getting out of it that easily.

"All right, fine. But I have to make sure I'm home before the sun comes up, okay?"

"Why? Your boyfriend have you on curfew now?" Oliver says this jestingly, but there's a bite to his voice.

"Of course not. I'm just being considerate." And, of course, if Zeth wakes up and I'm not home in bed beside him, he's going to a.s.sume I was kidnapped by some of his old friends and I'm in very grave danger. That would be a very bad turn of events. He would tear this city apart and then set it on fire looking for me.

Oliver just shrugs his shoulders. "Whatever. Let's go."

Up on the roof, memories. .h.i.t me one after the other-all the times my father brought me up here with Alexis to watch the snow fall. I've been up here many times since, but every single time, this happens. My dad, Alexis and I, all holding hands, necks craning back, gentle snowflakes falling onto our faces, sticking to our eyelashes. There's no snow falling tonight, though. It's too warm. The skies are overcast, but the clouds are heavy with rain instead. Shame we can't see the stars.

"Better get this show on the road, Romera," Oliver laughs. "Looks like we might get drenched if we take too long."

"So basically, you want to get drunk as fast as possible? Am I understanding you clearly? Just so we're on the same page."

Walking over to the very edge of the roof, Oliver sits himself down, legs dangling over the edge into the void. He removes one of the bottles from his bag and holds it out to me. "You know me so well."

"Yeah, well, you're a very smart man. Speaking of which, kudos to you for remembering to get twist-off caps this time." The last time I drank wine with Olly, we ended up stealing a b.u.t.ter knife from the canteen and shoving the cork down into the bottle. Suffice it to say, we both ended up covered in red wine, and our gla.s.ses were mostly filled with fragments of cork.

"I learned my lesson, obviously." Oliver takes out the other bottle of wine from his bag, and I realize the one he just handed to me is exactly that: mine. Neither of us have gla.s.ses, so we pop open the bottles, c.h.i.n.k them together and drink straight from the bottle.

"We're so cla.s.sy," I laugh.

"We're under a lot of pressure. If it means that we have to drink like hobos in order to unwind, then so be it, right?"

"Right."

I've nearly finished my bottle, feeling very sideways and most definitely drunk, when the sky opens up. The force of the raindrops as they hit the hospital roof is awe-inspiring. The sound of it roars in my ears as Oliver slumps to lie on his back, arms stretched out wide, his bottle of Malbec still gripped tightly in his right hand. "Wooohooo!" he hollers. "We're alive, Dr. Romera. We are f.u.c.king alive." Grabbing hold of me, he pulls me down so that I'm lying beside him in the torrential downpour, his words resonating inside my head.

I am alive. I am alive. After everything that happened, I somehow made it through to the other side. Even more miraculously, so did Zeth. I have a lot to be grateful for. I'm thick with emotion and soaked to the bone when the rain stops. Tiredness seems to hit Oliver; one second he's telling me about a procedure he perfected earlier when he was working on one of the school bus girls, and then the next he's scrambling to his feet on unsteady legs, telling me he has to go home. Immediately.

"You gonna throw up, mister?"

"h.e.l.l, no! When have you ever seen Oliver Ma.s.sey throw up from alcohol?"

Yeah, that's actually true. I never have seen him sick from drinking too much. Never even seen him drunk at all, for that matter. He's most certainly a little worse for wear now, though. The giveaway is that he's referring to himself in the third person. I smile up at him, shivering. "Then why are you suddenly so desperate to leave? You gave me so much s.h.i.t for never hanging out with you and then the next thing I know you're bolting."

He takes in a deep breath and blows it out quickly, scrubbing his hands through his wet hair. "I have to go because I'm about to try and kiss you. And your boyfriend knows people who can have me killed. Right?"

Oh. Oh, no. I can feel my smile turning sad. "Ah, yeah.... If you did that, Zeth wouldn't be hiring someone else to kill you. I'm pretty sure he'd do it himself."

"Great."

"I'm not being a b.i.t.c.h, Ol. It's just what would happen."

"I know. I just..." Oliver scrunches up his face, closing his eyes. "f.u.c.k it. Do you want me to kiss you?" Before I can react, before I can shake my head and tell him no, Oliver saves me. "Oh s.h.i.t. Don't even answer that. I don't know what's wrong with me. I thought nothing would change. I thought I could ignore it. I thought hanging out would be the same. It's not. I just...I gotta go." He picks up his jacket and flings it over his shoulder. "You wanna come down with me now?"

I can tell he doesn't want me to. I can tell he just wants to run away. "No, that's okay. I'm just gonna sit here and-" Freeze to death? Shiver so violently that my teeth grind into dust? Anything but have to bid you an awkward farewell downstairs in the parking lot. I love Oliver to death, but it's pretty clear to me that things can never be as they once were between us. There's no going back. That makes me suddenly, overwhelmingly very sad.

"Okay, Romera. Well make sure you get home safe, okay? Make sure you catch a cab."

"I will. Good night." I tuck my chin into the crook of my arms, hugging myself as I wait for him to go. I'm ridiculously cold by the time I head back inside myself. My clothes make wet slapping sounds as I kick out of them and toss them on the locker room floor.

Chapter Seven.

Sloane My head is pounding when I crack my eyes open. Too bright. Too d.a.m.n cold. The room pitches a little as I pull the covers up around my shoulders. "There she is," a voice says softly beside me. Zeth. His hands find me underneath the blankets, moving firmly over my body as he takes hold of me and pulls me close to him.