There was another promise I’d made too. I held it deep inside myself, so far down that nothing these mobsters said had come close to touching it.
I promised Austin that, in me, he had a love he could rely on. That was one promise I wasn’t going to let them turn into a lie. I loved him. I loved him no matter what. He didn’t do this to me. They did.
“Hey Enrico, something’s been bothering me,” said Gavino.
“What’s that, boss?”
“This bitch’s name. Skylar Cross. Hey, bitch, did you know a guy… what was his fuckin’ name… Malcolm Cross? That was the guy at NHBFC wasn’t it, Enrico?”
“Oh yeah,” said Enrico, dragging out the last word thoughtfully.
A long-held hope was suddenly wrenched out of my clutches when Enrico started laughing at some sick memory. How could my uncle have been mixed up with these people too?
“Ah, look at that pretty little face,” said Gavino. “You did know him. Your dad?”
I clenched my jaws shut as a whirlwind of emotions churned me into knots on the inside. Grief wracked me anew, bringing a fresh flow of tears streaming down my cheeks, red from the exertion of my pained grimace.
“You topped him, didn’t ya?” asked Gavino.
“Course. Stupid fuck wouldn’t drug that fighter, so he wasn’t any use to us.”
Enrico made a gun shape with his hand and mimicked firing it, and I groaned in physical pain as Gavino and Renato laughed. The storm inside of me dragged up some other emotion, something much more hot and violent.
Anger. It spread from my stomach to the tips of my fingers, which I bunched into fists behind me. I was shaking with fury, welcoming it over the fear and sadness.
Through a mouth no less tightly shut than Renato’s, I forced out one last promise with every ounce of vehemence I could muster.
“I’ll fucking kill you all!”
“Hey look at me, shakin’ in fear,” said Gavino.
The commercial on the screen ended and faded back in to a sweeping camera shot of the inside of the New Ashby Event Center, with the Decagon lit up in the middle and the announcer holding the microphone hanging by its wire from the ceiling. When he got the signal in his earpiece, I saw him nod and he launched into his introduction of the challenger… Austin Aquila.
“Quick get that fuckin’ camera on.”
Enrico messed around with the video camera for a second, adjusting it on its tripod behind me to capture both myself and the TV in the same frame. The live feed changed cameras to show Austin by himself in the tunnels, waiting to be called out.
The camera followed him from side to side as he paced back and forth like a wild animal. His eyes looked like he was watching horrors happening from a great distance and the bags under them betrayed a sleepless night.
Whether he won in the first minute of the first round or not, this was probably going to be the last time I saw him. These guys weren’t letting me go. I was as good as gone. It was strange that the first and last times I laid eyes on him were going to be the same, on television.
Somehow he heard his cue and he stalked out of the tunnel towards the ring and the camera switched back to a wider shot, showing the spotlights following his progress through the middle of a crowd who had no idea that a young marriage, blossoming beautifully against the odds, was about to end violently.
“There’s been a lot of talk today about the strange behavior of The Killer, John.” Came the voice of the commentator.
“There sure has, Pete. From the moment he showed up by himself for the press conference earlier, and stormed off when the reporter asked about how the final touches on his training have come together, he’s looked on edge. There’s been no sign of his coach or his wife, leading some to speculate that there might be something going on between them. I understand our Media Relations team is preparing a statement about that. Either way, tonight, there appears to be no sign of the Austin Aquila who has won the hearts and minds of so many over the past several months. Look at his face, Pete, he’s got some vicious ideas going through his mind, I’ll tell you that much for free.”
“But will it be enough to unravel the enigma that is Brenton Southgate? Aquila showed that, like all heavyweights, he can muster up knockout power big enough to take out even seasoned strikers, and that left high kick wasn’t slow, but does he have the toolset to bring down the champ?”
The announcer in the ring nodded again once Austin was in his corner and began to introduce Brenton Southgate. The commentators listened until Brenton started his own walk into the middle of the event center.
“I honestly don’t think so, Pete. If these two met in a jiu jitsu tournament or any kind of pure-submission competition for that matter, absolutely, yes, I give it to Aquila, he’s the better grappler, but what Southgate has is his uncanny ability to defend the takedown and pick apart his opponents with superior striking. That defence, I think, is what is going to make the major difference between this fight and Aquila vs Sanchez.”