Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

It is the morning before fight day and I’m sitting at the dining room table with Udulf. He makes me take meals with him. To torture me, I think. To make me uncomfortable. But also because he’s fishing for information.

He sits across from me, smiling as he chews on a forkful of scrambled eggs. “Tell me, Anya, who do you think will win?”

I, of course, don’t answer him. He knows I’m not going to answer him, but so far, he’s been patiently persistent.

I expect this patience to wear off at some point today, since the fight is tomorrow and I’m fairly certain he expects Maart to win and part of the deal was that Lazar would get me back if that happened. So Udulf here, he’s got one more day to get answers out of me.

There isn’t a lot in my life to give me joy at the moment, but watching him squirm over this almost makes the situation worth it.

“We all know it’s going to be Maart. Does that disappoint you? I mean, surely you and Cort have gotten close. I saw the way he looked at you.” He pauses to chew on a bite of sourdough toast, then continues. “I’ve been meaning to ask you… do you remember me?”

Do I remember him? As if I could forget the time Lazar rented me out to his good friend Udulf here so I could get his secrets.

But the funny thing is… nothing I came back with was secret.

Lazar was there. He tortured that little girl, then they killed her together.

So Lazar wasn’t looking for secrets from Udulf.

It took me a long, long time to figure this out and the answer only just came to me that day we got off the ship and walked into Cort’s village.

At first I thought he was looking for something else, but that wasn’t it either.

Lazar sent me to Udulf to be killed.

Twice now.

And both times, I came out alive.

Why?

Well, that’s a pretty simple answer, actually. The first time Udulf got a phone call. I didn’t remember this until they started negotiating the fight between Maart and Cort the other day. It was a call from… someone. Doesn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the news.

Cort had won his fight.

He was officially in the Ring of Fire now.

On the night that Udulf was raping me and showing me a snuff film of Cort’s sister—Cort van Breda was morphing into Sick Heart.

And this changed everything.

And, well. The second time Cort took me without asking.

Funny how that worked out.

What was Udulf thinking that morning he came to visit us on the Rock?

Did I remember how he raped the girl in the movie?

Did I remember Lazar skinning her alive?

Did I know Cort was the little boy who watched?

Did Cort know he was the little boy who watched?

Did I tell him?

So many questions had to be running through Udulf’s mind during that short visit.

He left me there because he knew I didn’t tell Cort and he knew Cort didn’t remember.

So he left.

And he came back here, to Brazil. To Cort’s camp. To talk to Maart and... probably Rainer, too. And that’s when all this was set up.

“I remember you,” Udulf says, sipping on his orange juice. “You were… what, eight? Nine?”

I was seven, but who’s counting?

“Yes.” He smiles. “You were… something. Very pretty. I’m sure you hear that all the time. Don’t you?”

I sigh and push a piece of French toast into my mouth, chewing slowly with my eyes locked on his. These people are so sick. I never understood how they could live with themselves until Udulf’s little speech at Cort’s camp.

They don’t believe in evil. There is no Heaven and Hell. There are no consequences. This is nothing but a game.

Well, I don’t believe that. Not all of it, at least. There have to be consequences. There has to be more to the real world than just the tangible act of existence. Sick, evil people need to pay for their crimes at some point.

But here’s the really interesting thing Udulf said. This is a game to them. They are players in a very literal sense. There are winners and there are losers and nothing else in between.

It’s a good tip. One I will take seriously.

So when Udulf throws his napkin on his plate, and just before he pushes his chair away from the table, I decide to enter this game.

I lift up my juice glass and bring it to my lips. But before I take a sip, I say, in Dutch, “Of course, I remember you, Udulf.” And then I switch to Hungarian. “I remember your midnight confessions.” I switch to English. “How could I ever forget the man who masturbated to a movie of his own daughter being raped, and tortured, and killed.”

He is so surprised by my spoken words, he laughs out loud before he can fully understand the threat behind them.