Her Black Belt Ex Tried to Humiliate Me at the Dojo — He Didn’t Know Who I Was
Chapter 5
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"I've got a spare gi you can borrow," Brandon smiled, showing entirely too many teeth. "We'll keep it light. Point sparring. Unless you're scared?" He turned to his students, throwing his arms wide. "Looks like Sarah traded down, boys. Guy won't even step on the mat for a piece of jewelry."A low chorus of chuckles echoed from the meatheads around the room. I looked at Sarah: her face was flushed dark red with humiliation and fear; she was trembling. Brandon was doing exactly what she had feared—he was exerting control, making her feel small, making her new life feel inadequate compared to the terrifying shadow he cast.I took a slow breath. I didn't feel anger—anger makes you sloppy, anger makes you breathe heavy and tunnel your vision. Instead, I felt a familiar cold detachment slide over my mind like a steel visor. The noise of the gym faded; the faces of the laughing students blurred into irrelevance. There was only the threat in front of me, and the objective."All right," I said.Brandon blinked, clearly surprised that I had accepted so easily."All right, I'll spar," I said, keeping my voice utterly devoid of emotion. "One round, under whatever rules you want. When it's over, you open the safe, hand Sarah the watch, and we never come back."Brandon's surprise melted back into that predatory smirk. "You got a deal, accountant. Greg, grab this guy a loaner gi from the back.""I don't need a gi," I said, untucking my gray T-shirt and pulling it over my head. I handed it to Sarah.Underneath, I wasn't built like a bodybuilder. My muscles were dense, corded, built for endurance—climbing ropes, carrying heavy rucks over mountains—and explosive, desperate violence. My torso was also a roadmap of bad days: a jagged pale scar ran down my left ribs from shrapnel in Kandahar; two neat circular puckers on my right shoulder marked where a 7.62 round had entered and exited.I saw Brandon's eyes drop to the scars. For a fraction of a second, the smirk faltered; a question flickered behind his eyes, but his ego was too loud to let him process the answer.I kicked off my sneakers, pulled off my socks, tossing them beside my shirt, and walked barefoot toward the edge of the blue and red mats."Cole, please," Sarah whispered fiercely, catching my arm one last time. "He's going to hurt you. He doesn't know how to go light. He breaks people."I turned my head and looked her in the eyes. I let the civilian mask slip just a fraction; I let her see the man who had operated in the shadows for a decade. "Sarah," I said quietly, a terrifying calm in my voice, "he breaks boys on foam mats. I'm going to be fine. Hold my shirt."I stepped onto the mat. It was soft, spongy, built to protect the people falling on it; it felt entirely foreign to me. Concrete, gravel, and hard-packed dirt were what I was used to fighting on.Brandon was already in the center, bouncing lightly on his toes, shaking out his arms. The students had formed a large, eager circle around the edges of the mat, some pulling out their phones to record. They wanted blood; they wanted to see the master destroy the arrogant civilian."Rules are simple, Cole," Brandon said loudly as I approached the center. "Submission, knockout, or whoever gives up first. We strike, we grapple, we go until someone is done. No eye gouging, no groin strikes. Understand?"