by K. M. Scott
Pleased with my answer, he nodded his head and smiled. “Smart man. Too many people in this world refuse to accept what they’re good at.”
“Not me. I know exactly what I’m good at. Just let me know when the match is. In the meantime, I’ll be training hard for it. I’ve got an undefeated streak to keep up. One and counting.”
My joke made a full laugh explode out of him. “You really are a cocky son of a bitch. Always have been. I should have seen that in these past months. I won’t make that mistake again.”
I stood to leave and smiled. “I hope you bet on me last night. That would have been a big mistake if you didn’t.”
His face quickly fell and his mouth turned down in a frown. “Yes, that would have been a mistake. Yet another I won’t soon make again.”
He didn’t stop me on my way out of his office, and as I walked back to my apartment, I had to admit I felt pretty damn good with how this day had gone so far. My body still felt like a bus had hit me and then backed over me just for shits and giggles, but that would fade in a few days. In the meantime, hopefully Floyd would find me a fight so I could start making money to get Serena and me the hell away from this place and the long arm of Robert Erickson.
I got back just as Serena finished talking to someone on her phone, and as she pressed END, she hung her head. Had Robert done something because of that comment I made? Damnit, I shouldn’t have been so fucking cocky!
Wrapping my arms around her, I took her into my hold and felt her trembling. “Hey, what happened? Whose ass do I have to kick?”
Serena laughed at my joke, but when she looked up at me, I saw that same sadness in her eyes I saw the first night I met her. “That was the private detective. He hasn’t found anything yet on my mother. That wasn’t what upset me, though.”
“What was it?” I asked, wondering what this guy could have told her to make her so upset if he hadn’t located her mother yet.
She let out a deep sigh. “He told me that it’s possible she might not be alive and not to get my hopes up too high. Ryder, I can’t believe she’s dead. I can’t. Not after finally being able to look for her now.”
“Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know anything yet, so he’s just trying to cover his ass. He can’t say anything for certain. It will be okay. He’ll find her. I believe that.”
Pressing her cheek to my chest, she rested her head there and sighed again. “I just want to hear some good news for a change. Is that too much to ask?”
I stroked her hair and smiled that I could be the one to give her that good news she so wanted. “Well, how about this? I’m not working for your father as one of his thugs anymore. He wants me fighting exclusively instead.”
She looked up at me and knitted her brows. “I don’t know if I should be happy or just more worried after what I saw last night.”
Cupping my cheek with her palm, she tenderly ran the pad of her thumb over the spot just under my eye where that guy had gotten me good with a few punches. “I hate the idea of you fighting again, Ryder. What if you get hurt?”
I reveled in the feel of her touch on my bruised and battered face and closed my eyes to enjoy it. “I told you. I’m tough. I can handle it.”
“I don’t want you to have to be tough all the time,” she said sadly.
Opening my eyes, I knew my news hadn’t been good in her opinion. I couldn’t tell her about what might happen with Floyd, but I wanted her to see my fighting again was a good thing.
“This is our first step toward freedom. Believe me, Serena, me back in the ring is good for us.”
Her dark eyes opened wide at my mention of us finally being free of her father and this place. “How is it going to help us get away from here?”
I gently ran my hand over her belly and smiled. “I can’t get into it all right now, but trust me. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get us away from here before the baby comes. I promise.”
She wanted to ask more questions about how I’d do it, but I stopped her with a kiss, loving how her lips felt on mine. No matter what it took, I’d do this for her.
For us.
Chapter Nineteen
Serena
Ryder’s second fight came less than a week after his first one and even before he’d fully healed from the beating he’d taken at the hands of that monster of my father’s. He practically begged me to not go back to that terrible place to watch him, but I couldn’t bear to just wait at the apartment, not knowing if he was hurt and helpless to do anything.
My father stood at the back of the crowd like last time and said nothing to me as I took my position near him. Not that I wanted to spend even a minute with him since he decided risking Ryder on a weekly basis for the crowd’s enjoyment was more important than any happiness I might hope for. Even seeing him made me so angry my hands curled into fists so tight my fingernails dug into my palms.
I marveled at the people around me as they yelled for the fighters to beat the hell out of one another. Drunk and high, they grew practically rabid as the night wore on, so by the time Ryder and his opponent’s fight came up, the people around me were almost foaming at the mouth at the chance to watch one of them crush the other just a few feet away.
Any attempt to ignore the crowd’s screams for blood would have been a waste of time, but even as I stood there listening to the madness around me, my heartbeat slammed in my ears from the terror racing through me at the mere thought that Ryder might be hurt this time.
He believed in his ability to fight, and it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in him. I just couldn’t get used to knowing he had to pummel another human being so my father didn’t throw him out into the streets. I wondered if living in the streets would be better. At least then we’d have our freedom.
But Ryder insisted fighting would be the way we’d get away from my father and everything that came with him, and I believed him. He’d saved me too many times for me not to.
A middle-aged, overweight man elbowed me in the arm and spilled his beer down the front of my shirt in his excitement at Floyd’s announcement that Ryder’s fight would be next. Turning his chubby red face toward me, the man grinned and slurred, “Sorry. I just got psyched at hearing my fighter is up next. I used to watch him a couple years ago when he had a nearly twenty fight undefeated run going. He was fucking good.”
I stared at the man’s corpulent face as he talked and wished I could be happy for his pride in Ryder’s accomplishments back then. All I felt was revulsion, though. His lust for seeing people hurt one another for his pleasure sickened me as much as my father’s did. The only difference between them was this man wasn’t a billionaire who could order a man to put himself in harm’s way because it gave him some sick thrill to throw his power around.
“Just watch him tonight. He’s a beast!” the man said gleefully before he turned his attention back toward the ring.
Floyd let the crowd know that Ryder and a fighter named Seth would be up for that night’s marquee match. Howls erupted from the men and women in front of me, followed by fist bumps and high fives as music like the last time thundered throughout the room.
I struggled to see what was happening without the aid of that bench from the last fight, but I didn’t want to ask my father for anything, so I craned my neck and peered between the heads of everyone in front of me. In truth, I didn’t want to see the fight. I just wanted to be sure that Ryder didn’t get hurt, and if he did, that I was there by his side for him.
Amid the cheers and shouts for the fighters to hit one another, the fight began just as the other one had. Ryder’s opponent rushed at him with the aggression of a wild animal that made my stomach tighten in fear he’d defeat him in just the first seconds of the fight. The guy looked like a man possessed, and I turned away, afraid to see the damage he’d do to Ryder.
When the crowd let out a collective cheer, I couldn’t help but look to see if he’d hurt him, but when I let myself see what had happened, it was Ryder who had done the hurting,
not that Seth guy, who now stood holding his bloody nose and mouth.
I waited to see if the fight would end, but instead I watched as Ryder lunged at the man, taking advantage of his weakness. Over and over, he landed punches to the very areas that were already injured until the man was covered in blood. Horrified, I wished for nothing more than for this to be over, but it went on for what seemed like an hour more until Seth gave up and Floyd announced that Ryder had won again.
He turned around to face the crowd in front of me, and the sight of him covered in that man’s blood made my stomach turn. I couldn’t reconcile the person I knew and loved with this creature, a man more barbaric than anything else. He smiled as Floyd declared him the winner again, and I saw he wore that same look that I saw when we were alone and he was genuinely happy.
My gaze met his for a brief moment before my attention was directed to the man he’d just beaten. Bloody and defeated, he hung his head and hobbled away. I knew I should be happy that he had suffered and Ryder hadn’t, but I wasn’t.
At least not about that.
I turned to see my father grinning as Ryder walked past him toward the dressing room. Unlike the horror I felt at all I’d seen that night, my father looked blissfully happy at what he’d witnessed. If ever I’d thought I understood him, watching him enjoy these fights made me realize I didn’t know him at all.
The crowd talked about the fight as I hurried to the room to join Ryder. I didn’t want to hear any more of their assessment of his abilities. I’d seen the beast that man had claimed he was. I didn’t need to know what else they thought of him.
He sat in that same chair as I found him in after the first fight, but this time he was alert and joking with another man who’d fought earlier. I walked in and waited for him to finish, and when he turned to face me, still wearing Seth’s blood all over his chest, I had to stop myself from throwing up.
“Come here,” he said, waving me over to stand near him.
I hesitated, and he looked down where my gaze sat fixated on all that blood. He asked the man for a towel and quickly wiped his skin, leaving faint traces of the evidence of his brutality behind.
“Better?” he asked with a smile as I slowly walked over to him.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to smile back at him.
“Floyd wants my help with something, so I’ll get home as soon as I can, okay?” he said, surprising me with the news he wasn’t coming home with me.
“Oh, I thought we would go together.”
Taking my hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed my fingertips, looking up at me so sweetly I couldn’t be upset with him. “I promise it’s for a good reason. I won’t be long, and when I get home I won’t even be sore since that guy was practically no challenge at all.”
I cringed at the memory of Seth being helped away. “Okay. I guess I’ll go then.”
Ryder stood and tenderly took my face in his hands, whispering against my lips, “I love you, Serena. Don’t worry. I’m okay.”
Closing my eyes, I willed my nose not to smell the putrid mixture of sweat and another man’s blood that flooded over me. “Okay. I’ll see you at home.”
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked before kissing me gently on the forehead. “Why won’t you look at me, Serena?”
All I wanted to do was run away from the sounds and smells of that place, but I opened my eyes and tried to pretend none of it bothered me like it did. “I just feel a little tired. That’s all.”
He gently slid his hand over my stomach and smiled, but when I looked down I saw that man’s blood had stained his fingers. Needing to get out of there, I quickly kissed him goodbye and hurried toward the door.
I barely made it out of that room into the hallway before I inhaled deeply, desperate for fresh air in my nose and lungs. I took another breath in and turned to leave, but out of the corner of my eye I saw my father and a female I’d never seen before. Blond and young, she had a cut-rate look to her.
Just my father’s type, if his past choices in mistresses were any indication.
“Serena, did you get to see our champion?” he asked as they approached me.
“I have to go.”
I took a step to leave when my father stopped me by grabbing my arm. “I want to introduce you to someone. Serena, this is Kitty. Kitty’s an old friend of Ryder’s.”
Stopping dead, I looked back at the woman and studied her for a moment as he told her who I was. She reeked like she’d bathed in cheap perfume, its overly sweet odor hanging heavy in the air around her, and my stomach began to roil once more. Her face looked younger than mine, but something in her eyes said she’d lived a much harder life than I had.
Good. I liked the idea of Kitty, Ryder’s old friend, living a hard life. What I didn’t like was her being there to watch him fight.
I opened my mouth to ask exactly why she’d come there but stopped myself. I knew what my father was doing. First, he tried to make me dislike Ryder as a fighter, and when that didn’t work, he now wanted to make me see the female he’d been with while I was in Italy.
But it wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t let him win.
Extending my hand to shake hers, I said with the biggest smile, “It’s nice to meet an old friend of Ryder’s. You must not have seen him in a long time.”
Surprised by my comment, Kitty started to speak but nothing came out. Finally, my father spoke up and said, “You said you had to go? I think we’re going to stop in and see our boy before we leave.”
Kitty may have been flustered, but my father hadn’t given up on trying to rattle me. It didn’t matter. Ryder was with me, not some sad stripper.
“Nice to meet you, Kitty. Dad, tell Ryder I’ll have dinner waiting for him when he gets home. I know how hungry he gets after these fights. Night!”
I spun on my heels and headed down the hallway to the door without giving my father a chance to say anything more. I knew his tricks better than anyone in the world. I also knew Ryder loved me, and no visit from some cheap girl hanging off my father’s arm would change that.
As one hour turned to two and then three, I worried my father had done something to keep Ryder from returning home, but he finally walked through the door looking like a conquering hero from some hard-fought battle.
Tossing his duffel bag on the floor, he lifted me into his arms and kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in ages. Setting me down on the ground, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. I just had to get out of there,” I said, hoping he didn’t ask me why. I didn’t want to say anything to ruin his triumph from winning that night.
“I know you don’t like watching, but I won, and that’s a good thing,” he said with a look of genuine happiness in his green eyes.
“I know. It was just hard to watch,” I admitted, hating that I felt that way almost as much as I hated seeing him hurt that man.
Ryder took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it toward the chair in the corner. “See? I’m okay?” he said as he showed me his arms to prove he hadn’t been hurt.
He pulled my hand to his chest and pressed it over his heart, but all I could think of was Seth’s blood covering his chest. I knew my revulsion registered in my expression, and I didn’t want it to, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I yanked my hand from his hold and pulled it away from him. The look on his face told me he didn’t understand my behavior.
“Serena, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Probably morning sickness. That’s all.”
The mention of the pregnancy made him smile, and he lowered his gaze to my belly. He gently placed his palm against it and said quietly, “I’m doing everything I can to make sure you and your mother are safe, little one.”
But all I saw were those fingers that had been stained with another person’s blood. It wasn’t visible now, but that didn’t matter. I saw it as clearl
y as I had back at the warehouse, and the memory made me want to run away.
My body tensed under his hand, and Ryder looked up at me with that same confused expression that had been in his eyes a few moments before. “What’s going on, Serena?”
I hung my head and turned away, unable to face him. “I can’t get the image of you hitting him out of my mind. All that blood…covering you and him…and then watching him limp away after you defeated him. All I can see is his blood on your skin.”
Ryder stood and kissed me tenderly on the lips. “Ah. Okay, follow me.”
He walked to the bathroom and stopped on the bathmat next to the tub to step out of his clothes. His body looked like it always did—beautiful, muscular, and hard with all those tattoos—and I knew what he planned to do, even though he’d obviously showered before he came home.
Stepping into the tub, he turned on the water and in seconds the steam fogged up the glass around him. I stood there wanting to show him it wasn’t him that made me pull away. It was the violence and the blood.
I couldn’t let him go on believing the very sight of him sickened me, so I undressed and stepped into the shower with him. He turned around and looked surprised for a moment before he set the soap down on the ledge and kissed me.
“I’m sorry, Ryder,” I said after he pulled back and smiled at me. “I didn’t mean to be so callous. That you’d do this means so much.”
“It’s a little soap and water. I’d do anything to make you happy, Serena,” he said in a low voice as the water ran down his face.
“It’s so much more,” I answered, hoping I would be able to explain how much this simple gesture meant to me. “I don’t mean to be like this. I know there are a million other women you could be with who wouldn’t have a problem with the fighting. They wouldn’t have tried to kill themselves and then when you saved them, they wouldn’t have been awful to you. I’m sorry I’m like this. I truly am, Ryder.”
His smile never faded as I ran through the list of things I’d done. He gently pushed my hair off my forehead and cradled my face in his strong hands, staring down at me with that look of intensity I so loved to see in his green eyes.
