Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(59)

What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t remember! It was all so different when Austin had been using his finger as a gun or the edge of his hand as a knife.

Think, Skylar!

That was the key. I had to think through the chaos. It was all just a few simple steps. The quicker I did them, the less time Renato would have to react.

I remembered.

After one last deep breath, I watched Renato’s wildly swinging arm, drowning out his mush-mouthed gibberish. Time seemed to slow down for me.

Now!

I grabbed his forearm with both hands, holding it across my chest, and bent down, then quickly bent my upper body forward. I felt Renato’s weight move over me and I extended my legs.

To my utter amazement, Renato went sailing clean over my back with an almost comical sound of wordless disbelief. I still had his arm trapped with his gun pointing behind me when he landed flat on his back on the ground.

Moving so fast he was almost a blur, Austin made a beeline for that gun, dropping his knee on to Renato’s face and ripping the firearm out of the mobster’s hand at the same time. Renato screamed once before Austin knocked him out with the pistol.

In an instant, Austin was back on his feet. He was still wearing nothing but the shorts and fingerless gloves he’d had on in the New Ashby event center.

Then his hands were on me, on my upper arms, moving me away from the unconscious and seriously re-disfigured Renato. My arms and legs started going numb and I stumbled.

Austin steadied me, then lifted me up the same way as when it was our honeymoon. I reached out and touched him to make sure.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“I think… I think so. Is this really happening?”

“Yes, Sky, you’re safe. Look at me. You. Are. Safe.”

I stared at his face as other men filed into the room behind the guy with the Austin-like voice. He tucked his gun into a holster and looked down at Renato disdainfully.

“You two, search him, tie him up and put him in the car. We’re gonna have a talk when he wakes up.” He paused. “You, go to the store and buy a pack of crayons so this asshole can write down his answers.”

“Did you… mean it?” Austin asked.

I knew what he meant, and I repeated it. “I’ll love you forever. I meant it.”

“What did I do to deserve you?”

“Everything.”

“I love you, Skylar. If anything had happened…”

I rested my head on his chest. “You’re going to be a father.”

“I saw the test. How about that, huh? Think it’ll be any easier than taking down a crime family?”

“How did...?” I asked, gesturing at the guys dragging Renato away, and the whole thing in general.

“It’s a crazy story.”

“It’d be crazy if it wasn’t. Austin?”

“Yeah?”

“Get me outta here, over here.”





Chapter 29

Skylar

Months Later

The ref waved his arms, signaling the end of the fight, and the crowd erupted. Austin disentangled himself from Brenton Southgate and stood to his feet, letting the (now-former) champion’s unconscious form slump unceremoniously face-down on the mat.

Austin bounded to the edge of the decagon and straddled the fence, raising his arms in triumph instead of fleeing the premises the way he had the first time these two fought. With those thick arms bulging, he practically howled in his victorious euphoria.

His eyes sought me out, and he gave me a private smile in the middle of the seventy-thousand strong crowd, pointing at me before dropping back into the ring. Beside me, like everybody else in here, Kendall and Jace were on their feet.

Kendall, about as jealous of my pregnant body as I was of her returning-to-normal-post-pregnancy body, was holding my hand and bouncing enough for the both of us. King Austin the Second (I was going to veto the hell out of that one, but that’s what Austin and Jace suggested) even gave a little kick to show his support.

The announcer declared Austin the new heavyweight champion of the MMA world, as the Head of NHBFC secured the belt around my husband’s waist and Brenton Southgate started to show signs of consciousness. One of the commentators approached Austin with microphone in hand and waited for the noise to die down a little before beginning his interview.

“First of all, Austin, congratulations!”

“Thanks, Pete.”

“Thanks for sticking around this time!”

Austin laughed. “No problem.”

“Obviously a classic submission victory for yourself. Could you walk us through what happened here?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. I learned from the first fight that Brenton’s best defense against the ground game was avoiding it as much as possible. That’s not to take anything away from him, he knows his sh-… stuff, he knows his stuff, but I figured that if I could take him into the later rounds by standing with him for that long, my conditioning would see me through, and I’d spot the opening I needed to take the fight back to where I had the advantage, and I could tie him in knots.”