On the Ropes 2: Insidious Obsession

by Michelle Cary

  “I don’t know, but believe me when I say we’re trying to find out. We’re looking into everyone that might have had an issue with Amber in the last few years.”

  “Sean Sable is on the top of that list, right?” Cole asked. It was irrational and unrealistic to think Sean had anything to do with what happened, especially since he was currently recovering from the beating Cole gave him. However, Cole’s instinct demanded that Sean be considered a suspect. The man was slick and devious, and somehow Cole was sure he had something to do with this situation.

  Mark nodded. “He is, but he’s been home recuperating from that beating you gave him.”

  “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have someone working on his behalf.”

  “True, but I kinda doubt it,” Mark replied. “Somebody would have to be pretty messed up to run the risk of being arrested for arson and attempted murder just because he told them to set something on fire.”

  “I still think he needs to be watched,” Cole argued.

  “We will, but unless he gives us a legitimate reason to think he’s the guilty party, there is only so much we can do.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t do what’s necessary to protect her.”

  Mark’s eyes widened. “Now don’t go and do something stupid. We’re handling the situation and taking precautions. You just need to be patient.”

  “Patient?” Cole arched a challenging brow. “She damn near died this morning, Mark. My patience is gone.”

  * * * *

  That evening Cole opened the door to their new hotel room and waited for Amber and Lexi to pass through. Thanks to the fire department, who managed to keep the flames from spreading too far, most of Amber’s and all their belongings made it out of the fire intact.

  With the help from EUW staff, clothing and shoes were washed, possessions were cleaned, and new toiletries were purchased for Amber. Cole set his bags down and assessed the room. With two bedrooms and a common room, it was set up much like other suites they’d been in during Lexi’s kidnapping story line.

  Lexi peeked into first one bedroom, then the other; then she looked at them and frowned. “How is this going to work?” She pointed to the first bedroom. “That bedroom has a king-size bed, and that one has two queens.”

  “You and Logan take the king bed,” Amber replied. “Cole and Jason can take the two queens, and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  Cole frowned at her statement. After last night, he wanted her in his bed, wrapped in his protection where he could sleep in peace, but he damn well couldn’t share a bed with Jason in the room. Besides the obvious fact that Jason might be just a bit uncomfortable sharing a room with a couple, there were things he’d want to do to her that weren’t meant for others’ eyes.

  Despite their hours of lovemaking last night, he still ached for her on a level he’d never thought possible. Now that he’d gotten a taste of what it was like being with Amber, he wanted more. He wanted to hear her sweet little whimpers as he gave her pleasure. Wanted to see the happiness and love in her eyes. He wanted feel her writhe beneath him in passion as they came together in one all-consuming climax. Yet, fate, it seemed, meant to torture him some more. He let out a heavy sigh and nodded. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, her reasoning made the most sense.

  “I suppose that will work,” Lexi replied. “Geez, I can’t believe we’re back to sharing a suite again.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about all of this,” Amber replied.

  Lexi glanced over her shoulder. “That wasn’t a complaint, Amber. Just an observation.”

  Before Amber could reply, Cole pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you dare say that this is your fault.”

  She started to argue, but he shook his head before she uttered a word. “I swear to the all-mighty God above if you try to assume the blame for this, I’ll turn you over my knee and beat your ass right here in front of everyone.” It was about damn time she start learning not everything that happened in their lives was her responsibility.

  She opened her mouth, then immediately closed it again and dropped onto the couch. “It’s hard for me not to assume at least some of the blame for this.” She looked up at him. “After all, you’re in this situation because you’re somehow tied to me.”

  “How is it your fault?” he challenged. While past experiences might have conditioned her to always shoulder the blame, he wasn’t going to let her off that easily. Not this time.

  “What?” She stared at him with confusion on her face.

  “Tell me.” He stepped in front of her. “I want you to tell me what you did to this unknown person that makes him or her want to hurt you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember doing anything to anyone.”

  “Exactly.” Cole crouched in front of her. “It’s not as if you intentionally went out of your way to piss someone off. So how can this possibly be your fault?”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Cole, but—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her midsentence as he struggled to find the patience to deal with yet another of her self-induced guilt trips. That same hand was beginning to itch with the urge to spank some sense into her. Before he succumbed to temptation, he’d try another tactic. “What if this person who is after you was after Lexi instead?”

  Her brow knit with confusion. “But—”

  “Humor me, okay?”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  “Good.” He began again. “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that this person isn’t after you but is after Lexi. However, you and I and the rest of us have also been affected, just like we are now.”

  She stared at him and nodded.

  “Now Lexi feels really bad about this situation. She feels as if it’s her fault we’re all being inconvenienced and put in harm’s way. Like she’s somehow caused this problem.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Amber replied. “How can it be her fault when she doesn’t even know why this person is after her?”

  Now he was making progress. “Right,” he prompted. “But she still feels bad, like she should have been able to prevent it somehow.”

  Amber shook her head. “She can’t control what goes on in the minds of others. It’s not her…fault,” she slowly replied as she stared at Cole, recognition registering in her eyes.

  He leveled his best I-told-you-so look on her. “So how can this be your fault any more than it might be Lexi’s?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I suppose it’s not. I guess I’m just really good at assuming blame.”

  He lifted a hand and curled a knuckle beneath her chin. “Now you recognize that weakness, it’s time to start working on correcting it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amber sat between Cole and Jason around the table in creative as they went over their next story line. Her stomach cramped as she read the words steel cage match. Over the years she’d watched enough steel cage matches to know that most didn’t end well. With the three men surrounding her involved, this one was guaranteed to end in a bloodbath not seen since the 1990s.

  “So that’s the plan.” Mark leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “In an attempt to try and get back to some sort of normalcy around here, we’re going to focus on this story over the next two weeks. Then at the pay-per-view you three will take on the three members of Obsidian in a six-man tag devil’s playground steel cage match.”

  Jason grinned that crazy, psycho grin of his and looked around the table. “Should be fun.”

  Logan nodded. “I like it.”

  “Well, I don’t.” Lexi folded her arms. “This has the makings of a disaster written all over it.”

  Mark frowned at her statement. “These are six professionals, Lexi. I think they know what they’re doing.”

  With a challenging look on her face, Lexi slapped a hand to the table. “You’re a professional, Mark. My father was a professional. How many times did you both end up bloody and carried out on stre
tchers from steel cage matches?” She shook her head. “This”—she pointed to the paper—“is not just a ratings grab. It’s an ego trip.”

  “It’s a rite of passage, Lexi,” Mark argued. “These guys are good, and they’ll be even better after their first ever steel cage match.”

  “Rite of passage.” Lexi smirked. “I keep forgetting how this place is nothing more than a giant boys club. You get six alpha males locked in a cage together and you’re asking for—”

  “I’m asking for one hell of a great match,” Mark countered, cutting her off midsentence.

  She narrowed her gaze. “I won’t be party to this.”

  “Lexi.” Logan reached for her only to have her shake loose of his grip.

  “No.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “You guys are going to have to do it without me ringside, because I’m not going to stand there helpless and watch the man I love be reduced to a bloody pulp simply for the sake of some ratings or some ridiculous rite of passage.” Before anyone could reply, she turned on her heel and stormed from the room, sucking the energy out with her exit.

  Amber glanced from man to man. For being a woman, Lexi had some big balls. No way would Amber have had the guts to blatantly challenge management.

  Mark let out a heavy sigh. “I knew she was going to be a pain in the ass about this.” He leveled a look at Logan. “We’re going to need her and Amber showing solidarity by being ringside for the match. Do you think you can talk to her?”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Amber replied, only to feel all eyes in the room focus on her.

  “So you’re on board with this?” Mark asked.

  Amber looked from her boss to Cole and shook her head as her feelings bubbled just below the surface. The last thing she wanted was to watch Cole get injured. “No, not really. I’m with Lexi on this. I don’t want to see them bloody or seriously injured either and it pisses me off that we don’t have a say, but…” She turned her attention back to Mark. “I also understand how things work around here and the need to play ball, even when I don’t agree.”

  She pushed away from the table. “I’ll have a better chance getting through to her than any of you will.” She exited the conference room and headed down the hall. The arena was a big place, and Lexi could have disappeared to just about anywhere. She’d try the most obvious places first, starting with catering.

  Amber made her way down the hall, turned the corner to catering, and stopped in her tracks as fear ripped through her system. There, mere feet from her, stood Sean talking to Garrett Patrick. With a bandage covering a cut on his forehead that had apparently required stitches, and holding a cane, he appeared to still carry the scars of Cole’s beating.

  He glanced in her direction, and shock registered across his face. A myriad of emotions seemed to pass through him before he finally schooled his features into a neutral expression. So he wasn’t happy to see her. That was okay, as she wasn’t any happier to see him. “Amber.”

  “Sean,” she replied as her heart began to pound faster. She knew that in his current condition he couldn’t harm her, besides the fact that there were people continually entering and exiting catering, but that knowledge didn’t extinguish her fears. “I didn’t know you were back.”

  He remained in place and gave her a nod. “Just returned today actually.” Using the cane for support, he moved to face her, and she noted his severe limp. Had Cole really injured him that badly?

  For a moment guilt threatened to rear its ugly head; then she remembered how he’d pinned her against the wall, how he’d brought all those terrible images from her past into the present, and the guilt subsided. “So you’re feeling better?”

  He nodded. “Getting there. Listen, I’m glad I ran into you. I wanted to apologize for coming on to you the way I did.”

  “Okay,” she replied, not sure what else to say.

  He shook his head. “I generally don’t take rejection well, and I have a bad habit of pushing myself on women who don’t readily accept my advances.” He shrugged. “It’s a character flaw. I’m working on it.”

  What in the hell was she supposed to say to that? She wanted to call him a liar and tell him she thought he was full of shit. However, he seemed genuine enough in his apology that she refrained from saying anything, but it didn’t change the fact that his mere presence gave her the creeps. “Well, as I was recently told, recognizing your weaknesses is the first step in correcting them.”

  Sean nodded. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Listen, I need to go find Mark and let him know I’m back.”

  “He’s—” She paused as she thought about Cole. He certainly wouldn’t take kindly to finding out Sean was back. “Um, I’d call him on his cell first.”

  “He’s with The Tribunal, isn’t he?”

  She gave a nod. “Working on a new story line. Call him first. I’m sorry.” She pointed to the doors leading to catering. “I need to go find Lexi.”

  “Sure.” He waved her away. “Good seeing you again, Amber.”

  “Yeah,” she paused. “Um, you too.” Without looking back, she headed into catering to find Lexi. Then she’d need to find Cole before he found Sean.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Tribunal’s music began, and Amber started down the ramp with Lexi. She looked ahead to where Cole, Jason, and Logan made their way toward the ring ahead of them, then back to Lexi. The scowl on Lexi’s face spoke of her unhappiness with this match. Fortunately, her love for Logan outweighed her personal opinions, and Amber had used that knowledge to her advantage in order to get Lexi to comply. Playing the guilt card for a change, she’d talked of how Lexi would be letting Logan down by not being there for him when it was over. Eventually, Lexi’d agreed. She felt bad taking the route of shaming Lexi into compliance, but she’d done so for the good of the group. They needed to stay a unit during this situation. Amber wondered when exactly she had become the voice of reason in this group.

  Lexi walked around the cage toward Logan. Amber stopped a few feet away and looked at the structure. In all her years of wrestling, she’d never seen a steel cage up close. This wasn’t just a regular steel cage, but the one used for this match had been coined by the wrestlers as the “devil’s playground.” She’d seen it on television before. However, in person, it appeared huge and menacing. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought of Cole being locked inside. Suddenly she understood why Lexi was so unhappy. No matter how she looked at it, Cole would most likely end up injured before the match was over.

  Knowing he was walking into a dangerous situation made her want to grab him and run away. How badly would he be injured? Wrestlers sometimes ended their careers, and not by choice, in matches like these. What if he ended up hurt so badly he had to retire from wrestling? What would he do, and what would she do without him?

  Cole came around the cage to her. He slipped an arm around her waist. “It will be okay.”

  She looked up at him and noted the concern in his eyes. He might be resolved to what was about to happen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried. “No, it won’t,” she replied, then turned in his arms to face him. She cupped a hand to his cheek. “Please be careful.”

  “I’ll try,” he replied, then brushed a soft kiss over her lips. Around them, the crowd went wild, but she didn’t care. Right now nothing mattered but Cole’s safety.

  She pulled back and let go. He turned and walked through the open door inside the cage. Jason followed, and finally Logan gave Lexi one last kiss and a quick pep talk before joining his partners inside the steel barrier.

  Staff closed the door, and the click of the lock echoed in Amber’s ears. Her heart pounded, and her breathing grew shallow as she moved down the outside of the cage to what would normally be The Tribunal’s corner. One thing was for sure: she’d be happy when this match was over. Lexi moved next to her. “You okay?” Unable to find the words, Amber swallowed hard and nodded.

  The moment the bell rang, all hell broke loose. Cole went after Noah
while Jason attacked Parker, and Logan took on Calen. Chaos ensued with bodies flying around the ring. Amber curled her fingers around the steel as she followed Cole’s every move. He ran into the ropes, stopped, and ducked just as Noah leaped. Cole pulled down on the top rope; his action sent Noah flying headfirst into cage wall. His face impacted the steel, and he immediately crumpled to the mat.

  Across the ring, Parker pounded on Jason, his fist leaving red marks across Jason’s chest. Meanwhile Logan and Calen traded blows in the opposite corner.

  As the match wore on, Amber’s nerves began to unravel while the pandemonium inside the ring continued. Cole climbed to the top turnbuckle, steadied himself, then leaped not into the ring, but to the mat below in an attempt to take Calen down. Instead the giant deflected Cole’s attack, sending him headfirst into the steel.

  A scream tore through the air, and it took a moment for Amber to realize it came from her. The urge to take down the staff member holding the key and free her guys nearly overpowered her. Instead she held tight to the steel, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

  Lexi yelled from a few feet away as Logan fell backward off the apron and smacked into the cage. Parker climbed from the ring, grabbed Logan by the hair, and ran him headlong into the steel. “No!” She shook the cage, and Amber noted the hint of tears in Lexi’s eyes.

  Two things she well knew about her friend. First, that she wore her heart on her sleeve, and second, that she loved Logan with a passion unmatched by anyone.

  Amber turned her attention back to the cage, where Cole struggled to his feet. Dazed by his impact with the steel, it took him a moment to steady himself. When he turned around, Amber gasped at the sight. Blood poured from a cut on his forehead just below his hairline.

  This was exactly why Lexi had fought so hard against this match. Remember, head wounds bleed a lot, even when they’re not serious. She tried to focus on that knowledge as the match wore on and all the men slowly became covered in blood. Her heart ached at the realization that she was helpless to do anything to stop the bloodshed.