"Killing is the easy part," he says matter-of-factly. He opens the glass door, gesturing me inside ahead of him. "Getting to that point without getting yourself killed in the process is the hard part."

I scoff. "So, you want me to learn how to kick a guy in the nuts? Trust me, I'm already perfectly capable of doing that."

A faint grin appears at the corners of his delicious lips.

Just then, a tall dark-haired man with rolling muscles walks toward us through the vast room. Tall windows are set along the top of the wall, letting in the sunlight. Two separate groups of people are training in a turn-by-turn sequence, standing around in a half-circle atop an enormous black mat spread across a large section of the floor.

The man with bulging arms underneath a black t-shirt offers his hand to Victor. "How long has it been? Three? Four years?"

Victor shakes his hand firmly.

"About four, I believe."

The man looks at me momentarily and then Victor introduces us.

"Spencer, this is Izabel. Izabel, Spencer."

"A pleasure," Spencer says, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, I shake it. They know each other? I'm not sure I like that or not. I suddenly feel like I'm being set up. I smile squeamishly up at the tall, good-natured brute.

Victor turns to me and says, "There's no one better to train you in self-defense than Spencer. You're in good hands."

Spencer smiles so big I feel like if it were any bigger he might bite my head clean off my neck. He stands with his heavily-muscled arms down in front of him, his hands folded. The thick, ropy veins running along his hands and up his darkly-tanned arms reminds me of a body builder, but he's not quite as big as one. He's just bigger than me, making him more intimidating.

I put up a finger at Spencer. "Will you excuse us for a minute?"

"Of course," he says.

I catch the quick grin he gives Victor.

I grab Victor by the hand and pull him off to the side. In the background I hear the constant sound of bodies being thrown down on top of that black mat and the voice of an instructor harping repetitive commands and making the students 'do it again'.

"Victor, I think this is a waste of time. I don't understand why you brought me here." I cross my arms. "I want you to teach me these things, not some random guy the shape of a bus." I look over my shoulder, hoping Spencer didn't hear that, even though I made sure to keep it at a whisper.

"I have to meet with Fredrik in an hour," Victor says.

"Oh, so you're dropping me off with a babysitter?" Lines deepen around my eyes. I shake my head at him in total disbelief, not to mention, offense.

"No, that's not what this is about."

"But I want you to teach me," I repeat, pushing the words harshly through my teeth.

Victor sighs and shakes his head, appearing annoyed and frustrated with me.

"You have no discipline," he says. "None whatsoever. Just like my brother was." That stings my pride. "How am I ever going to teach you anything when you can't even do the simplest things that I ask of you?"

Instantly, I regret acting like such a child.

I let out a surrendering breath. "I'm sorry," I say softly. "I guess I just imagined training with you."

"You will," he ensures me, placing his hands on my shoulders, "but for now, you need to learn the basics. And this is the best way to do it."

"But why can't you teach me the basics?" I ask with the same amount of surrender as before. "Why does it have to be him?"

Victor leans in and presses his lips softly against the corner of my mouth. "Because Spencer isn't afraid to hurt you," he says and it surprises me somewhat. "And I don't want to hurt you if I can help it. The only way you're going to learn is if it's real."

My eyes widen. "Wait...so you're saying this tank," I point over my shoulder with my thumb, "is going to hit me for real?"

"Yes. It's what I'm paying him for."

I think my mouth just fell on the floor. The air in the room suddenly hits the backs of my eyes.

"You don't have to do this, Sarai, but if you're going to, I want you to go all in. Don't half-ass it. In real life someone attacking you isn't going to go easy on you," he goes on, gazing thoughtfully into my eyes, wanting desperately for me to understand and to trust him. "I'll train with you when the time is right. But when I do it, it will be brutal, Sarai. I will come at you with the same force a real attacker would. You learn the basics first, obtain some skills that you can fight me with and then I'll feel better about training you myself. Do you understand?"

I nod. "Yeah, I guess I do." And I'm being honest with him. I totally understand now. And I can't remember the last time I was this nervous to go through with something. But Spencer, the tank, doesn't really scare me that much because I know deep down that even though Victor is paying him to not go easy on me, he still won't hit me with everything he's got. If he did, he'd kill me.

"Do you want to stay?" Victor asks.

"Yes. I do."

"Good."

He leans in to my lips again and kisses me deeply, stealing my breath away. Shocked by his unnatural display of public affection, I find myself unable to speak when he pulls his lips away from mine.

"I'll be back here to pick you up in a few hours."

"OK."

We walk back to stand with Spencer who looks somewhat excited to start training with me, as if I were a shiny new toy that he can't wait to play with.

"Are you ready to start learning Krav Maga?" Spencer asks.

"Yes," I answer and my eyes drift toward the people fighting on the black mat behind him.

"Are you sure you can handle it?"

I want to say yes with confidence, because after all, I always imagined that self-defense classes consisted of nothing more than simple blocking and hitting and screaming to let others know of my whereabouts. I always pictured average women who've never fought in their lives all standing around waiting for their turn to take the instructor down with a few 'helpful' moves. But as I watch the group training behind Spencer, the aggressive intensity and violence in some of their moves, I'm beginning to think this kind of self-defense is very different.

"Should be simple enough," I say without the confidence that I wanted.

"If you say so," Spencer chimes in with a knowing grin that frays my nerves further.

But I'm not afraid. Nervous, yes, but not afraid. I'm ready to do this. I'm starting to look forward to it. I want to prove to Victor that I have what it takes.

And I want to prove to him that I'm nothing like his brother.

Victor leaves me and before the first hour is over I'm exhausted and so sore that I can hardly walk a straight line without stumbling.

"Always defend and attack at the same time," Spencer says, standing over me lying beneath him on the mat, wanting to curl into the fetal position. "And never go down. This isn't wrestling, Izabel. If you go down, you're dead."

Out of breath and trying to hold back the intense pain searing through the back of my calf muscle, I bring myself to my feet.

"Come at me," he demands, his voice rising over the shouts of the few students still watching after the second hour. "If you don't come at me, I'm coming after you!"

I'm too exhausted.

"I can't!" I give up and fall against the mat on my butt. "This is too much. It's my first day and I feel like it's my first real fight. What happened to showing me what to do, teaching me how to hit?"

"Going light on you, that's what you really mean, isn't it?"

"Yes! Where are the instructions? The rules?"

My back is killing me. I lay against the mat, spreading my arms against it above my head, and stare up at the brightly-lit ceiling. I don't care anymore about Spencer and his dive-in-head-first training. I just want to rest.

The fluorescent lights running along the ceiling move by fast as I'm suddenly being dragged across the mat by my ankle.

"There are no rules in Krav Maga," I hear Spencer say, but I realize a half a second later that it's not Spencer dragging me.

It's a woman, with light brown hair pulled into a ponytail at the back of her head. Confused by the turn of events, I'm too distracted to notice her foot coming down on my stomach. I yell out in pain, doubling forward as my legs and back come off the mat at the same time, my arms crossed over my abdomen. The breath is knocked right out of my lungs.

"STOP!" Spencer says from somewhere behind me.

I feel like I'm going to puke.

The woman stops instantly and takes a few steps back.

"Get up," Spencer says and I decipher through the pain devouring my midsection that his voice is much closer than before.

I look up to see him crouched behind me.

"I'll let you catch your breath," he says gently and offers his hand. "This is Jacquelyn. My wife."

I grab onto his forearm and he grabs mine likewise and lifts me to my feet.

"Nice to meet you," I say to her with a God-awful grimace. "Or at least your foot."

She smirks.

"Your man paid me to pretty much beat the shit out of you," Spencer says. "But since I'm not in the habit of beating on women, I figure I should let my wife do the honors so that I can still get paid."

"It's the best way to learn," Jacquelyn speaks up. "That man of yours knows what he's doing. Brutal? Sure. Necessary to one's survival in close combat situations? Absolutely. For frail little bitches who do the dance of terror when they see a spider? Absolutely fucking not."

"Well, I'm not one of those," I say icily. "That I can fucking assure you."

"Then prove it," she taunts, bending over forward with her hands opened halfway out at her sides. "Remember there are no rules in Krav Maga. Always defend and attack at the same time. Always fight with aggression. And never go down."

"Yeah, I got that much. If I go down I'm dead."

Jacquelyn pretty much beats the hell out of me for the rest of the session. And when Victor finally arrives to pick me up, my nose and lip are bleeding, my right eye is bruised and throbbing, and I think I chipped a tooth.

This goes on every other day for the next two weeks.

And it didn't take long for me to become good at it. Spencer says I'm a natural and that I must've 'skipped the Barbie dolls and dress-up when I was growing up'.

He really has no idea...

I'm getting so much stronger, so much better at my technique. At one point I even managed to hurt Jacquelyn, buried my elbow in her ribs. I think I cracked them, but she won't say so. Not because of her pride, but because she doesn't believe in whining or letting something as petty as a cracked rib stop her from fighting.

It didn't take long for her to grow on me, either. When she's not beating me to a pulp, I actually enjoy her company.

Only two weeks have passed and I've done nothing but train with Jacquelyn and have even started training with Victor in the use of guns. But regardless of enjoying the training and looking forward to it every day, I'm frustrated that's it's taking so long. I expected Hamburg and Stephens to be long dead by now.

And I'm getting impatient.

"Victor, I don't plan to fight Hamburg and Stephens. I just want to kill them. That's it. I don't get why you're making me go through all this."

Victor moves the sheet from his body and climbs out of the bed, walking naked across the room.

I quietly admire the view.

"There's more to it than you know," he says as he disappears inside the bathroom just steps away.

That certainly gets my attention.

I raise up from the bed and call out, "Is that right?" I toss the sheet off and follow briskly behind him, stopping in the doorway of the bathroom and leaning against the frame. He's turning on the shower water.

He closes the glass shower door, letting the water run for a moment and then he turns back to me.

"You're not exactly going through the training just to kill Hamburg and Stephens. If you're going stay with me, regardless of what you're doing with your time, you need to learn how to fight. You need to know how to identify, differentiate, load and fire just about every weapon. There is a lot that you need to know and not enough time to learn even half of it." He opens the shower door and reaches inside, letting the water stream into his hand, testing the temperature.

He adds, "This training has little to do with Hamburg and Stephens. I want you to be safe always, so it's vital that you start learning these things now."

I smile faintly, savoring the moment. When we first met, I couldn't imagine Victor having much of a caring or emotional bone in his body. But every day I witness him opening up more to me. And I see that it is becoming easier for him.

I go back to the matter at hand though what I really want to do is kiss him right about now.

"But why is it taking so long? I just want to do this and be done with it."

I come the rest of the way inside the bathroom and hop onto the counter, sitting in nothing but my panties.

"Because while I'm working on a plan to get you close enough to kill them, you need to be training, doing as much with your time as possible." He steps over to me and cups my face in the palms of his hands. "Just being in the same room with me-just knowing me, Sarai, is a death sentence every day. Every time you walk out that door you risk being shot. The only reason the Order hasn't found me yet is because Niklas is the only one in the Order looking for me. For now, anyway. He doesn't want anyone else to find me. He wants the credit. The recognition. Especially since he was the one contracted to take me out." He presses his lips against my forehead. I shut my eyes softly and reach up with both hands and hold onto his wrists. "But one day, likely very soon, I'll have to face my brother because the Order won't give him forever to pull it off. Either he'll find me, or I'll find him. And one of us will die."

With my fingers still hooked halfway around his wrists, I carefully pull his hands from my face. I look perplexedly into his gorgeous green-blue eyes, tilting my head to one side.

"Why not just leave it alone?" I ask. "Victor, I can understand that you'd want to kill him before he kills you, but why risk getting killed by going and looking for a fight?"