Chapter One
Ten fights.
Nine completed.
One more to go.
Belle gripped the edge of the sink, feeling sick to her stomach. She was covered in more bruises than she could count. Old ones, new ones, they covered her flesh like she was a canvas for torture. Even her father—the asshole that he’d been—had allowed her to rest after each fight.
Even though she knew her body needed the rest, that she had to take time, she didn’t have that luxury. They had her little girl. She covered her face, trying to contain the sob at the thought of her baby daughter. The only thing that was good in her world, and the men who ran the underground fighting ring had taken her baby from her. She was only a year old, but that hadn’t stopped the bastards.
Forcing the tears aside, Belle stared at her face, and she didn’t recognize the woman who stared back at her. She was broken, she saw that now. There had been a time not so long ago when she thought she could finally get away from the constant fighting and death, but that wasn’t ever going to happen.
Even after these ten fights, she knew they’d demand more. Maybe they’d hold her little girl over her head. Whatever was going to happen, she felt sick to her stomach. Grabbing the trash can just in time, she threw up, bringing the small lunch she’d been able to eat.
After being violently sick, she collapsed on the floor, drawing her knees up, trying to remember her father’s fighting talk.
“I don’t want to, Daddy. I hate it.”
“You’ve got to, pumpkin. This is what you were made for.”
She hadn’t been made for fighting. This life wasn’t natural, and it was only when she’d gotten older that she realized the lies she’d been fed by that man. This wasn’t a good life or a healthy one but one that was part of the dark world they lived in.
People loved the underground fighting rings. The sport without rules where lives were constantly at risk for one bet or another. She hated it. There was also an even darker circle than a bunch of adults fighting.
Her father had drawn her into that shitty life. The life where kids were pitted against each other. She started out as being the fat kid that everyone could pummel. She hated being hit as each strike against her flesh had hurt.
Seeing as her mother didn’t give a shit about her and her father wanted the money, she forced herself to train, to get better, to get stronger so that she was no longer a punching bag. She was a force to be reckoned with.
They didn’t send her to school, so no one ever asked questions. In fact, as far as the world was concerned, she’d been home-schooled. She hadn’t.
Her parents moved her from place to place, enjoying the money that was earned from her fighting.
Then when she’d turned twenty-one, she’d finally worked up the courage to walk away. She’d turned her back on fighting completely.
Her name had been up there with the greats. In fact, she’d been considered in the same circle as another fighter, a man much older than she was, and who had a much deadlier reputation. She never knew what happened to Drago, but she’d seen him fight so many times.
They’d even talked a few times. He’d sat next to her and told her to keep on going, to not let anyone know that they were getting to her.
She didn’t even know why she thought about him right in that moment. He had long since left the ring and the fighting behind. She didn’t know what had happened to him. If he was doing okay or not?
Rubbing the heels of her hands against her eyes, she felt the exhaustion in her body.
Since leaving the ring at twenty-one, she’d done a couple of one-off fights to help earn her some quick cash. After that, she worked as a waitress at a diner. It was there that she met the man who had used her for a quick screw. He’d wanted the credit for finally banging the “fighting Belle”. That’s what her father had called her. She hated the name but it had stuck, and so had her reputation.
After he screwed her big time, he’d left her. He’d also left her with a little baby, and this all happened a year and a half ago. Her baby was the only thing that was good in the world.
Then one night she’d been leaving the diner when three men had taken her by surprise. They wanted her to fight, and when she refused, they took her baby and forced this on her. If she wanted to see her little girl again, she’d fight.
Nine fights done.
One to go.
She felt sick to her stomach because she knew they’d want more.