“You can come with me, Miss. We will find Kane,” Sage says, but then narrows his eyes looking at me.
He can’t exactly leave me here unattended either.
Sage and I get along. Well, most of the times. He knows I volunteered for this life and I know… scratch that. I don’t know squat about Sage. That’s the way he prefers it. But I trust him over the other jerks here. He does his job and he’s fair about it, he’s not a monster. Not like the rest of us, I think.
“Tell you what, Sage. You can lock the door and I will promise to behave,” I tell him, using his real name for a change.
My stomach clenches slightly, and I’m not sure if it’s out of expectation or because Adrienne’s looking at me. I’m this close to striking a pose in the middle of the ring.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” I say, meeting Adrienne’s blues now and smiling.
“I don’t trust you any further than I can throw you,” Sage tells me, and he’s right.
He’s a big motherfucker but even he can’t throw my well-muscled ass anywhere. And he shouldn’t trust me with sweet little things like Adrienne either, for the most part. But I shake my head and cross my heart.
“Promise,” I tell him.
Sage purses his lips and exhales. I’m winning. I love that.
“Miss, stay here. Angel will be a perfect fucking gentleman or he’ll be fighting with one less arm from here on out. You may have my seat and I’ll be back in a minute, alright?”
“Okay,” Adrienne says, her voice a little dreamy.
She looks away from me as Sage walks out hurriedly, locking the heavy door behind him.
Well then. This day just got a whole lot more interesting.
“Hey,” I offer, trying to catch her eyes again.
“Hey,” she counters after a moment of silence.
I grin. Still winning.
With the casual ease of a predator in his prime, I lope over the ropes and land on my feet next to the ring. She’s standing next to the chair but hasn’t taken her seat yet. Chances like this don’t come around often. I know she’s gotten my letter and I got hers too, so it’s not like we’re complete strangers at this point. So I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and hope for the best.
“Come here often?” I ask, smirking as she quirks a brow at me.
A touch of ridiculousness always helps to break the ice, I feel.
“I can’t say that I do.”
“You really should,” I say, spreading my arms to envelope the whole of the dreary, grimy, run-down space. “The company’s great.”
I’m a king in my shitty castle here. It’s not all that impressive but I think delivery is half the battle here.
“You don’t say,” she laughs, and finally I see something on her expression that resembles joy.
I want to see more of that.
“I thought it was just cutthroats and villains down here,” she continues, giving me a look of pure innocence, which is all mischief and no truth.
So my sweet little angel is a minx instead. Interesting. This day keeps getting better and better.
I walk closer to her slowly, covering the ground between us with leisurely steps. I don’t want to scare her off and while she has nowhere to run, I don’t want her to feel as if she has to run from me. No, I only want her running to me from here on out.
Absently, I notice that my heart’s beating damn fast in my chest, pounding behind my ribs. I’ve seen plenty of beautiful women and I’ve had my share of them, but Adrienne? She’s something else. I guess it’s the thought of something so pure and clean down here where there’s nothing but blood and darkness that really gets to me. I want to keep her just as she is – good and unsullied.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. That’s exactly what we have down here,” I tell her. “But I think you’d like it regardless.”
“How do you figure?” she asks.
“Well, for starters, I’m here,” I tell her, grinning.
She smiles again and I eat it up. It warms me from the inside, that smile of hers and I can’t get enough of it.
“And you think you’re all that?” she queries, but if my instincts are right, then what I see shining in her eyes is all the confirmation I need that I am all that for her.
Or at least we’re taking a step in the right direction with it.
“I think I have my charms,” I offer with a shrug.
I want to cross over to her and kiss her, but I don’t. Instead, I stay at a respectable distance and let her look at me as I watch her in turn. It’s all high school level of nonsense up in here at the moment, but I don’t mind. I don’t think she does either.
“I got your letter,” she says after a length of silence that I can’t define, but that I didn’t mind one bit.
“I got yours.”
She falls quiet again and I can see that blush creeping up on her cheeks again.
“I think you should keep writing to me,” I tell her, my voice maybe a tad huskier than it should be.
“Yeah?” she asks, looking up.
“Yes. I’d like to know more,” I tell her, and for once, I’m not dicking around.
I’m being honest. I do want to know more about her. I want to know everything I can.
“Okay,” she says, and I’m just about to close the gap between us when the lock clatters on the door and we recoil from one another.
I turn around and walk a few paces back to the ring, slicking my hand through my hair.
Fuck.
So close and nothing to show for it. Sage walks in with a somewhat pale-looking Kane in tow. If Wilson hears about Kane losing Adrienne he’s going to go on a warpath, that much I know. So I think it’s in everybody’s best interest to keep that shit under wraps.
“There you are,” Kane growls, giving Adrienne a pointed look.
Instead of shying away from him, Adrienne’s lips narrow and she gives him back a look that I can only call a glare. I grin wide at the sight of it.
That’s my girl.
“I’m not the one supposed to be alert,” she says, her voice deadly calm.
I’m liking this woman more by the second. Sass and sweetness. My kind of combination.
“Come on, we need to go,” Kane says, catching himself before he adds anything in there he shouldn’t.
The way Sage is looking at him probably has a lot to do with it. Everybody in the room knows he fucked up and we’re not going to let him live it down.
“We should do this again sometime,” I tell Adrienne as she’s about to leave, and she pauses at the door with an impatient Kane looking on.
“With the cutthroats and villains?” she asks, meeting my smile.
“I promise I’ll be both and neither, depending on what you want.”
She shakes her head slightly, giggling, and then she’s escorted out by Kane. I’m pretty damn sure I’m going to get another letter and I can’t wait for it.
“Nice one, sweet pea,” I say to Sage as I make my way to a boxing bag, now more determined than ever to get a decent workout in.
I’ve got to be ready. The prize is better than ever this time.
“What do you mean?” Sage asks, slumping back down into the chair we made him rise from.
“Just appreciating the gesture,” I tell him, and Sage quirks a brow at me but doesn’t say a word.
I don’t miss it for what it is, though. He trusted me enough to leave me with Adrienne for a few minutes. I don’t think he’d do that for anyone else in this dump.
My fist connects with the heavy bag and I clear my mind, falling into the rhythm of the movement. I’m going to be ready. And I’m going to be deadly. I have a brand new toy to fight for and I want to unravel all her mysteries.
A part of me wonders if she’s not the one calling all the shots between the two of us, though. I’m not even sure if I’d mind if she did.
Seven
Adrienne
I’ve gotten two letters back from Memphis now. His writing
is the only real source of excitement in my life at the moment, and I always look forward to Hannah sneaking me another one of his so carefully folded pieces of paper. I’m starting to learn about him, find out about his life and how he got here in the first place.
He doesn’t tell me what lead him to choosing to be here, as one of Wilson’s prized fighters. I guess it’s the ’darkness’ that he mentioned. I don’t push it, even though I’m curious.
He tells me about other stuff, though. How he feels when he’s in the ring, how it makes him feel invincible to win, and how he can’t lose or that’ll be the end of him. In one of his letters, he describes how he chose to become one of Wilson’s men because that was the only option he had left.
Needing a place where no one would know who he was and what he’d done, he came here. And unless he wins one-hundred matches in a row, he will never get out. My heart beats faster at the thought of it. Somehow, even though we’ve only seen one another once, I feel like we’re kindred spirits in a way, stuck in the dark and wanting to get to the light.
I think I’ve begun wishing for his freedom as much as I do my own or my mother’s.
I talk to him about my family. I tell him about my father, what a kind and generous man he was. I explain I never expected him to have a part in criminal activities, and I tell him how much it shocked me to find out what my father did.
Through the course of our writing, our letters get longer, our words more raw, our confessions more honest. I feel like I have a confidant in this godforsaken place, and it feels good.
Memphis’ past is muddled, but his soul is good, unlike the monstrous reputation he has. I’m just re-reading another one of his letters, when there is a small knock on the door to my bedroom.
I look up with surprise. It’s not meal time yet, and the only one who comes inside my room these days is Hannah with either breakfast, lunch, or supper.
“Come in,” I call out.
The door opens, and a familiar figure appears in my doorstep. For a moment, I think it must be a mirage. I haven’t seen my mother a single time since we came here. But as she comes into the room, her ethereal figure coming into focus, I realize it really is her.
I stifle a sob and run towards her, throwing myself off the bed. Her fragile arms extend to me and she pulls me into a hug. Neither of us speaks. All we do is hold each other, something we haven’t been able to do for a week now.
“Mom,” I manage to get out. My eyes are filled with tears as we both pull back, our gazes exploring each other’s faces. “How are you, mom? Are you alright?”
She nods slowly, her own eyes filled with tears as well.
“He let me come see you today,” she confesses. “I’ve been begging him to let me do it for days, and he refused every single time. He’s in a good mood today.”
I nod, disgust brimming at the fact that we’re so dependent on the goodwill of that man.
“I’m glad you’re here now,” I tell her, looking her up and down. “And that you’re okay. We can get through this together.”
Her body feels frailer than ever in my arms, and I wonder if she’s been eating at all. For the first few days after my father’s death, she refused to eat a single bite, and I practically had to force food down her throat. Now, without me there, I wonder who’s taking care of that.
No one at all, I guess, I think, giving her another worried look.
“I brought you something,” she says in a soft voice. “It’s… because you found out about your father.”
Her voice breaks over the words, and I realize how painful it must be to her. I may have lost a father, but she lost the love of her life. It’s a miracle she hasn’t completely broken yet.
“What is it?” I ask her.
She pulls out a small journal from behind her back, presenting it to me. It’s bound in rich chocolate leather, and I recognize it as one of the notebooks my dad loved using so much. I look up into my mother’s eyes, wondering why she brought it to me, or how she managed to get a hold of it to begin with.
“It was your father’s journal,” she says with a sigh. “I wanted you to see he was a good man.”
I look away, feeling tears pooling in my eyes.
Dad and I were very close. Our relationship was built on trust and love - or so I thought. When I found out what he did for a living after he died, it crushed me. He never once thought to tell me what he really did. I was kept in the dark my entire life, and the loss of trust for my father along with his death threatened to crush me completely.
“Valerie?”
A voice from outside my room interrupts our exchange, and my mother’s eyes widen in fear. She shoves the journal in my arms and I toss it to my bed, pretending nothing happened. Seeing the absolute fear Cobb evokes in my mother makes me wonder what she’s been having to go through at his hands… And I wonder whether she knows what he plans on doing with me and the horrible fights he organizes in his grimy dungeons.
Cobb enters the room, filling the doorframe with his menacing figure. We both look at him with deep-rooted fear in our eyes, but mine carry defiance along with it.
He is a handsome man. Tall, lean and built like a runner, with a flop of blonde hair and light blue, sharp eyes. His beard is always shaved carefully, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a hint of stubble.
He must’ve looked angelic when he was younger, but now all I see is a monster. The baby blues and light hair, his prominent, handsome features and his smirk will never fool me. I know the man who hides behind his mask. I know his true colors.
And I despise him for them.
“Valerie, it’s time to go,” he says with that shit-eating grin I’ve hated growing accustomed to. “You’ve wasted enough time.”
“It’s only been a few minutes,” my mother objects softly. “I thought we could maybe have a few more…”
“No.”
His denial is strong and doesn’t leave room for objections. He pulls on my mother’s arm, and I see how much it pleases him when I flinch from the rough way he treats her. There’s honest glee in his eyes. The man’s a psycho.
“We need to go. Say goodbye to daughter dearest, now. We have business to attend to.”
My mother’s desperate eyes say goodbye as he drags her out of the door. He shoves her into the hallway roughly and my blood boils. He looks back into the room before leaving, smiling at me.
“Make yourself pretty for the evening, sweet thing,” he tells me. “You’re going to be watching a fight tonight, in your honor. I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you’re handed off as the prize.”
My whole body freezes in terror, and he laughs, shutting my bedroom door in place.
My heart pounds in my chest. I have to sit down, my head spinning. My vision swims a little and the only thing I notice is my father’s journal.
Instead of worrying about what Cobb told me, I pick it up and begin reading, practically hyperventilating in the beginning.
Before I know it, several hours have gone by.
The journal my father wrote is something between a diary and a to-do list, filled with dates and appointments, but also a few personal notes. Slowly, as I make my way through the pages, I start figuring out my father was still the person I knew him to be, despite everything that he did behind mine and my mother’s backs.
He was the kind, generous man I’d known and loved my entire life. Yes, he had a hidden past, but his values, his words still had truth to them. I feel like I’m piecing the past together off of what I remember and what he’s written down. He loved my mother and me dearly. That much is evident from all the little notes he put in his journal.
Buy flowers for Valerie, take Adrienne horseback riding.
Their wedding anniversary, my birthday. The whole journal is filled with dates, small things even I don’t remember, anniversaries of things we did together. It feels my heart with as much pain as it does love, and I have a smile on my lips as I read and a tear trickles down my cheek.
/>
I don’t even realize it’s dinnertime until Hannah coughs to alert me to her presence, having unlocked the door and stepped in. Startled, I push the journal underneath my pillow and look up to find her already having set the table with my meal.
“Everything okay, Miss?” she asks gently, and I nod, smiling at her to reassure her. “I’ve set up your dinner for you.”
“Thanks, Hannah.”
I get up from my bed and walk over to the table where my meal awaits. My hopeful eyes find Hannah and she grins, already knowing what my next question will be. She brings another folded piece of paper from her pocket and passes it to me.
Another note from Memphis.
I’m so distracted I only hear the click of the door being shut as she quietly excuses herself.
My dinner is forgotten as I open up Memphis’ note. My eyes scan his words, fixating on the last paragraph of his handwritten letter. In my previous one, I’d finally asked him about the winner of the tournament. Who was the winner Memphis was so convinced was going to win and take away the grand prize - myself?
I read it over again.
I already told you there can only be one. That man is me, Adrienne.
So you don’t need to worry about being given to some stranger.
You already know the man who will own you after the tournament. I’ve got you, sugar.
Memphis
My heart constricts in my chest, and I don’t know whether it is with excitement or fear. Probably both.
I’ve developed a crush on Memphis, growing attached to him because of his words and the kinship I feel between the two of us. My body still remembers the pull his eyes had on me, the way his arms held me as he carried me to my room. And it craves more of it.
I fold his letter between the pages of my father’s journal, and sit down to dinner. I can barely taste the food, my mind is so far away.
I wonder whether Memphis will let me be, or whether he’ll want to claim me when he wins it in the tournament.
Savage: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance Page 5
