CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
For three seconds, Ethan just stared at me.
Then he laughed.
Not nervous laughter. Not surprise. Real laughter, arrogant and ugly, like he had decided the woman standing in front of him was too ridiculous to take seriously.
“You work at a gym, Emily,” he said. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”
That was the problem with Ethan.
He never listened unless the information made him feel important.
He knew I worked at West Loop Combat Club, but he never asked what I did there. He assumed I checked memberships, folded towels, smiled at clients, and waited for him to come home.
He never noticed the scar across my knuckle.
He never looked closely at the framed photo in my office of me holding a national championship belt.
He never asked why men twice his size stepped out of my way when I walked through the gym.
To him, I was a lonely woman with dead parents, a few inherited buildings, and a soft voice.
That was why he married me.
Not because he loved me.
Because he thought grief had made me easy to own.
Ethan lifted the belt again.
“Last chance,” he said. “Apologize.”
“For what?”
“For forgetting who’s in charge.”
The room went very quiet.
Outside the bedroom window, Chicago lights glittered against the dark glass. Inside, the honeymoon suite of our new marriage had turned into a trap.
Only he had forgotten one thing.
Traps work best when the person inside them has no teeth.
Ethan swung first.
The belt cut through empty air.
I stepped aside, drove one controlled jab into his chest, and watched all the certainty leave his face.
He staggered back, gasping.
May you like
I did not smile.
I said, “Drop it.”
