Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

Because we are bred. Every single one of us.

I know Cort might think—or maybe hope is the better word—he might hope that these are not his people. That he is not one of them, but he is.

We are.

It is a plan.

And you only have to casually look at the name van Breda to see the connection.

Breeder.

That’s what Udulf thinks of Cort. His sick heart is nothing but a breeder.

These people, they all love a good symbol.

But two can play that game. Or, as it happens, thirty-one. Because that’s how many people live in this base camp. That’s how many fighters, including Ainsey and myself, call this place base.

Thirty-one of us. Thirty-two of them. It’s not quite one-on-one, but they could probably outnumber us two-to-one and it would still be in our favor.

I hear, rather than see, the first punch. Maart lands it sloppily on purpose.

This day is absolutely about a fight—but it’s not the fight these men came to see.

My first clue was Maart’s smiling face and little talk with me on the ship.

“We’re sticking together.”

“Are we?”

“We are.”

“What’s that mean, exactly?”

“You’ll find out.”

The second clue was learning that he made this deal before he and the kids came out to the Rock. This was always Maart’s plan. This was why he caused all that tension in camp with Cort. This was why he got on his back about me and Ainsey.

He needed Cort to believe it was real when it mattered.

And it was real, so Cort did believe.

Until Maart dropped the third clue.

The third clue was the fact that he left the girls behind with Cort.

I mean, maybe Maart gives no fucks about Zoya or Rasha, but Irina?

Come on. Everyone saw through that.

He loves Irina. He wants her to be the first girl in the Ring of Fire.

Or he did, before he set this whole plan in motion.

Maart needed Udulf and Lazar to be the arrogant pricks they are.

He needed them smug.

He needed them proud and cocky.

He needed them to think exactly what they do right in this moment.

That this fight is nothing but a cancellation. Of no importance whatsoever.

He needed these men to think that the Sick Heart’s time was up and that Maart was someone they could relate to. Someone like them. Someone smug, and proud, and cocky.

Someone who wanted to live and would do anything—make any deal with the Devil he could—to make that happen.

But that’s not Maart.

Not even close.

So while all the devils are watching Maart and Cort pretend to beat the shit out of each other, several small children are crawling under the skirt of the platform. And the older ones, the ones I don’t know—those women, the teenagers who are on their way up, these fighters who, by this time, have killed more opponents than they can count—don’t bother sneaking around the side of the ring because this is the oldest trick in the book.

And these men—these arrogant men who are so full of themselves—have left their bodyguards all the way over by the cars because they are acting as drivers. And that is much too far away to stop what is coming.

Finally, these kids are in a fight worth dying for.

That night Cort and I jumped off the platform and sat under the rig we had that small conversation about revenge.

And Cort’s words have stuck with me. Have haunted me.

Don’t you ever think about revenge? I asked him.

Don’t we all?

Then why not go get it? I’ve heard you’re the most dangerous man on this planet.

Maybe I’m holding out for the fairy tale ending, Anya.

What’s that look like?

I don’t really know. I guess I never thought it through, but just off the top of my head I’d say… a rescue would be nice.

Doesn’t everyone want a rescue?

Sure. I guess I can see the logic in that.

It’s just all so unlikely.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life it’s that no one is coming to save you and if you want the happily ever after you should just rescue yourself.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Maybe the fairy-tale ending isn’t about being rescued at all.

Maybe that whole lie is all twisted-up backwards?

This is what I’m thinking about when Irina, and Rasha, and Zoya creep up behind the unsuspecting slave owners watching Maart and Cort pretend to fight, and the little kids crawl out from under the mat platform, and the older ones walk straight around the ring and the slaughter begins—I just watch for a moment and appreciate it for what it is.

And when Udulf and Lazar break away and start running for their lives—the way Cort ran in that maze of shipping containers back when he was just a small boy—I pay no attention to Lazar.

I go for Udulf.

Because this is the Sick Heart’s rescue.

And what comes next might not be anyone’s version of happily ever after, but we don’t care.