Sick Heart: A Dark MMA Fighter Romance

A little head of blonde hair slips through the legs of the men like a sneaky little dog. Anya’s sister. She is definitely not supposed to be here. But no one has ever accused Lazar of being a respectable man. I want to grab her for some reason, tell her to get the fuck out of my party, but she’s too quick, too good at the game she’s playing, and I lose her in the crowd.

I look around for Evard. I kinda remember Rainer kicking him out of the room after the tattooing was done and the fucking was about to begin. After a few minutes of blindly following Maart through the crowd, I find him in the corner. The little girl is too. He’s smiling. Laughing out loud, actually. And they’ve both got a glass of electric-blue Lectra in their hands.

I’m just about to head that way when Maart grabs my arm again. “This way, big shot. Your father is waving us over.”

My father.

Isn’t it time for that charade to be over?

One more training camp on the Rock. Then I will never have to see these people again. I will never be beckoned with a wave from across a room. I will never go to one of these parties again.

Maart and I push our way through the crowd and I spy Lazar. He’s sitting on the same long, silver couch that Anya was lounging on earlier in the day, glass in one hand, but he’s not drinking Lectra. That shit is bring-your-own-bottle and he gave that bottle to me. But that can’t be the reason why he’s not drinking it. Surely he can afford hundreds of Lectra bottles. And even if losing this fight did set him back enough where he would second-guess a decision to gulp down a hundred thousand dollars of liquid sex, one of the other men in the room would accommodate him. Surely he has one friend in this room who wants to ease the sting of his loss.

So why, Lazar? Why aren’t you drinking Lectra tonight?

Are you sad? Did you love Pavo? Will you miss him? Are you mad that I kicked his lifeless body over the side of the platform?

Or are you thinking about how I didn’t kill your daughter?

Why did you let her live this long if you just want her dead now?

What has changed for you, Lazar?

He spits at me when we pass him. And that spittle lands on top of my right foot.

I scoff.

Maart tightens his grip on my arm, tugging me along, leaning in to my ear to whisper, “We’ll get him another time. We have a couple hours of this, then we’re out of here. The helicopter is—”

But I tune him out. I’m really not interested in the details of how and when we leave the ship.

It takes a few more minutes to push our way through the thick crowd of men and their whores before my father finally comes into view again. He throws his head back and laughs at something.

He won big tonight. Big. So he’s very happy.

And even though it’s been over a decade since he laid a hand on me, I still feel that old, familiar anger when he smiles.

I get tunnel vision and all I see are his teeth.

Like he’s a predator.

And he is.

“Play nice,” Maart reminds me. “Two hours. Tops. Just stand there, OK? Can you do that?”

He’s having doubts that I can do that. Obviously.

Maart has good instincts.

“There he is!” Udulf beams. His eyes are glassy, his irises ringed blue from the drink.

And of course, at the most inappropriate time, the Lectra claws at my mind and brings up a memory.

Not just any memory. The bathhouse. That’s the Lectra’s favorite.

I am small. Very small. And there are a lot of little boys around me.

We are all terrified.

None of them have faces. Not even the little girl who wants me to run has a face.

She just has hands.

Every time I drink the Lectra, this is what it shows me.

And the men.

Two men. No faces.

And blood.

Blood on the bathhouse floor.

The rest is… fuzzy.

“Cort! My son!” Udulf grabs me. Hooks his arm around my shoulder. We are the same height, but he feels small and weak next to my muscular body. At twenty-seven, I might be on the other side of my prime fighting days, but I am still the most dangerous man in the room. At least for tonight.

I like it that way. That’s why I tore out Pavo’s heart on the platform.

I want them to fear me, yes. But more than that, I want them to hate me. I want them to hate me the way I hate them.

So that’s how I do it.

I will fight. I don’t have a choice. But I will give them nightmares too.

They will relive the last moments of Pavo’s life over and over again when they sleep. They will wake up in a cold sweat, dripping with adrenaline under their expensive silk sheets. And they will be terrified.