“I had some real good fights, won some money. Started thinking if there was more in life. Never had the time or the money to imagine it before. Something like leaving the fight club was never in the cards, not when the next fight was where the money for food and rent and the bills would come from. And then came a bad fight. Like, real bad.”
She places a feather-light kiss on my chin. “Why?”
“A new fighter came from Boston. The Bone Crusher, they call him. Clay the Bone Crusher.”
Her eyes widen. “You serious?”
“It’s his nickname in the ring.”
“Do you have one?”
I roll one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Never needed one. Riot is as good as a nickname.”
She kisses my cheek, smiles against my skin. “So you fought The Bone Crusher.”
“I did. He beat me up so badly I thought I was gonna die in the ring. Got a concussion so bad I was passed out for an hour.”
“Oh God.” She’s not smiling anymore.
“It’s a dangerous profession. I knew it from the start, but it never sinks in until you wake up in a hospital bed and are told you may have damaged your brain. Until the shit happens to you, you know?” I close my eyes when she kisses the tip of my nose. “Decided to leave the underground fight scene, then. After I walked out of that hospital, after the doctors told me I should avoid any more hits to the head and realized I could be dead by the time I turned twenty-five, well...I told the boss I wanted out.”
She waits patiently for me to go on, but the words stick in my throat. The memories flutter around me like great black wings, taking away the light for a long moment.
“The boss said hell no, I couldn’t walk out. That he’d taken a fucking chance on me, and I had to pay back what he invested in me. Motherfucker.” I bite back a couple of more choice swearwords. “Anyway, I refused to fight. Missed my next match. And the one after. The boss was livid. He couldn’t keep canceling fights, he was losing bucks. A big match was coming up. It was my turn to fight the Bone Crusher. I flat-out refused and walked out of the club.”
“That’s good,” she says, her voice soft like velvet. “I’m glad you did.”
“It wasn’t good,” I mutter. “It was selfish of me, and stupid. I never thought…” Her lips find my cheek again and my breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh. “Never thought they’d make another fight in my place.”
“Who?” she asks, but then she pulls back and looks into my eyes. “Markus.”
“Yeah. Markus. Because we were friends. The boss wanted to punish me. And he did. Although Markus didn’t want to do it. The boss made him. Said it was fight or leave with me.”
Her eyes look huge in her pale face. Her p
retty mouth is downturned. “I’m not going to like what happened, right? Did Markus make it out of the fight alive?”
I shake my head. If I speak, my voice will crack right through.
“Oh crap, I’m so sorry…” She snuggles closer, throws an arm around me and buries her nose in my neck. “So sorry.”
Me too. So fucking sorry.
“It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She doesn’t move, so her voice is muffled against my skin, and her breath is warm. “Not your fault. You were right to want to leave.”
“I got Markus killed.”
This time she does draw back. “It wasn’t you, Riot. That was your boss. That was your world. But not you. You have to trust me on that.”
I stare at her. She really believes that. It doesn’t make my burden any lighter, but for the first time in two years, I feel like I can breathe again.
Chapter Nineteen
Paxtyn
God, he breaks my heart. He lost his best friend and thinks it’s his fault. I don’t know if it’s because he’s in pain or is still drunk, but he can’t hide the sorrow in his eyes when he talks about Markus, or his foster mom.