Fierce by Kathryn Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

me then, genius?” She cringed as she realized…she’d just given him permission to ogle her at his leisure. Rose slinked behind the motionless punch bag.
     
    “Becky,” he said. “You look like a Becky. Becky Hot-Buns.”
     
    “Don’t be gross.”
     
    “Didn’t mean to be.”
     
    And she didn’t think it was, not really. A compliment like that, however flip, was the last thing she’d expected from him.
     
    “Stop hiding,” he said. “Come on out and we’ll talk this through. Promise I won’t be gross.”
     
    “That’s like a sewer saying it won’t stink.”
     
    “Or I can just dial 911. Either way, I’ll hear your story in the end. Nice phone, by the way.” He winked, then mimicked what she’d done a minute ago—the faux emergency call. Only she wasn’t certain if he was pretending.
     
    Rose stepped out from behind the punch bag and set her hands on her hips. “Well? What else do you wanna know?”
     
    “Have you worked out here every night?”
     
    “Uh-huh.”
     
    “Why?”
     
    She shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea. Wasn’t harming anyone.”
     
    “Why go to all this trouble though? The drag act, the lies, the humiliation. Springbok’s is—”
     
    “I can’t go there. Not ever.” She balled her fists, and Avery saw it. His resulting frown seemed genuine enough. “What happened?” he asked.
     
    “I have enemies there. They can’t ever know what I’m doing.”
     
    “What enemies?” He moved toward her, close enough for her to smell his aftershave, and held out her phone. “Anything I can help you with?”
     
    Rose snatched her phone. “No.”
     
    “Me and Luca kinda know the owner. We might be able to straighten it out for you, whatever it is.”
     
    “I know you know the owner. I work here, remember?” She checked herself. “ Used to work here. But he’s the problem.”
     
    “Culver’s the problem?” He turned his head slightly, slanting her a curious look. “How?”
     
    “His bitch daughters. They bullied my sister, then they…put me in hospital when I tried to stop it.”
     
    He narrowed his eyes at her. “Who? Ash and Lena? You’re saying Ashley and Lena Culver did that?”
     
    “You want me to repeat every fucking thing I say?”
     
    He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He shifted position, stroked his stubble-free chin. The guy looked good tonight, like, too good to be real. And that was part of the problem. She couldn’t read him enough to tell why he was being so obtuse about the Twitches. After all, he and Luca didn’t even like Tyler Culver.
     
    “I’m not making this up,” she said. “I swear to God I’m here because there are people I need to get even with, and this is the only place I can go to train the way I need to train. I’ll never be Ronda Rousey or Gina Carano, but I can get tough enough to kick the shit out of my stepdad when he tries to stop my sister from leaving home on her eighteenth birthday. And I can get tough enough to do some damage to those Culver bitches the next time I see ’em.”
     
    “Why didn’t you say any of this before?”
     
    She threw him a look of shock and disgust. Are you for real? she thought.
     
    “Scratch that,” he said. “I mean, of course, you couldn’t tell us, but maybe if you’d, I dunno, approached one of us privately, we might have been able to coach you—”
     
    “A World Champion MMA fighter? Do you really think I’d have been able to afford that? I didn’t even have a job!”
     
    “Hmm.”
     
    “That all you’ve got to say? Hmm?”
     
    Avery took his cap off and ran a hand through his neater-than-usual hair, messing it up. “You’re living on your own?” he asked. “Here in Mitre?”
     
    “Uh-huh. A real shit-hole on the other side of town.”
     
    He sighed, slowly shaking his head. “Rose Jacqueline,” he said to himself, then nodded pensively from side to side. “Okay, here’s the thing, Rose. A part of me wants to turn your