by Bethany-Kris
Alessio scowled, ready to tell Oliver where he could shove his fucking taunts. After all, Corrado wasn’t the only one who spent time in those rooms downstairs, and Alessio had been in the complex two years ago when Oliver was trained, too.
He remembered how the man begged.
How he cried.
“It’s possible,” Cree said, dragging his attention away from the situation a few feet away, “that Dare thinks you might be more useful here for a little while.”
“Why in the hell would he think that?”
Cree’s gaze drifted from the people on the mats to Alessio, and then back again. Very pointedly. “Do you think Dare would have allowed you down in that room when someone was actively in phase one—when you weren’t part of the training team, mind you—if he didn’t think you would help? Or when he was released from the rooms, the path he was allowed to take led him to someone he would immediately trust when he would need it the most?”
“I—”
“Not everything is about you, Les,” Cree murmured, his attention going back to the training. “And that is something you should remember. If you are better here for a time, then here is where Dare is going to keep you. You think it’s about you, and Dare’s feelings, which means you’re selfish because you automatically dismiss the needs of others. The League is about more than just you—something we have always made clear.”
Well ...
Damn.
“All right,” he muttered.
He wasn’t happy about it, though.
Another loud smack drew Alessio’s attention back to the fight happening on the mat. Or rather, the ass-whooping Oliver was currently inflicting on Corrado. Not to mention, the taunts that followed every single crack of the bamboo against another part of Corrado’s form.
He was going too far.
Alessio knew it.
No one was expected to pick up one specific part of training right away. It took time, and muscle memory for some of it. Other parts of it was all in someone’s mind. Except, Oliver was acting as though Corrado should be on his feet, and able to duck and dodge that fucking bamboo like the rest of them could when he was wielding it.
“Get.” Smack. “Up.” Smack. “Now.”
“Cree,” Alessio said under his breath, “tell him to knock it off.”
Cree said nothing, only tipped his head to the side like he was considering the scene in front of him. His gaze drifted from the twin at the other side of the mats watching, to the one currently on his knees with his arm raised to protect his face in case that stick came back down again, and then to the asshole with a God complex.
“Cree.”
“Is that what it is, Corrado?” Oliver asked. “You like getting knocked on your ass like a fucking idiot?”
Corrado said nothing.
He didn’t even react.
Not a blink.
Not a word.
Not a scowl.
Nothing.
He simply tried to stand again because that’s what he was supposed to do—Alessio knew it. He was supposed to keep getting back up, and trying again until he could dodge the attack, and then they would switch places for his twin to do the same. Except, Oliver didn’t even let him stand before he hit him again.
Knocking him back again.
And then, Oliver pulled the rod back to swing before Corrado even had time to adjust to the fact that he was on the mat again. He was going to hit him because he was down; something he wanted to do, not because it would teach a lesson, or was part of the training.
Alessio moved before he could think better of it. Darting forward fast, out of Cree’s reach who likely would have pulled him back had he understood what Alessio was going to do, he stepped onto the mats, grabbed the smooth end of the bamboo rod where Oliver had it extended, and yanked hard.
The surprise move—Oliver was only thinking about what was in front of him, not behind—allowed Alessio to snatch the weapon right out of the man’s hand. He flicked his wrist, flipping the rod over to his dominant hand, where he caught it right in the middle. Flexing his arm once to swing it back, he let the rod fly, cracking Oliver right in the middle of the throat with enough force to send him to his back on the mats, and without the ability to breathe, too.
Then, he took one more step, the weapon already poised to strike again as he pointed it at Oliver’s chest. The assassin on the floor stared up at him with fury, his fists balling against the mats as he tried to gain his bearings.
“Remember where you started,” Alessio murmured, “and how you got here.”
That said, he dropped the bamboo to Oliver’s chest. He turned to step off the mat, done with putting Oliver in his place, and willing to see how the man treated his prospect now. It was the sharp edge in Corrado’s voice when he called his name that made his steps hesitate.
“Alessio.”
Over his shoulder, he found Corrado glaring at him.
Scowl in place.
Fists clenched.
Body tense.
Angry all over.
“Don’t do that again,” Corrado uttered, teeth clenched.
Alessio said nothing because he didn’t need to. There was one thing the rooms downstairs didn’t take from Corrado, and while it may not seem important in the grand scheme of things, it might be the only thing that would get him through the training.
If only because he couldn’t give up.
His pride.
Not bothering to respond—Corrado wouldn’t want him to—he turned to leave the gym altogether. Dare had been right; he didn’t need to bother the prospects when they were being trained. He was a distraction.
At least, for this particular one.
“Les,” Cree said quietly as he passed, “you know better.”
He shrugged, saying nothing.
Cree only nodded back.
10.
Corrado
“Tomorrow, six AM, sharp,” Oliver said to the twins, “make sure you are both down here, and ready to go again.”
Corrado felt like telling the man to stick his early morning training session right up his fucking ass, but he didn’t think that would do him any good. Except to maybe have Oliver riding his ass worse than he already did.
“Got it,” Chris muttered, taking it slow as he bent down to pick up the shirt he’d discarded earlier. “Ass crack of dawn to get the shit beat out of me again—perfect.”
“I can hear the sarcasm.”
“I wanted you to.”
Corrado might have enjoyed the rare sight of his twin being a smartass—Chris was far more likely to fall back and stay in line—but he was too sore and way too pissed for that. If his entire body wasn’t a canvas of newly formed bruises, then he was going to be very shocked. He fucking hated bamboo now.
Hated it.
“And you, did you hear me?”
Corrado’s back tensed, knowing Oliver was talking to him. The only thing he really wanted to do to that prick was bust his mouth, but he had other things to handle first. Eventually, he would get his chance to put Oliver in his place, but today was not that day.
Unfortunately.
Soon.
“Corrado. Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you,” Corrado said, waving a hand over his shoulder.
Stepping off the mats, he didn’t even bother to turn around to directly speak to Oliver—he was a background thought, now. This session was done for the day, the asshole would get to leave the complex, and Corrado wouldn’t have to deal with him until tomorrow. That was fine with him.
“Cree.”
“What, Oliver?”
“Next week ... I want Alessio down here to spar with them both. He’s close to their height, give or take an inch, and build. We both know he’s good with a weapon in his hands.”
“That’s fine.”
“Good—”
“For Christopher,” Cree added, keeping that same bored tenor as he spoke. “We’ll have to find someone else for Corrado.”
>
“Why? They’re the same fucking people.”
Their conversation wasn’t all that important to Corrado. His thoughts were somewhere else entirely as he stepped behind the half partition wall in front of a line of showers that gave them some privacy from the rest of the gym. Not that it gave them any privacy when someone else was under the showers, too.
But that was the thing.
Here, there was no privacy. And if one thought they were having a private moment, then they were foolish. There was also no sense of a man—or woman, although Corrado had only seen a handful of those since his arrival—holding onto any shred of dignity, either.
After the rooms, what was the point?
Dignity was gone.
Corrado wondered if he might get his dignity back or even his sense of shame ... but he didn’t think so. At least, not while he was at The League. They made sure to remind them whenever it was needed that here, things like that were nothing more than a distraction. Lose it, get rid of it, hand it over, tuck it away ... whatever someone needed to do to forget about it, that’s what The League expected. They were here to mold them into what they wanted them to be, not to hold someone’s hand because they were worried someone might see their cock when they showered.
Not that he was concerned about that.
If people wanted to look, they could look.
Fuck ‘em.
Corrado tried to follow along with Cree and Oliver’s conversation as he dropped his shorts, and slung them over the wall. He still wasn’t even sure what the problem was, or why Cree was giving Oliver a hard time over his request that Alessio be in the gym next week to spar with both twins, but whatever.
“I just don’t understand why we have to bring in a whole second member to train with the other—”
“Because I said so,” Cree replied dryly.
“What’s he on about?” Chris asked, slipping behind the wall.
Corrado shrugged, stepping under the spray of hot water after turning the dial almost as hot as it would go. There was nothing better on sore, aching muscles than hot water. Later, he might see if he could find a bathtub in this maze of hell.
“I mean, didn’t you spar with Alessio the first day we were here?”
Water sluiced down Corrado’s face, and he closed his eyes as he scrubbed his hands down his jaw to relieve some of the tension there, too. He wasn’t even listening to his twin, not when the hot water was making him feel ten times better than he had just a few minutes ago.
Chris didn’t seem to care. “Oliver is right. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Cree—”
“You cannot teach affection with your fists,” Cree said, “and that is not a lesson either of them need to learn between one another, sparring or not. If it is okay one time, it becomes okay at other times. My decision is made—find someone else.”
Corrado’s eyes popped open.
Chris made a noise under his breath. “Well, all right ... he ain’t wrong.”
He might have told his twin to shut the fuck up, but he was more interested in the fact that Oliver looked like a gaping fish, and Cree had turned away from the man now. Briefly, Cree looked his way, met Corrado’s gaze, and then just as quickly, left the gym altogether without as much as a glance back.
He was done.
Said what he said.
Cree never offered more than what he gave, Corrado found, but it was usually important things when he did speak. A man of few words because he watched more than he talked, Cree noticed far more than people gave him credit for, and he considered everything because of it.
Corrado cranked the latch to stop the water, wanting to get the hell out of the gym and back to the other thing that was currently on his mind. He barely bothered to use one of the towels waiting on hooks to dry off, instead haphazardly running it through his hair before throwing on his shirt and shorts.
“Hey,” Chris said.
He didn’t look back at his twin. “I’ll catch you later, okay?”
“Corrado.”
“What, Chris?”
Chris’s shower was turned off then, too. Corrado turned to face his brother—who was still naked, and didn’t seem to give a damn, much like he hadn’t earlier—without a shred of emotion on his face. He didn’t want people to know that it bothered him that his interest in Alessio was clear, or vice versa. Those were things he always kept to himself, and he wasn’t interested in sharing them now.
“It’s okay,” Chris said, lifting one shoulder like it didn’t matter, “you know that, right? It’s fine, Corrado.”
He was so fucking grateful that there was another person in this world who not only shared his face, but also his mind. Because apparently Chris could just tell what his twin was thinking without needing to be told.
Yeah, just great.
Perfect.
Except it wasn’t.
“Leave it alone,” he told his brother.
Chris sighed. “It’s not a big deal that other people notice there’s something going on. He didn’t say something to make it a thing. He said it because he’s looking out for both of you—he had a point, too. Don’t get in your fucking feelings about it.”
“Leave it alone, Chris.”
• • •
Corrado got it.
He understood why his twin thought he was making a big deal out of nothing, but Chris didn’t understand. It wasn’t just about his sexuality for Corrado—it went beyond that, too. And it seemed just like with everything else in his life lately, the issue started and ended with Alessio. This problem was no different.
It wasn’t only about his sexuality.
It was more than that.
Like the fact Corrado walked into The League, and people—Alessio, for one, but he suspected there were more—looked at him with an opinion already formed. About who he was, what he came from, and the things he was capable of. It wasn’t just Alessio, although he had been the first to verbally make his opinion known to Corrado. It didn’t matter; he’d heard other members make the same kind of comments when they thought his back was turned.
He was spoiled.
He’d been pampered.
He didn’t know how to work.
As it was, Corrado already had that shit he was dealing with here. It showed him he would need to work twice as hard to prove himself here, and make a spot that was his which said he, too, was worthy.
Now, there was this, too.
This.
If the members of The League who milled about, or those who were actively taking part in training the twins, didn’t already believe something was happening between Corrado and Alessio—they wouldn’t be wrong—they probably had a good idea now. For one, because of Alessio’s show earlier in the gym, and now because of Cree, too.
It was yet another thing.
Something else for someone to use and say, he’s only where he is because of this. Or, he’ll always need someone watching his back because he wasn’t treated the same as the rest of us. Corrado knew how this garbage went, and he didn’t want to be put in the same trash pile.
Once again ... his pride was still a bitch.
That was why Corrado found himself standing in the doorway of Alessio’s private rooms instead of his own, where he should have been to change clothes before going to find something to eat. No, he had to deal with this first.
“What you did today—don’t ever fucking do it again. You got me?”
Resting on the bed with his right ankle propped over his bent, left knee, Alessio slowly looked over the edge of the thriller in his hands. His stormy blue gaze drifted to the side as though he was considering what Corrado said, before coming back to the angry man standing his doorway.
“Sure, come in,” Alessio muttered. “Why not?”
“Cut the shit.”
An arched brow answered Corrado back. Alessio and his attitude was fucking infamous around this place. One could tell if the guy was going to be easy to deal with simply by the way he walked
out of his rooms first thing in the morning. Head down, he was ready to fight. Head up, he’d be mildly pleasant. That attitude of his never went away.
The book in Alessio’s hands pissed Corrado off more, though.
Alessio didn’t move it, or set it aside. In fact, he went back to reading like he had better things to do than bother with Corrado. “All right, come back when you’re in a better mood.”
“Les.”
“Hmm?”
“What you did earlier in the gym ... that can’t happen again. It’s bad enough that I already have people who think I shouldn’t be here to begin with. You were one of those fucking people, remember? I don’t need you—”
“I was trying to help.”
“It doesn’t help. It makes shit worse.”
“Corrado—”
“Don’t step in for me again,” Corrado said, his jaw tensing with every word. “The last thing I need is that kind of help around here, and you know it.”
His piece said—because he was sure he didn’t need to say more now—he turned to leave. It was only Alessio’s next words that made him hesitate to leave.
“Sorry I fucking gave a shit, then.”
Corrado spun back around so fast, the room was a blur. The thing was, by the time he turned around to respond, Alessio had already tossed his book aside so he could stand from the bed. The two of them met toe-to-toe in the middle of the room, never once breaking eye contact, either. He didn’t know what bothered him more ... the fact Alessio didn’t get it, or that it felt like he didn’t fucking care either way.
“What did you just say?”
Alessio cocked his head to the side. “I didn’t stutter. If you want to make an issue out of nothing, then do that, but do it somewhere else, Corrado.”
He moved closer one inch.
Alessio didn’t back away.
That probably wasn’t the best idea, if only because now Corrado was close enough to Alessio that their chests grazed when he breathed a little too deeply. He could feel the other man’s heat—smell the woodsy aroma that always accompanied the leather undertones of his scent. Like this, so fucking close, he could see the flakes of dark navy that made his blue eyes rage like a storm, and the small scar that ran right through the cupid’s bow on his upper lip. He could count the few scattered freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose, nearly the same tanned color of his skin, so they would be missed if one was too far away. Except, right then, Corrado wasn’t too far away. He was too close.
