Page 48 of The Malibu Destiny

The scream tears from my throat, raw and feral. His eyes widen in shock as I keep coming, fingers curled like claws, shoving him again and again. Each impact sends jolts up my arms but I don't stop, driving him backward until he's teetering at the threshold. With one final violent thrust, I expel his massive body onto the boardwalk like exorcising a demon. The door slams shut with a satisfying crash, lock clicking into place as I slap the "Closed" sign against the glass, my hands trembling with adrenaline.

I cancel every reading with shaking fingers. That bubble bath can't come soon enough—I need to wash him off my skin.

Chapter Twenty-Six

ROMAN

The next night after the fight with Lilith, I storm through the door of the Blackwood gym, the heavy metal hinges groaning in protest. The familiar scent of sweat-soaked leather and antiseptic cleaner fills my nostrils as I slam my duffel bag onto the polished concrete floor.

My veins throb with molten rage that's been building since my dinner with Sera, where she planted that poisonous seed about Lilith and Blake's "friendship." The memory of my roundhouse connecting with Blake's jaw in Lilith's crystal-filled shop flashes behind my eyes—the satisfying crack followed by the horror on her beautiful face. Her delicate hands, adorned with those silver rings she always wears, had somehow found the strength to shove my six-foot-four frame backward, again and again, then out her door, her caramel eyes flashing like lightning as she banished my "dark energy" from her sacred space. The humiliation burns in my chest like acid.

Before Caspian's arrival, I circle the punching dummy like a predator, its worn leather surface already bearing the scars of countless fighters before me. I unleash a barrage of blows—jabs that make my knuckles sing, hooks that wrench my shoulders, and kicks that send shockwaves up my shins. Sweat drenches my compression shirt, plastering it to my heaving chest, but the black rage remains coiled inside like a venomous snake.

Only Caspian, with his steady gaze and calming baritone, can draw out this poison. He knows the exact pressure points of my psyche, the perfect words to make the crimson fog recede from the corners of my vision.

Caspian drops his gym bag at the door, already dressed to spar. His eyes narrow as he studies my face.

"Rome," he says, voice low. "Talk to me. You've always got that edge to you, but tonight..." He crosses his arms. "That's the same look you had when your old man walked out. Twenty-two years ago, and I still remember it."

That day. My fist connecting with drywall, feeling nothing until I looked down at the blood. The ER doctor's face when he saw the X-ray. Broken in three places, but my right hand—not my dominant one. Even in my rage, some survival instinct had protected my left.

This thing with Blake is different. Pure blind fury that's been building since my brothers ambushed me. Then Serafina fanned the flames with her insinuations, and when I saw Blake's hands on Lilith—I snapped. Lost it completely. But it wasn’t just that - it was that I also saw him at her store days before I stormed in there and put my boot to his face. The pieces fitting together: Blake constantly visiting Lilith, Sera whispering that she's seen them together.

Sera wants me back—I know that—but what if she's right? What if I'm the fool in Lilith's game?

My head's a storm cloud. This fight isn't just training. It's oxygen. “Talk later. Let’s go.”

So, for the next two hours, Caspian and I spar in the gym's octagon, our bodies slick with sweat that stings my eyes and leaves salt trails down my back. My lungs burn like I've swallowed fire while my quads tremble, threatening to buckle as we trade combinations—his lightning-fast jab catching my shoulder, my counter hook grazing his temple.

The rhythmic thud of four-ounce gloves against skin echoes off the chain-link fence surrounding us, punctuating our ragged breathing as we prepare for my MMA bout coming in December. My ribs throb with a deep purple ache from a particularly brutal side kick that'll leave a boot-shaped bruise by morning, but I push through it—pain is just weakness leaving the body, and I need to be anything but weak when I step into that cage for real.

Finally, we collapse on the mat, sweat-drenched and gasping. Caspian props himself up on one elbow, fixing me with that look he always gives when he's about to drop some wisdom.

"Your technique is solid now," he says, wiping blood from his lip. "UFC caliber, even. I should know—half my clients fight professionally." He taps my temple with his gloved fist. "But this? Still your weakness. You fight like a man on fire. Learn to burn cold instead, and nobody will touch you."

I shake my head so hard my neck cracks. "I'm a fucking wreck tonight."

"I can tell. What's going on?"

I suck in air like I'm drowning. "Lilith and I had a fight. I can't trust her." My fist slams into my thigh. "Goddamn it, I thought she was different. I even thought⁠—"

Caspian grips my shoulder, steadying me. "You thought?"

The words burn in my throat. I almost tell him everything—how after that first night with her on the beach, I saw my future flash before my eyes. But the humiliation scalds worse than any punch I've taken in the ring.

What kind of pathetic fool calls someone The One when she's playing him like a goddamn fiddle? There is no "One"—that's fairy tale bullshit. There's just bodies colliding, sweat, heat, sex that makes you forget yourself. I gambled that Lilith might be more than that. I lost. And I would rather get my teeth knocked out than crawl back begging.

“Nothing.”

Caspian leans forward. "Level with me, Rome. Since when do we hold back with each other?"

I slam my fist against the table. "My goddamn brothers started it." The memory makes my jaw clench. "They ambushed me with this proposal about Dad opening some hippie eco-resort chain using our name. 'Sunstone Retreats by Kensington,' if you can believe that bullshit." I mime the words in the air like they're a marquee. "And get this—they expect me to absorb it into my company. Like the man didn't walk out on us for two decades and now deserves the keys to the kingdom."

Caspian's expression doesn't change. "And after this meeting?"

"I needed Lilith." My voice softens despite myself. "Around her, I can breathe. It's like... this rage I've carried since I was a kid just evaporates. I become someone I actually like." I rub my temples. "Or I did, until I walked into her shop and saw Blake fucking Walsh with his arms around her. I nearly put him through a wall, but somehow I kept it together."

“Okay. Then what happened?”