The Underground: The Complete Series

by Snow, Jenika

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  His heart was thundering, the nerves making him feel off-balance. Kash had never felt this way before, had never felt like he was standing on a tightrope about to plummet to the bottom. He didn’t get nervous or anxious, wasn’t frightened. But when it came to Tristan and what he was about to do, he felt like he was in someone else’s body.

  He held the small black box in his hand, his fingers crossed tightly around it. It had been nearly a year since he’d moved in with Tristan, since he realized that she was the other half to his heart. She made that darkness go away, brought light into his world. He might always still be rough around the edges, but she was the only thing that could help us smooth him out.

  She was the only one who understood him fully, accepted him wholly.

  He heard her car pull into the driveway, and his heart sped up. Standing, he held the box tightly in his hand, shielding it. Then the sound of her car door opening and closing pierced his foggy brain. A moment later he heard her enter the house. Kash swallowed a lump in his throat and took a steadying, deep breath.

  He could do this. He loved Tristan more than anything else, and not having her in his life was not an option. Although he didn’t need a ring or marriage to keep her as his, he wanted it official.

  “I’m home,” she called out from the foyer and a second later walked into the living room, a smile on her face. “Hey,” she said when she saw him.

  I can do this. I have to do this.

  “Tristan, baby,” he said and took a step closer to her. She set her bag on the ground, her smile faltering slightly.

  “What’s going on?” She moved in close to him, only a few feet away now.

  Before he could chicken out—like hell he would—he got down on one knee in front of her and produced the ring.

  “Tristan, you’re my world, my life. Everything I do now is because of you, for you.” His throat was tight. “I wanted to do this that night I had you in the shower, as your body shook against mine, as you gave me your strength. Six months ago I wanted you to be my wife, but I wanted to make sure you’d actually say yes.”

  She laughed softly, her hand covering her mouth.

  “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything else on this planet. There’s nothing more important to me than you, Tristan, than the life we could have, than the family we can create.”

  * * *

  A proposal.

  Tristan couldn’t believe Kash was proposing to her, wanting to spend the rest of his life with her. She loved him, wanted to spend her life with him, but he was a hardened fighter and she hadn’t thought this day would ever come. She hadn’t known if he’d ever be able to commit like he was right now.

  And she’d been okay with that, accepted it because she knew he loved her as much as she loved him.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, emotion exploding out of her. She knew what she wanted to say, but the word was lodged in her throat.

  “Baby, your silence is making me even more nervous than I already am.” He chuckled, but it was tight, matching his expression.

  She chuckled a watery laugh. Dropping her hand from her mouth, she curled it into a fist at her side. “You know I’ll marry you. You’re it for me.”

  He had her in his arms a second later.

  “You’re my life, Tristan, and I love you something fierce.” She rested her head on his chest, closing her eyes and feeling at home, at peace. “Say it all official like,” he murmured against her hair.

  “Yes, Kash, I’ll marry you. Of course I will. I love you.”

  He squeezed her tighter, and she couldn’t help but give a wheezed-out laugh. “But if you hold me any tighter, there might not be a bride to walk down the aisle to you.”

  He loosened his hold and pulled back, cupping her cheeks and smiling down at her. “You’re it for me, Tristan. You’re mine.”

  Extended Epilogue

  Numerous years later

  The kids shouted in tandem from the backseat.

  “Daddy, are we there yet?”

  “Yeah, are we?”

  “I can’t find my damn way through these narrow country roads,” he muttered to himself, his hands on the steering wheel so tight his knuckles ached.

  “Ohhhh, Daddy said a bad word,” Lani said, her little voice giggling as she caught him swearing.

  Kash was trying to do better with that.

  “He meant dam, like the thing that keeps water contained,” Tristan said and he glanced at her, grinning.

  “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “Bohdi!” Tristan hissed.

  “What?” he said innocently. “You said it wasn’t a bad word.”

  Tristan just shook her head, trying to hold back her smile.

  He, on the other hand, burst out laughing. Leave it to one of his kids to have his smartass attitude.

  A tree branch scraped along the side of the car, the backroads so narrow and uneven, he should have brought Tristan’s little compact car instead of his beast of a truck.

  Kash growled low, narrowed his eyes, and prayed for patience.

  “Calm down, Kash,” Tristan said, but he heard the laughter in her voice. She was always the one with the level head.

  And then the kids started singing songs, each one a different tune, at a different pitch, at a different volume.

  Kash felt his head about to explode, but at the end of the day he wouldn’t have changed it, wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  And then five minutes later he finally saw the clearing for the cabin they’d be staying at for the next week. He breathed a sigh of relief when he parked the car and watched Tristan climb out. She got the kids out of the backseat, and the three made their way toward the rental cabin.

  Although this was as hardcore camping as they’d do, or as Tristan said, “glamping” because there was electricity and running water, a TV and satellite, they were away from the city and distraction. It was a vacation to them.

  Although they were only about ten minutes from the town center, they were surrounded by a thick forest. It was getting away as much as they could do given the fact they had two small children, and both of them worked fulltime, but it was this week every year that he looked forward to.

  It was the stress and travel, the white-knuckled hold on the steering wheel as the kids screamed at each other in the back, that had him grinning like a fool.

  God, he loved his life.

  Kash climbed out of the truck and headed around back, seeing the stairs that led down to the dock and the lake just below. It was gorgeous, just like it was every time, but each year Kash felt like this scene got even more perfect.

  And it was because he got to spend it with his family for another year.

  “Daddy?” Lani called out from the front porch and he headed back around front.

  “Here I come, sweetheart.” He rounded the corner and saw Lani standing on the porch. When she saw him, a big grin spread out over her face and she ran down the stairs and headed toward him at a full run. He scooped up his little girl, kissed her on the top of her head, and carried her in the house. He saw Tristan had brought in a few bags already, and was in the process of putting some of the groceries away.

  “Daddy, look!” Bodhi called out in an excited voice as he held up a few trucks that had been stashed by the closet. Looked like the owners got Bodhi’s letter last year about needing more toys here.

  He shook his head and grinned. After setting Lani down and watching her run over to her brother so they could play with the new toys, he went back out and grabbed the rest of their things. Took him five trips, but when he had everything, he shut the door and just stood there a moment. The kids were hyped up on sugar, Tristan was busy putting things away, and here he was grinning like a damn fool for how happy he was.

  Kash didn’t stop himself form going up to Tristan and pulling her into his arms, leaning down, and kissing her until she was clinging onto him. That’s how he liked it. That�
�s what he wanted.

  “Ewww,” Lani and Bodhi said in unison, and Tristan chuckled against his mouth.

  They both looked at their kids, who had disgusted expressions on their faces.

  As he held on to his wife and looked at their children, he realized once again, for the millionth time, how fucking lucky he was.

  Life sure was crazy in the best of ways.

  The End

  HIS WRATH (Underground, 2)

  By Jenika Snow

  www.JenikaSnow.com

  Jenika_Snow@Yahoo.com

  Copyright © August 2018 by Jenika Snow

  First E-book Publication: April 2013

  Photographer: Wander Aguiar :: Photography

  Cover Model: Shane Mac

  Model image provided by: Wander Book Club

  Editor: Kasi Alexander

  Line Editor: Lea Ann Schafer

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of any part of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental. Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.

  Brea Collins's past kept resurfacing no matter how hard she tried to outrun it. When she finally settled in a small town, working at a club to save enough for what she hoped was her final escape, she never expected to meet Adrian Holden, a man who made her feel something other than fear.

  Adrian's life has been far from a fairy tale. He fought in the Underground, an illegal cage fighting organization housed below an up-and-coming nightclub. It was his anger and grief that fueled him, that made him the barbarian he was.

  When he saw Brea, she called out to every protective, possessive instinct in him.

  But their happiness could only last so long.

  With two traumatic pasts and an uncertain future, there was bound to be something that drove them apart. But Adrian was determined to have Brea at all costs, and he would do everything in his power to ensure that, even if it meant raw knuckles and bodies at his feet.

  Warning: Please note there may be sensitive content that triggers readers. Previously published under the title Adrian’s Wrath, this story has been revised, re-edited, and new content has been added.

  1

  Adrian threw another shot back and stared ahead. The club was packed, as usual, but he was impervious to all that happened around him. His thoughts were too raw, too real. He needed to drink tonight away and just be somewhere else, at a different time, not stuck in the fucking past.

  “Another.” He slid the empty shot glass across the counter. The bartender grabbed the whiskey and gave him a refill. This was his fourth shot, and Adrian had no intention of stopping. Maybe he could get drunk enough to forget about tonight, to forget about everything he’d lost.

  Through the mirror lining the back of the bar, Adrian could see her before she even sidled up to him. Her platinum-blonde hair was in need of a new dye job, and her lips were covered in this coral-red shade that reminded him of a clown.

  He slammed the glass on the counter for another drink, and it was refilled right away. She stood beside him now, her perfume overpowering as she “accidentally” bumped into him. They were all the same. They all thought they were someone special, that they had the pussy of the century.

  To Adrian they were not something he’d allow himself to get lost in.

  He drank the shot, loving how the burn from the alcohol had since diminished and all he felt was numbness.

  “I’m sorry. Can I just grab one of these?” Her ploy to get his attention wasn’t lost on him, but he wasn’t interested. He could have told her as much and saved her the time of trying to get in his pants, but right now his mind was blank, the alcohol making nothing really matter.

  Of course that had been the point.

  When she leaned across the counter, practically sitting on his lap to get a napkin, of all things, he could see her nipples poking through the thin material of her top. All it did was make him feel disgust.

  “Not interested,” he said without looking at her. Thankfully she didn’t argue, didn’t try and push herself on him even more.

  The club was popping despite the fact it was a Wednesday night. Fighting was the only outlet that helped to relieve the pain, anger, and all-out hatred he felt on a constant basis.

  Closing his eyes, he exhaled. He was tired, so fucking tired of the daily repetition that was his life. With his eyes still closed, his senses became heightened. He felt the vibrations of the music, smelled the overpoweringly cloying scent of sweat and sex. And then the scent of roses filled his senses despite the tang of spilled beer and arousal in the air.

  Instantly he knew who it was, and he didn’t stop himself from opening his eyes and turning to the right, seeing her. She was only a couple feet from him, a waitress leaning against the side of the bar, the tray in her hands overflowing with empty glasses. She looked tired … and sad. Hell, he knew all about the kind of sadness that consumed a person.

  She was a tiny thing, short and thin and way out of her element working at a place like this. That much was obvious. As if she sensed him, she lifted her head and met his gaze. Even from the distance and without adequate lighting he could make out the startling blue of her eyes.

  He would never be able to forget when she had looked up at him that night in the Underground, the crowd intense, the scent of blood filling the air. He’d ripped those men away from her as she appeared scared. When Adrian had heard her scream, even with the noise surrounding them and the blood rushing to his ears as he faced off with his opponent in the cage, every protective instinct inside of him had gone on high alert. Memories had assaulted him, and tunnel vision had taken over.

  He’d had one goal in mind. Get to her.

  When Kash had joined in, the two cage fighters had made quick work of the drunken bystanders. It had been a very long time since he’d felt any emotions for the opposite sex. But the bone-deep protective instincts that had slammed into him as she had looked up at him, silently begging for his help, had broken something inside of him.

  Brea, he’d found out, was her name.

  It sounded sweet and innocent.

  The walls he’d built around himself, especially his heart, had cracked at that moment. Never had he experienced such a strong reaction to a woman, and never so instantaneously.

  His heart had started beating again, his blood rushing through his veins. He’d felt alive.

  It had been weeks since that night, and despite his inner pep talks that he needed to stay away from her, that he was damaged goods and she didn’t need that in her life, he found himself frequenting the club where she worked, if only to see her.

  He didn’t miss the way women stared at him, ones who had been to the underground cage fighting right below this club. They wanted him for the sole reason that he fought. It turned them on. How would they feel if they knew he fought to release his emotions, to experience something other than the tightness that squeezed at his heart?

  How would they feel to know he enjoyed giving pain as much as he relished receiving it while in that cage?

  He needed to stay away from Brea, but whatever it was about her, Adrian found the more he saw her, the more he wanted her. It was a dangerous combination, and one he shouldn’t even be contemplating. But when it came to her, something in him shifted and he found himself growing possessive and territorial of her.

  He found himself wanting her as only his.

  2

  Brea watched Adrian leave. Even after his massive body disappeared in the crowd, her heart still pounded wildly. Every night she saw him sitting on the same bar stool, slamming back the whiskey like it was wat
er and he was dying of thirst.

  He wasn’t like other men. There was a threatening aura that surrounded him, not just on the outside, not just because he fought underground.

  No, there was something deep down inside of him, something that called out to the broken piece of her she tried to keep buried.

  When she’d been offered a chance to earn a hefty amount under the table working the floor during the illegal cage fights they held under the club, she’d been leery but hadn’t even thought of turning it down. Brea needed the money desperately, and working the fights meant she was one step closer to being stable.

  She kept to herself for a reason—a good one—but she also couldn’t deny the fact that the money that had been offered would go a long way in securing her release from her personal prison. Every little bit brought her closer to escaping the nightmare that had become her life.

  So, against her better judgment and all the internal warning bells that had gone off inside of her, Brea had accepted.

  It hadn’t been until she was crammed into the basement, sweaty, drunken bodies pressed far too close for her comfort, that the past assaulted her. She could have handled it, was doing a good job, too. But when the numerous hands had started touching her, forcibly pulling at her, everything around Brea had gone black.

  She’d been back in that room, his hands moving on her, touching her, whispering disgusting things to her. Every horrendous second had seemed like eternity, and then it had all stopped.

  The air thickening, stilling.

  She’d found herself on the floor, staring into a face that was hauntingly attractive but devastating all in the same breath. His sheer size should have had her cowering even further, but she found herself wanting to reach for him. Her savior.