Chapter 6 - COLE
Cole did not want to charge me.
I could see it.
Grant shouted:
“Go.”
Cole hesitated.
Grant stepped closer.
“You want the contract or not?”
That did it.
Not because Cole wanted to hurt me.
Because Grant had turned hesitation into career leverage.
Cole came forward.
Fast.
He was eighty pounds heavier than me.
Maybe more.
Strength mattered.
Momentum mattered more.
He reached for my shoulders.
I shifted half a step.
His hand passed.
I caught the wrist.
Turned my hips.
Dropped my center of gravity.
Cole’s own forward momentum finished the movement.
He hit the mat facedown with one explosive slap of fabric against vinyl.
The room erupted.
One sharp roar.
Then silence.
Cole rolled onto one shoulder.
He stared at me.
Then started laughing.
“Okay.”
I released his wrist immediately.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
I offered him a hand.
He took it.
Grant did not laugh.
His face was red.
He marched onto the mat.
“That wasn’t controlled.”
Cole stood.
“It was absolutely controlled.”
“You attacked too aggressively.”
“You told me to charge.”
Grant snapped:
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Then he grabbed my shoulder.
Hard.
He tried to yank me around.
I ripped free.
Now the room changed.
Everyone saw it.
This was no longer an evaluator directing a test.
This was a man losing control because the woman he wanted humiliated had just succeeded in front of witnesses.
Grant pointed at me.
“Again.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“This time I’m doing it myself.”
A murmur moved through the applicants.
Cole stepped between us slightly.
Grant shoved him aside.
I looked up.
Victoria had returned to the balcony.
She was watching.
Grant had not noticed.
That mattered.
“Fine,” I said.
May you like
Grant stepped onto the mat.
And that was when everything he had been hiding literally fell out of his jacket.
