I’m surprised to feel my eyes going hot. I’m crying—not a lot, but my eyes are definitely leaking. I backhand the tears away and sniffle, disgusted with myself. There’s a way out. There has to be. I can’t keep living like this.
Again, that thought drifts across my mind. Cain. Cain could be the answer. He could be the one who gets me out of this hellhole.
Bad idea, Jess. Just let it go.
But I can’t. I just can’t.
CHAPTER THREE
Cain
There are days I wonder why I fight. Days I wonder what gets me into the ring, makes me almost crave the adrenaline, the smell of the sweat and the blood. The pain. Days I think it would be so much easier if I gave it all up and became an accountant or something. Something easy.
This is not one of those days.
Why? Because today I’m supposed to win. And it’s not going to be a cakewalk. If Spada’s scouts misjudged the last opponent as stronger than he was, they misjudged this one in the opposite direction. He’s not nearly as far beneath me as they seem to think he is.
That’s okay. I need to work for it once in a while, if for no other reason than to take my mind off the fucking cesspit that my life has become. To forget that I don’t only want to win, but I have to. Because if I don’t…
Well, Spada’s made that pretty fucking clear. And right now I’m not thinking. I’m just hitting. Punching. Dodging and weaving. I want to move in and pull my opponent down into a grapple. I always feel like I have more control that way. The boxing, the hitting—it’s not my favorite part of my time in the ring. No. I like the primal tangle in the grapple. Using every inch of my body with every inch of my strength to pin another man down, manipulate him, overpower him. Then we can get to the hitting.
He makes a very slightly wrong move and I’m on it like a cat on a mouse. That’s my job—to watch until they do something wrong, and then make them pay for it. A moment later, I’ve got him on the mat where I want him, and I’m punching him in the face, at the same time weaving my own body out of his reach so he can’t retaliate. After a while, he manages to get tangled back up with me again, and for a few long seconds neither of us can move. The ref moves in then, ordering us apart.
I hop to my feet and move back, as instructed. As I head for my corner, I glance over the crowd. I didn’t see Jessica anywhere when the match started. She’d better be here. I wasn’t kidding about hunting her tight little ass down if she isn’t.
I don’t see her at first, but then I do. She’s not in her usual spot; she’s farther back from the ring. She sits with her hands folded together between her knees, her back straight, expression neutral. I wonder if she’s afraid for me. I give her a quick wink, but I’m not sure she sees me.
When I turn back around, there’s an extra jump in my step. Because my girl’s here. Because she’s watching while I pound this guy into the ground. Because I can pound this guy into the ground. I don’t have to hold back. I can show her exactly what I am, what I have, what I do.
Maybe I forget she knows all that already. It doesn’t matter, really, because when she’s watched me before it’s been under very different circumstances. Circumstances that didn’t involve my having fucked her to within an inch of her life. Twice.
I grin around my mouth guard. The fight’s on again. I know I’m going to take this guy. There’s no question now. I’ve got all his weaknesses filed in my head, and my instincts take over. He won’t last five more minutes.
He lasts three and a half. It’s a knockout again. Can’t say I always enjoy knockouts—it’s dramatic, but they lack a certain finesse. On the other hand, you don’t have to wait around while the refs tally up points, so there’s that.
I wait until all the ceremonial shit is over, and then I look for Jess again. She’s still in the same spot, standing now. She has her arms crossed under her breasts, holding herself tight, like she’s nervous or upset. I get the feeling maybe she’d just as soon nobody know she’s here. I wave to her and get a feeble wave back. “Stay,” I mouth, pointing at her. She nods, though with a bit of reluctance.
She’ll stay. I know she will. I head in her direction.
It occurs to me for a second that there’ll be no way to hide the fact we’re talking to each other if anyone sees us here. A second later I decide I don’t care. Maybe Jess does—she looks like she might. But if this is her way to piss off her father, why does she want to be so secretive about it? On the other hand, I know what happens when you cross Phil Spada, and I’d just as soon she not experience it.
Still, I’m drawn to her, and I make my way to her through the crowd. Fuck Spada, seriously. What gives him the right to control either one of us? If I want Jess, I’ll damn well have her.
She waits for me, still acting a little tense and upset. I stop by her, suddenly all too aware of the sweat and stink on my body, the blood on my face and arms. I’m too brutish for her. She’s so clean and perfect, standing there in her neat linen suit, her low heels, and her hair falling straight around her oval face. But she reaches up and gently touches my lip where it’s still stinging from a hit in the first round.
“I was worried,” she says.
“Really? Why?”
She shrugs. “I just… Well, he seemed like he knew what he was doing.”
I laugh. “He did. So do I.” I lift a hand to rub sweat off my forehead and notice the blood starting to soak through the wrappings on my hand. She sees it too; her eyes widen a little and she reaches for the hand, draws it toward her.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It happens. You know. When you hit other people in the face.”
“How bad is it?”
“Can’t tell without getting the tape off.”
She picks at the end, trying to peel back the corner. “Isn’t this stuff supposed to protect your hands?”
“Theoretically.”
Before I can protest, she’s peeling the tape back, baring my skin. My knuckles are pretty banged up, and they’re bleeding, though it’s not really flowing anymore. It’s just sticky now, making it hard to peel back the last of the wrapping.
She runs her thumb across the back of my hand, gentle. “You should get this cleaned up.”
“I should get a lot of things cleaned up.” My dick, already revved from the fight, is twitching in my shorts. Picking her up and fucking her up against a wall sounds like a very good idea right now.
Not possible though. Instead I lean forward, daring, and kiss her, right there in front of God and everybody. I wonder if anybody even notices. “Let me get cleaned up, then we’ll talk, okay?”
She nods and doesn’t even ask what I want to talk about. I like that. She’s learned not to ask a lot of questions.
Of course she has. She’s lived with her father all her life.
That thought is a little deflating. Knuckles aching, I head for the shower.
#
When I come out, I’m clean and minty-fresh, my hair wet, clean clothes on. I’ve changed into a suit. Spada likes his fighters to look good after the matches. I don’t know why, really—I’m all banged up and I think my eye is swelling shut, so it’s not like I’m going to be pretty for the cameras. There are only a few tonight; I talk to a couple local sports reporters, let them snap a few shots, then excuse myself to go find Jess.
She’s making her way toward me, though tentatively, and we meet halfway. I’m half tempted to look around to see if her father’s anywhere nearby, but I’m pretty sure he’s not. I put an arm around her, pull her against me. She stiffens.
“What if somebody sees?”
“Who’s here to see?”
“Pop’s goons, probably.”
Again, I don’t bother to look around. They’ll see me or they won’t see me. Not a fucking thing I can do about it. Besides… “If there’s anybody here, they probably saw us before, you know.” But I drop my arm. “Let’s go somewhere nice. I want to celebrate.”
She looks caught off guard and gives me a sidelong look through those tilted blue eyes. She looks like an elf sometimes, like something out of those Lord of the Rings movies or whatever. “Celebrate?”
I shrug. “The fact I’m not dead.” There are other reasons, too, but I’m not going to go into them right now. My brain’s been whirring all day, trying to come up with a way to get out from under Spada’s thumb. And I’ve got the beginnings of an idea. I almost want to tell Jessica, tell her everything, so she’ll know what I’m up to and be prepared when everything falls into place. I don’t think I’m quite ready to share though.
Her smile is small, a little hesitant, but genuine. “Seems like a good thing to be happy about.” She glances at me again, and this time she uses her thumb to rub something off my lower lip. Blood, I figure. “I’ll meet you outside.”
So I meet her outside, after giving her a few minutes’ head start. I take a second or two then to check for familiar faces. There are some, but as far as I can tell, they’re involved talking to each other and aren’t paying much attention to me. Probably adding up tonight’s winnings. I decide to get while the getting is good.