“Remington, she’s my sister,” she pleads.
“And the Scorpion will never let go of her. He keeps his women drugged and dependent, their minds in pieces so tiny they can’t even think. He’ll never give her up unless he wants something even more than her. Is it you? Does he want you, Brooke? He could have drugged you. Stripped you. Fucked you—goddamn my life, he could have fucked you!”
“No!”
“Did he touch you?”
“He didn’t! They’re doing this to provoke you, don’t let them! Save it for the ring tomorrow. Please. I want to be with you tonight.”
“I was with her the whole time, buddy, nothing happened,” Riley suddenly intercedes, calmly patting my arm.
When I realize what he’s telling me, I swing around to grab his shirt in my fist, the fury skyrocketing inside me. “You let my girl get in that scumbag’s face, you little shit?” I lift him off the ground.
“Remy, no!” Brooke comes to my side and futilely tugs on my arm.
I shake Riley. “You let her kiss that filthy scum’s ink?”
Pete taps my shoulder. “All right, buddy, let’s put Destroyer to bed now, huh?”
There’s a prick on my neck, and my adrenaline kicks in with a vengeance. Motherfucking shit, I can’t fucking black out now. I drop Riley and yank out the syringe and toss it aside. I go grab Brooke and stare at her. I want to tell her never to doubt me again, never to go behind my back again, and never—ever—believe I won’t protect her and what is hers, but I open my mouth and she looks so scared and so beautiful, panting and worried, that instead I make a low, gruff sound and crush her mouth, punishing myself with her taste, the sweet, wet taste of her, so pure and good, and how I hate that she put her beautiful mouth on that motherfucker because of her love for her sister. I tear free and release her before charging off.
My heart kicks wildly in my chest, fighting the sedative. All I can think of is introducing my knuckles into Scorpion’s face. I’m going to make him eat my fist, and then I’m going to make him go pick up his teeth from where they fall.
I know where he’s staying. We all know where each other is staying, if only to avoid each other. There are usually several hotels close to the designated Underground location, and Pete always finds out where Scorpion is so the only place we meet is in the ring.
He’s four blocks away, in a cheap five-story building littered with groupies at the lobby. When they see me, I hear a collective gasp, and all I have to do is growl, “Scorpion,” and two of them begin moaning excitedly and rubbing up against my sides, sandwiching me as we take the elevator. When we reach Scorpion’s floor, I get them to lead me to his door before I halt their roaming hands and squeeze their wrists so they stand still.
“Get them to open up,” I growl.
One of them rubs my chest while the other knocks. “Willie! Hey, Willie, it’s Trish,” she calls out.
The door opens and I immediately swing out my arm, my fist connecting with Willie’s face. He falls splat on the floor. Two other assholes sit on a flowery sofa watching TV, and they leap to their feet.
I go straight for the nearest one and grab him by the shirt. “Hello, motherfucker,” I tell him as I swing my fist. Bones crack. Blood sputters as I toss him down and grab the next, smashing my knuckles so his nose cracks just as hard. When I let him drop to his knees, I see him—Scorpion—at the door to a bedroom, his eyes slightly wide and as yellow as dog piss.
Clamping my jaw, I angrily stalk over as he lifts his palms up to ward me off. “Now, now, Riptide, you don’t want to do this here.”
“Yes, I do.” I grab his shirt and pound my fist three consecutive times into his face.
He tries to hit me back but I’m pounding him too fast. I shove him down to the ground and spot a girl there, crying, watching us from a chair by the bed. She looks nothing like Brooke. Her stare is empty, her hair is atrocious, and then I see a pencil at the nightstand as Scorpion tries standing. I grab it, and before he can stand, I ram it into the black tattoo he made Brooke kiss, tearing it downward. Blood spurts, and he releases a low, bloodcurdling scream as he tries to pull the pencil out.
As he winces and yanks it off, bloodied and broken, I pull him up by the T-shirt and force him to look at me.
“STAY. AWAY. FROM MY GIRL,” I spit into his face. “You MOTHERFUCKER. Stay away from my property. I’ll KILL you next time.”
I swing out, and the girl cries, “No!” and when I turn, his fist slams into my face.
I stumble back, then scowl, roar, and lunge at him. As we swing hard and fast, the only sounds in the room are the weeping of that girl and our hard, fast punches.
The thing about Scorpion is he’s not me. He’s not as fast, he’s not as strong—he will never win, unless he provokes the shit out of me and I fuck up like I did with my boxing career.
Like I’m doing now.
And I don’t care. Right now nothing will feel as good as breaking every one of his bones. Roaring, I deliver a killer right hook that drops him to his knees, and he raises his arms to stop me.
“Halt! I say, halt, Riptide!” My swing halfway there, I halt and glower down at him as he signals at her. “Do you want her?”
Blood dripping down my eyebrow, I wipe it off and look at her, as Scorpion grits out, “I’ll give her to you. I’ll let you take her if you let me win tomorrow.”
“I kill you now,” I growl, hauling him up by the shirt and forcing him to his feet with an angry shake of my fist. “And I take her.”
He shakes his head and pulls his shirt free. “Kill me and my three boys will tear her apart while you do.”
The soft weeping continues from the corner, and she’s whispering, “Please stop, stop.”
I scan the minions approaching her. I can take them all, but I don’t fucking want to do it in front of her. Clamping my teeth, I shove Scorpion away and approach her. I’m no fucking murderer even if the desire to kill is swimming in my veins, making me tremble. “You’re Brooke’s sister?”
She nods.
I take her by the arm and lift her to her feet. “You come with me.”
“Not so fast, Riptide,” Scorpion calls. “You want her, then one of your guys and mine stay with her in lockdown until you deliver the championship tomorrow.”
My laugh is dripping in sarcasm. “Ahh, asshole, when are you going to realize? I can give the championship away tomorrow, that won’t mean I won’t take it back. And when I do, everyone’s going to watch me break you.” I grab my phone and call Pete.
“Where the fuck are you—” he starts as soon as he answers.
“Get your ass over here. I need you to do something for me.” I tell him where I’m at and hang up.
Five minutes later, when Pete arrives, he sees my eyebrow is bleeding into my eye, that my fists are cracked and my knuckles bruised. He stares at Scorpion, his mouth hanging open. “Rem, what have you done,” he gasps.
“No one’s talking,” I stress out to placate him, and when he keeps gaping, I snap my fingers before his eyes. “Hey, hey, man, focus! You’re to secure Brooke’s sister until I tell you and they release her to me. Do you hear me?”
He blinks. “Dude, you need stitches.”
“I’ll get some fucking stitches,” I growl. “Just take her away from that asshole.”
I turn to look at Scorpion. Holy god, I still want to kill him. He’s slumped and bruised, and bleeding, but he has a gleam of victory in his eyes.
“I can’t wait to break you up on that ring,” he tells me as I walk out.
And it doesn’t matter.
“AND NOWWWW, LADIES and gentlemen, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Our reigning champion, the defender, the one and only, Remington RIPTIDE Tate!”
I am zoned off from the crowd and even of the way my body is primed and pumped to fight. I trot out to the ring and all I can see is Brooke draped in this same fabric around her skin. It brushes against me. I feel calm. I am reminded that she’s the reason why tonight I’m going to be hitting the canvas.
I can feel her gaze on me as I hop into the ring and let Riley pull off my robe.
This is the moment I always look at her.
My stomach is burning with determination. If I look at her, she’ll be wearing that worried look on her face. She’ll weaken me. She’ll make me want to fight. Fuck.
The crowd yells my name in a chant, and I hate that she’s going to have to watch this. But she wants her sister back. I won’t let her be with Scorpion.
The announcer then calls, “And nooow, ladies and gentlemen, the nightmare you’ve all been dreading to come alive is here. Watch out for Benny the Blaaaaaack Scorpion!”
And here he comes, the motherfucker. Walking slow as poe to test my fucking patience, with both his middle fingers stretched out to me and the public.
He feels badass tonight ’cause he knows I won’t be having any game tonight.
I wait for him to get up here, reliving the way I stuck a pencil into his fucking tattoo. I think of Brooke kissing him and my blood boils again.
He hops onto the ring and his black cape is removed, and I’m glad to see the motherfucker looks like shit. He’s been stitched up where I carved the tattoo off his fucking skin, and his yellow eyes land on me, and I can see the joy he feels that he’ll get to publicly kick the crap out of me.
Ting ting.
For a blind second, instinctively, I feel my body start to bounce into place: guard up, feet apart, going toe to toe with him, but I catch myself before I swing and let him have it. He punches me in the ribs, then my jaw, double. I shake myself to recover, then go back toe to toe.
I’m so wired up, it even feels good.
Scorpion hits me right in the gut, then goes for an uppercut, and I straighten my head. I’m not going to be knocked down by those sissy swings. If I land on the canvas, I fucking land on it because I can’t stand.
I take three punches in the body again, chest, and rib cage, and my body, my muscle memory, is at war with my brain. I’m going against every single instinct inside me. But I tell myself I might not have the championship, but I will have her.
I can see myself and the way she will look at me when I bring her sister. She will have that young girl back and she will know, once and for all, that I will fucking do anything for her.
Scorpion goes for my jaw, then goes straight and knocks me to my knees. The public doesn’t like it. I stand up, a little dizzy.
“Boooo! Booo!”
“Kill the bastard, Riptide! KILL HIM!”
We keep going. Punch after punch, I concentrate on not protecting, on not punching back.
We’re going round after round, and I’m just taking it. I feel my systems shutting down somehow. My muscles throbbing, my skin bruised, my bones tender. My brain slowing, my lungs straining to oxygenate every bruised part of me. I don’t even know where it hurts, my body is producing tons of numbing shit, and I am grateful for it.
I wipe my forehead and keep breathing, my arm ends stained in blood from my eyebrows, my lips, my temple. I slam onto the ground again, and I hate that this motherfucker can’t knock me down unconscious even when I want him to. I jump back up and spit at him, angering the motherfucker so he will give it to me good.
