Fierce by Kathryn Thomas Read Free Book Online

so.”
     
    “Are you from Mitre?”
     
    “No,” she lied. “San Francisco. I moved up here a few years ago with my…girlfriend.” She was so close to saying boyfriend she felt her cheeks burn—not with embarrassment but because it would have thrown her entire performance off on a tangent she wasn’t remotely ready for.
     
    “Oh. I could have sworn we’ve met somewhere,” he persisted.
     
    Rose shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”
     
    “Ross started here last week. Things are already running more smoothly,” said Luca, not altogether honestly. Then, he turned to Rose and said, “Go see if Marlon’s okay, will you? I’ll call you over if I need you.”
     
    “Okay.” She could have kissed her boss right there. It was as if he could read her discomfort.
     
    “Actually, could you do me a favor?” It was Avery this time. He fished a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet. “Head over to the pharmacy, four blocks down, and buy me some of that Tiger Balm ointment.”
     
    Rose assented and took his money. The big knucklehead thanked her then returned to his scheming with the other two gym gods. It was a blazing hot afternoon when she left the building. She breathed in a tart, baking tarmac smell, and even though she didn’t much care for it, she’d never been as thankful to be outdoors.
     
    ***
     
    Later that evening, when the guys had all gone home and Rose had finished all her chores, she changed into her workout attire—boxing shorts, baggy Gold’s Gym tee over her sports bra, and trainers—a reasonably masculine ensemble—and attacked the various punch bags. Her hitting power had always been too weak for her liking, too weak to assist her volcanic temper. Without that strength, she’d never be able to tackle Mike or the Twitches or any purse snatcher bigger than her. So she let rip. Pounded away like her life depended on it. When she was exhausted, she rested, drank Monster Energy, and then started up again.
     
    It was during her fourth round of bag-blitzing that the lone light in her corner of the gym flicked out, leaving her in total darkness.
     
    “Fuck.”
     
    Using the light on her phone, Rose made her way to the circuit breaker panel on the wall next to the office. The master switch was in the OFF position. Great. Either it was glitchy or it was on some sort of timer she didn’t know about. She turned it back on, made her way back to her lonely, lit corner, and resumed her assault.
     
    “You’ll do yourself a serious injury if you keep that up.”
     
    She spun round so fast she tripped over her own feet and went down in a painful heap, landing on her left hip. She winced. It came out as a girly squeal. Despite the pain, Rose immediately sprang up, scanning the shadows. “Who’s there?”
     
    No response. The only sound in the gym was the eccentric whir of the air conditioning. She tried to determine if she’d locked the doors tonight. Yes, yes she had, right after Luca had left. But had someone stayed behind, one of the members, or even someone else, a stranger off the street who snuck in while they hadn’t been looking? Maybe he’d waited in the toilets or the janitor’s closet or in one of the equipment storage rooms. Waited till she was alone…
     
    “I said who’s there? Show yourself.”
     
    “I thought this gym was for men only.”
     
    Rose turned to the ring, certain the voice was coming from there, but she couldn’t see more than vague emptiness inside a scrawled, diamond-shaped outline. No movement whatsoever. Unless she was talking to the ghost of a dead boxer, whoever it was had to be hiding in the shadows around the ring.
     
    “Who are you?”
     
    Again no reply. She back-stepped and looked around for some kind of weapon. She carried a knife in her purse, but as Ross she couldn’t exactly bring a purse with her.
     
    What else? One of the barbells? It would have to be a light one; most of those sumbitches weighed a ton.
     
    “You’ve got three