Crystal found me the moment I stepped back into the club, as if she had been waiting for me. Without asking any questions, she guided me up the emergency stairs to Alex's office, tucked away just above the noise and neon of the main floor. She explained that there was a private bathroom inside, stocked with everything I might need.
I thanked her quietly, the words automatic. I was about to mention that I had left my workout bag downstairs in the locker room, but she only smiled gently and said she would bring it up herself.
I nodded in appreciation before stepping inside.
The silence there was heavier than the chaos below.
I walked straight into the bathroom without hesitation. My mind had been unnervingly quiet ever since I left the training facility. It wasn't peace, nor relief. It was something far more hollow.
As if I had beaten every last emotion out of myself with my own fists. And there was nothing left inside me now. Nothing but emptiness.
I didn't even remember locking the door behind me. I wasn't sure if I even had. But it wasn't like it mattered.
I simply turned the shower handle until the water ran scalding hot, steam quickly filling the small space, blurring the mirrors and softening the sharp edges of reality. Then I stepped beneath it, letting the heat pour over my skin.
My body moved on instinct, hands methodical as I scrubbed away all the sweat, the sand, the blood, the evidence of what had happened.
I watched, as the blood and sand swirled faintly at my feet before disappearing down the drain. And it wasn't even mine. It was his.
Joshua's.
Yet, it clung to me all the same.
By the time I stepped out of the shower, steam still clinging to my skin like a second skin, I reached for the white towel on the rack and dragged it slowly over my body, drying myself before wrapping it tightly around me.
It wasn't until I lifted my head, that I realized he was there. My husband. Standing by the door like he had always belonged in my shadows.
Those green eyes had darkened into something dangerous, wounded and furious all at once. His lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line as he watched me without blinking, like he was memorizing the sight of me in case I slipped through his fingers again.
At least he had a shirt on now. His black button-up clinging to him, damp and wrinkled, several buttons left undone at the collar, revealing skin smeared with dried blood and sweat. His arms crossed over his chest, the muscles beneath the fabric tense and restless, like he was holding himself back by sheer will alone.
"Enjoying the show?" I asked, crossing my arms over myself, mirroring him.
"Crystal gave me your bag," he said quietly, his gaze flicking toward his office before returning to me, heavy and unrelenting. "She told me she brought you here. Told me to leave you alone."
"Crystal is wise," I replied, my voice colder than I felt. "I do want to be alone."
His jaw tightened, something flickering across his face. "No, you don't."
I let out a breath that trembled despite my efforts to steady it. "I'm tired of fighting you, Alex," I said softly, exhaustion marring my bones. "Either you leave, or I will. Choose."
He lunged before the silence could choke us, closing the distance with brutal certainty. His fingers curling around my throat, anchoring me hard against the merciless cold of the tile wall. The shock of the contact burned through me, freezing me in place.
"How brave of you, wife," he whispered, voice rough and low against the curve of my neck, "to think you could ever walk away form me. Especially after the stunt you pulled."
His hand ripped at the fragile knot of my towel, tearing it free with a savage, merciless yank until it fell uselessly to the floor. We stood there exposed, nothing left but our ragged breaths, the sharp edge of our pent-up fury burning between us.
My fingers pulled his hair, shoving his head back, exposing his neck. The other hand shot up, clutching his neck, squeezing tight. "How brave of you too, husband," I spat through clenched teeth, "to think I wouldn't leave anyway. You don't own me."
"No," he said quietly, his thumb pressing into my cheek, claiming. "I don't own you."
His gaze dropped to my mouth before rising again, those green eyes filled with something far more terrifying than anger.
"I'm worse."
The words settled between us like a confession.
My lips parted, ready to fight him, to wound him in the only ways I knew how, but he didn't give me a chance. His mouth crashed into mine, silencing every word before it could exist, consuming the space between us with brutal, desperate hunger.
It wasn't a kiss. It was a collision.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up, legs locking around his waist as if they had been trained to belong there, as if they had never learned how to exist anywhere else. My finger fumbled with his shirt, ripping open the remaining buttons with trembling urgency, needing him bare.
He tore the shirt off himself and threw it aside without breaking the kiss. His hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise, dragging me flush against him.
The contact knocking the air out of my lungs.
Every inch of him was heat, strength and memory.
Our mouths fought instead of kissed, teeth clashing, breaths stolen and returned in broken fragments. It was violence, disguised as intimacy. Or maybe the other way around, I didn't know. There was no tenderness in it, no softness to cling to.
Only fury, and desperation.
The unbearable truth that no matter how much we destroyed each other, neither of us would knew how to stop.
His mouth slowed, but it didn't soften. His hands tightened at my hips, his hard length pressing between my legs. His forehead dropped against mine, breath heavy and uneven, his control hanging by a thread.
"You're mine, Isolda," he said gruffly, the words dragged from somewhere deep and feral. "You don't get to walk away from me like that. Not when I've saved you."
My heart slammed hard against my ribs, furious at the way it reacted to him. To that tone, to that claim. For a split second, I wanted to surrender to it. To let him believe it. Let myself believe it.
But I was done.
I had just watched him decide life and death with a single bullet. Again. The life that I should've taken instead.
My hands slid from his shoulders to his chest, pressing flat against him.
"You don't get to decide that," I said, my voice steady even as my pulse trembled. "It was my revenge. Mine. And I should have the right to walk away, whenever I'd want to."
His jaw flexed. His grip tightened.
"I'm your husband."
"And I'm your wife," I shot back. "That ought to mean we're equals. You simply took that revenge away from me because you can't stand the possibility that I might hesitate, is that it? Or that there's someone out there who loves me more than you do?"
The words landed. I saw it in the flicker of his eyes.
For the first time since he walked into this bathroom, something cracked.