Savage: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (5 page)

I
’ve gotten
two letters back from Memphis now. His writing is the only real source of excitement in my life at the moment, and I always look forward to Hannah sneaking me another one of his so carefully folded pieces of paper. I’m starting to learn about him, find out about his life and how he got here in the first place.

He doesn’t tell me what lead him to choosing to be here, as one of Wilson’s prized fighters. I guess it’s the ’darkness’ that he mentioned. I don’t push it, even though I’m curious.

He tells me about other stuff, though. How he feels when he’s in the ring, how it makes him feel invincible to win, and how he can’t lose or that’ll be the end of him. In one of his letters, he describes how he chose to become one of Wilson’s men because that was the only option he had left.

Needing a place where no one would know who he was and what he’d done, he came here. And unless he wins one-hundred matches in a row, he will never get out. My heart beats faster at the thought of it. Somehow, even though we’ve only seen one another once, I feel like we’re kindred spirits in a way, stuck in the dark and wanting to get to the light.

I think I’ve begun wishing for his freedom as much as I do my own or my mother’s.

I talk to him about my family. I tell him about my father, what a kind and generous man he was. I explain I never expected him to have a part in criminal activities, and I tell him how much it shocked me to find out what my father did.

Through the course of our writing, our letters get longer, our words more raw, our confessions more honest. I feel like I have a confidant in this godforsaken place, and it feels good.

Memphis’ past is muddled, but his soul is good, unlike the monstrous reputation he has. I’m just re-reading another one of his letters, when there is a small knock on the door to my bedroom.

I look up with surprise. It’s not meal time yet, and the only one who comes inside my room these days is Hannah with either breakfast, lunch, or supper.

“Come in,” I call out.

The door opens, and a familiar figure appears in my doorstep. For a moment, I think it must be a mirage. I haven’t seen my mother a single time since we came here. But as she comes into the room, her ethereal figure coming into focus, I realize it really is her.

I stifle a sob and run towards her, throwing myself off the bed. Her fragile arms extend to me and she pulls me into a hug. Neither of us speaks. All we do is hold each other, something we haven’t been able to do for a week now.

“Mom,” I manage to get out. My eyes are filled with tears as we both pull back, our gazes exploring each other’s faces. “How are you, mom? Are you alright?”

She nods slowly, her own eyes filled with tears as well.

“He let me come see you today,” she confesses. “I’ve been begging him to let me do it for days, and he refused every single time. He’s in a good mood today.”

I nod, disgust brimming at the fact that we’re so dependent on the goodwill of that man.

“I’m glad you’re here now,” I tell her, looking her up and down. “And that you’re okay. We can get through this together.”

Her body feels frailer than ever in my arms, and I wonder if she’s been eating at all. For the first few days after my father’s death, she refused to eat a single bite, and I practically had to force food down her throat. Now, without me there, I wonder who’s taking care of that.

No one at all, I guess,
I think, giving her another worried look.

“I brought you something,” she says in a soft voice. “It’s… because you found out about your father.”

Her voice breaks over the words, and I realize how painful it must be to her. I may have lost a father, but she lost the love of her life. It’s a miracle she hasn’t completely broken yet.

“What is it?” I ask her.

She pulls out a small journal from behind her back, presenting it to me. It’s bound in rich chocolate leather, and I recognize it as one of the notebooks my dad loved using so much. I look up into my mother’s eyes, wondering why she brought it to me, or how she managed to get a hold of it to begin with.

“It was your father’s journal,” she says with a sigh. “I wanted you to see he was a good man.”

I look away, feeling tears pooling in my eyes.

Dad and I were very close. Our relationship was built on trust and love - or so I thought. When I found out what he did for a living after he died, it crushed me. He never once thought to tell me what he really did. I was kept in the dark my entire life, and the loss of trust for my father along with his death threatened to crush me completely.

“Valerie?”

A voice from outside my room interrupts our exchange, and my mother’s eyes widen in fear. She shoves the journal in my arms and I toss it to my bed, pretending nothing happened. Seeing the absolute fear Cobb evokes in my mother makes me wonder what she’s been having to go through at his hands… And I wonder whether she knows what he plans on doing with me and the horrible fights he organizes in his grimy dungeons.

Cobb enters the room, filling the doorframe with his menacing figure. We both look at him with deep-rooted fear in our eyes, but mine carry defiance along with it.

He is a handsome man. Tall, lean and built like a runner, with a flop of blonde hair and light blue, sharp eyes. His beard is always shaved carefully, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a hint of stubble.

He must’ve looked angelic when he was younger, but now all I see is a monster. The baby blues and light hair, his prominent, handsome features and his smirk will never fool me. I know the man who hides behind his mask. I know his true colors.

And I despise him for them.

“Valerie, it’s time to go,” he says with that shit-eating grin I’ve hated growing accustomed to. “You’ve wasted enough time.”

“It’s only been a few minutes,” my mother objects softly. “I thought we could maybe have a few more…”

“No.”

His denial is strong and doesn’t leave room for objections. He pulls on my mother’s arm, and I see how much it pleases him when I flinch from the rough way he treats her. There’s honest
glee
in his eyes. The man’s a psycho.

“We need to go. Say goodbye to daughter dearest, now. We have business to attend to.”

My mother’s desperate eyes say goodbye as he drags her out of the door. He shoves her into the hallway roughly and my blood boils. He looks back into the room before leaving, smiling at me.

“Make yourself pretty for the evening, sweet thing,” he tells me. “You’re going to be watching a fight tonight, in your honor. I can’t wait to see the look on your face when you’re handed off as the prize.”

My whole body freezes in terror, and he laughs, shutting my bedroom door in place.

My heart pounds in my chest. I have to sit down, my head spinning. My vision swims a little and the only thing I notice is my father’s journal.

Instead of worrying about what Cobb told me, I pick it up and begin reading, practically hyperventilating in the beginning.

Before I know it, several hours have gone by.

The journal my father wrote is something between a diary and a to-do list, filled with dates and appointments, but also a few personal notes. Slowly, as I make my way through the pages, I start figuring out my father was still the person I knew him to be, despite everything that he did behind mine and my mother’s backs.

He was the kind, generous man I’d known and loved my entire life. Yes, he had a hidden past, but his values, his words still had truth to them. I feel like I’m piecing the past together off of what I remember and what he’s written down. He loved my mother and me dearly. That much is evident from all the little notes he put in his journal.

Buy flowers for Valerie, take Adrienne horseback riding.

Their wedding anniversary, my birthday. The whole journal is filled with dates, small things even I don’t remember, anniversaries of things we did together. It feels my heart with as much pain as it does love, and I have a smile on my lips as I read and a tear trickles down my cheek.

I don’t even realize it’s dinnertime until Hannah coughs to alert me to her presence, having unlocked the door and stepped in. Startled, I push the journal underneath my pillow and look up to find her already having set the table with my meal.

“Everything okay, Miss?” she asks gently, and I nod, smiling at her to reassure her. “I’ve set up your dinner for you.”

“Thanks, Hannah.”

I get up from my bed and walk over to the table where my meal awaits. My hopeful eyes find Hannah and she grins, already knowing what my next question will be. She brings another folded piece of paper from her pocket and passes it to me.

Another note from Memphis.

I’m so distracted I only hear the click of the door being shut as she quietly excuses herself.

My dinner is forgotten as I open up Memphis’ note. My eyes scan his words, fixating on the last paragraph of his handwritten letter. In my previous one, I’d finally asked him about the winner of the tournament. Who was the winner Memphis was so convinced was going to win and take away the grand prize - myself?

I read it over again.

I already told you there can only be one. That man is me, Adrienne.

So you don’t need to worry about being given to some stranger.

You already know the man who will own you after the tournament. I’ve got you, sugar.

Memphis

My heart constricts in my chest, and I don’t know whether it is with excitement or fear. Probably both.

I’ve developed a crush on Memphis, growing attached to him because of his words and the kinship I feel between the two of us. My body still remembers the pull his eyes had on me, the way his arms held me as he carried me to my room. And it craves more of it.

I fold his letter between the pages of my father’s journal, and sit down to dinner. I can barely taste the food, my mind is so far away.

I wonder whether Memphis will let me be, or whether he’ll want to claim me when he wins it in the tournament.

What scares me most is not knowing which option I’d prefer myself.

“
A
re you ready
?!” the announcer screams, though that might be too fancy of a title for what the man actually is.

Joe Pescopi is one of the local mob bosses, a close personal friend of Wilson Cobb, and a motherfucker who just can’t keep his mouth shut. So I don’t think there’s a man or woman in the room who’s surprised about the fact that he has so graciously agreed to play announcer for this little shindig.

What better way to spend your evening than roaring out sputtery bullshit at two men hell-bent on putting one another in the ground, right?

I don’t really care. All I need to focus on is winning, regardless of the Cobbs and Pescopis in the world.

I gnash my teeth against my mouth guard as I step into the cage, feeling the familiar spring of the soft floor beneath my bare feet. The crowd roars their welcome and I raise a hand and give them a winning smile, or as much as one could through the plastic I’m gnawing on. Wouldn’t want to destroy my
lovely
smile, after all.

“In this corner, we have Angel, a tough as nails Chicago prized bull with nothing to lose!” Joe blabbers on as I jump from foot to foot, wondering who my opponent is.

When the door on the opposite end of the cage opens and the lights focus there, I can’t help but grin. This’ll be a cakewalk.

“And in
this
corner we have Billy Green, an Irish brawler always who is never out of luck!”

The nearest spectators – all lowlife mob types of one sort or another, with their cheap girlfriends glued to whichever side they have their wallet on – groan slightly. Joe’s being especially cheesy tonight.

But that doesn’t matter to me. Billy Green is right in front of me and I
know
this will be fun. He’s a wiry sort of guy, about my height, with a gleam in his green eyes that tells me that his boss has been shooting him up with something my boss is too fucking cheap for. But I see the slowness in his step and the slight loll of his head as he looks from side to side, cracking his neck.

He’s been fighting too much lately. I’ve got this in the bag.

The realization hits me fast and hard, just as the gathered schmucks grow quiet. My attention snaps to the small balcony looking down on the cage along with everybody else’s.

Wilson,
I think, my blood boiling at the sight of his smug grin.

But that anger goes away a moment later, when I see a true angel float in right after him, looking scared and lost. Adrienne.

I haven’t seen her for so long, I sort of started wondering if I was making up all those letters in my head and just imagining her existence. One look at her brings back all the dizzyingly delicious memories of her sweet body in my arms as I carried her through the mansion, the way she looked at me with those fear-stricken eyes that still had so much defiance in them despite everything.

God, she’s beautiful.

I’m gawking at her so hard that the mouth guard almost slips from between my teeth. I right it in my mouth quickly and give Cobb a nod, which he returns. He’s a sick bastard, but I know he needs me to win.

The bosses of the other major houses file in around him and when all of the big fat cats have taken their seats, Joe starts talking again. I keep sneaking glances at Adrienne and I
think
I catch her blushing.

Good.

Keeping my cock from throbbing in the compression shorts is a battle of its own. I admire that girl, keeping her head up after everything that’s happened to her, but I can’t help but remember how soft and lovely she was in my hands. And my cock can’t either, apparently.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been using the image I had painted of her in my head as the one and only source to get me off ever since we first met. Seeing the real thing again is so much better, though.

You’ll be mine, sugar.

It’s as much a threat at the establishment we’ve gotten stuck in as it is a promise.

I tear my eyes away from her – it takes far too much fucking work, what with her lush lips, long tresses and that constant blush on her cheeks – and focus. Even the shittiest fighter can catch you unawares if you’re not careful and this time, I’m not just fighting for myself.

“Gentlemen,” Joe starts, and the crowd roars with laughter – other than the people upstairs, there isn’t a single man here who would answer to that particular call. “Are you ready?”

I nod shortly and Billy does the same. We meet in the middle of the cage and touch our knuckles together. I give the kid an easy smile which he doesn’t return. His cheek is twitching and I can see it carry over to his forehead as well. Boy’s fucked up on something.

Almost a shame to take him out in this state. But whatever, the best man has to win and I’ve decided that man to be me today.

“Fight!” Joe hollers, already safely out of the cage, the doors locked and the barbed wire nice and sharp, waiting for someone to be thrown into it.

I dance left and right, warming up my feet some more. I steal a look at Adrienne and she’s practically gnawing on her fingers. Damn, she looks cute when she’s nervous. Shaking my head, I look at Billy, catching him in his first charge. Though Joe called me the bull, right now I feel more like the red flag, though there are more popped vessels in Billy’s eyes than I care count as he comes at me, arms swinging.

I duck under the first punch and return one right in the solar plexus. As he keels back slightly, I knock him in the jaw from below, sending him staggering back. The crowd is already jeering and booing, trying to get Billy to ‘man up’. I know there’s a hell of a lot of money being bet in this room right now, both of me winning and losing, and the latter side doesn’t want to see me doing well or Billy going down like a felled tree.

I’m going to have to disappoint them though.

Billy shakes his head and I see sweat and saliva flying already, along with a couple droplets of blood. This stuff has always been fun for me, like stealing candy from a baby. I grin at him, motioning with my hand to come at me. He takes the bait, hook, line and sinker.

He comes at me almost blindly, swinging, and I sidestep him with trained ease. I spin back at lightning speeds and catch him in the back, shoving him with my foot to add insult to injury. He slams into the fencing and bounces back, howling with rage. The next time he comes for me, I time the hit perfectly between his frantic blows, catching him in the right cheekbone with my left.

He goes down immediately, his head hitting the matting and recoiling up once before settling on the soft floor. I take a step back as the crowd counts down from ten, stuck between saying the numbers and chanting my stupid nickname.

“Angel!” they roar, and I hear every syllable, raising my hands.

I barely worked up a sweat.

Giving Cobb a smug look, I see him beaming back at me. My joy of victory is immediately marred by that. Fuck him. Every win I get, it only adds to the pile of money he’s making.
That’s
the worst part about this. I don’t want to give that man a fucking thing, other than maybe a decent concussion.

But my stormy gaze travels to Adrienne beside him and she has tears shimmering in her eyes. Fuck, she’s gorgeous. And she’ll be mine, no matter what.

“We have a winner, folks!” Joe Pescopi calls, and I swear I hear disappointment in his voice.

Either he had money on Billy, or he’s sad that he can’t talk nonsense at willing listeners anymore. Whichever option it is, I don’t find myself caring much.

Of course we have a winner,
I think, rolling my shoulders back.