Page 25

Camilla Volkov

The scent of cleaner and sweat mingle in the brightly lit room. With two blue mats laid out side by side on one end, equipment on the other, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on three walls, the space is nicer than most hotel gyms.

Loretta takes one glance at my attire and motions me over to the equipment. She plops down on the multi-functional machine’s seat and gestures for me to sit on the weight bench.

“You look tired, but you also seem… lighter,” she says.

I use the vertical support to lower myself onto the bench, not bothering to hide my wince, and shrug.

“The last few days have been pure chaos, but it’s for the better,” I respond.

She tilts her head and studies me before leaning back, grabbing a water bottle off the floor, and offering it to me.

“Maybe we should reschedule. There’s no rush; my offer has no expiration date,” she says.

“Dimitri’s kids arrive in New York in two hours.”

I crack open the water bottle in time with her gasp.

“He has children? How many?”

“Three. The oldest is Tristan’s age. I have no clue what I’m doing, which is why I’m here.”

She smooths her braid with her fingers and shakes her head.

“I don’t know anything about being a mom either, so…”

I scoff and take a sip of water before speaking.

“I don’t expect them to accept me right away. From what I hear, they’re causing trouble because they’re angry and hurt over their mother’s death. It’s barely been a year.”

“Then how am I supposed to help?” she asks.

“They can’t get hurt on my watch, but with Feliks still lurking around…” I let my words hang in the air.

With a decisive nod, she claps her hand on her thigh and leans forward.

“Alright, let’s begin, then. Lesson number one: awareness and avoidance should always be your first choice.”

I nod in agreement.

“Play games with yourself, if you need to. Construct plausible what if scenarios and plan how you’d respond to them,” she says.

The water bottle crinkles in my fist.

She rises from her seat and kneels beside me.

“Don’t blame yourself for disassociating. It’s a trauma response. With time, therapy, and careful desensitization, you can work through it. For now, we’ll—”

“I don’t have time. I can’t keep the kids safe if I go catatonic,” I growl in frustration.

“I’m not a therapist, Camilla. I can’t—”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just so frustrating how I always check out when I’m triggered,” I snarl.

She pats my hand and chuckles.

“You don’t always check out, though, unless you claim throwing a vase at your brother’s head an act of disassociating,” she chuckles.

I stiffen. She’s right. I don’t always hide away inside my skull.

“Can you tell the difference in triggers and which will cause you to check out versus fighting?”

I rub my hand over my face and wrack my brain. After a few minutes of quiet, Loretta urges me to drink some water and moves to sit beside me on the bench.

“When you disassociated in front of me, it was always from a perceived threat or overwhelming mental load, not from a physical altercation.”

Her words strike home. I nod. My breakdown in the bathroom was because Dimitri tugged on my collar. Hope rises in my chest.

“I think I’ll fight back if there’s violence, but…”

“Every situation is different. The same person might have a flight response one day, then a fight response the next even when the same thing happens. It’s a reflex. We have no control over it.”

I peel the logo off the bottle as I mull over her words.

“Then what can we do?” I ask.

“Learn to trust our instincts, train our minds, and work on our muscle memory,” she says.

I sigh, take a sip of my drink, and twist the cap back onto the bottle.

“My body is weak and I don’t have time—”

“You’ll get there, Camilla. Let’s work on technique and save brute strength for later. Do you carry a weapon?”

I nod and lift my suit coat to show her the knife my angel of death gave me.

“Good. Wait right here.” She stands and strides to the metal storage cabinet in the back corner of the room. After opening the door and shuffling a few things around, she hisses and mumbles, “I thought I saw—ah ha! Got it.”

She rushes back to me and offers me a knife, hilt first. I wrap my digits around the handle and quirk a brow as she releases the blade to reveal a dummy knife.

“Try it against your palm,” she instructs.

I press the tip against my hand and grimace as the blade telescopes into itself until it lies within the handle. When I lift my hand away, it springs back into place, but my palm aches from the pressure.

“It may not be an actual knife, but it’s still too hard. The spring is too tight. It’ll leave bruises or cause internal damage. I’m not stabbing you with this,” I say.

“You will stab me instead,” a deep, smooth voice says from the doorway.

I jump and hiss as pain flares through my joints. Fury washes away my fear when I turn and meet Dimitri’s sky-blue eyes.

“No, I won’t. I don’t want to hurt you either,” I say.

“You will not hurt me, but I am not worried. If you do, you will take care of me,” he replies with a ghost of a smile.

My insides melt. I deepen my scowl and shake my head.

“How about starting on the punching bag? Let’s just focus on your form for a few minutes, then we’ll see how you feel and go from there,” Loretta interjects.

I nod and push myself to my feet. When my sneakers sink into the mat and I almost topple, Dimitri catches me just long enough for me to find my balance before dropping to his knee in front of me.

“Use my shoulders for balance, so?lnyshka ,” he demands before hooking his hand around my calf and lifting my foot from the floor. He slips my sneaker off before repeating the motion on my other leg and rising.

The broad stretch of his shoulders is intimidating, but hunger pulses through my veins. He cups my face and brushes his thumb over the scars on my cheek, reminding me of why I’m in my brother’s home gym learning how to stab someone.

I take a deep breath, grab his wrist, and kiss the fleshy part of his palm before stepping around him and wobbling across the mat to the punching bag tucked in the corner. Loretta watches my stride with a contemplative expression on her face.

She turns away when I reach her, and for a moment, the pain of rejection spears through me, but she grabs a metal folding chair from behind the door and places it in front of the punching bag.

I quirk a brow.

“Attacks don’t only come when you’re standing. Most lowlifes wait until you’re in a vulnerable position, so today we’ll practice pulling the knife from your belt and the different ways to swing without hurting yourself while getting the job done. Capisci ?” she says.

I clear the lump from my throat and nod as I lower myself into the chair.

After moving the knife Dimitri gave me to my other hip, I tuck the dummy in place and try not to feel like a fool as Loretta launches into teacher mode.

We practice four different ways to draw the knife from my belt, and once she’s satisfied I’m comfortable with one from each hand, she shifts our focus to the punching bag.

“If you don’t swing hard enough, he’ll block you, and all you’ve done is waste your energy, so imagine stabbing through to someone behind him instead of the target in front of you. Don’t stop when you feel the puncture.”

Even as I feel my face blanch, I nod and follow her instructions. My pathetic attempt ends with the blade barely halfway compressed. The hilt pops out of my grip and the dummy knife flies across the room.

I swallow my embarrassment, fix my hair, and take a deep breath as I meet Dimitri’s eyes.

Warmth pulses low in my abdomen. With his suit coat hanging on the hook by the door, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, the ends of his tie hanging loose around his collar, and the top buttons of his shirt undone, he sits on the multi-purpose machine seat with his knees spread wide, his feet braced on the floor, and a ridiculous amount of weights lifted into the air as he pushes the handles away from his chest.

“Again, so?lnyshka ,” he growls.

A hint of fear niggles at the base of my skull from the guttural quality of his voice, but the ferocity in his icy-blue eyes locks me in the present.

I nod and take the fake knife back from Loretta. This time, I wrap both hands around the hilt and drive it into the bag so hard the impact vibrates into my wrist and up my arm.

Loretta gives me pointers on how to put more force behind the blade without tweaking my joints. On how to make the sharp edge do the dirty work for me.

My next swing compresses the blade all the way, and although my fingers ache from clenching around the hilt, my arm doesn’t hurt beyond an ache in my muscles.

I tuck the blade back into my belt and run through the process several times until I no longer dread the jolt of impact.

Feeling more confident, I swap to my non-dominant hand and fumble through stabbing the punching bag a couple of times before something clicks in my brain and every ounce of doubt rolls off my shoulders.

My movements become more fluid and coordinated.

I turn off my mind and attack the bag with the rage festering in my soul, striking faster and harder each time.

Loretta suggests a new position. I rise from the chair. She pulls it away from the bag and pivots it halfway, so when I sit back down, my shoulder faces the bag. I massage my aching arms as she pulls the cabinet—which is on wheels—in front of me and props the mat from the floor on it for padding.

Weights clatter as Dimitri begins another set of chest presses. My mouth waters as his muscles bulge. He’s unbelievably sexy.

I snap my attention back to Loretta when she speaks.