She nods.
I take her by the arm and lift her to her feet. “You come with me.”
“Not so fast, Riptide,” Scorpion calls. “You want her, then one of your guys and mine stay with her in lockdown until you deliver the championship tomorrow.”
My laugh is dripping in sarcasm. “Ahh, ass**le, when are you going to realize? I can give the championship away tomorrow, that won’t mean I won’t take it back. And when I do, everyone’s going to watch me break you.” I grab my phone and call Pete.
“Where the f**k are you—” he starts as soon as he answers.
“Get your ass over here. I need you to do something for me.” I tell him where I’m at and hang up.
Five minutes later, when Pete arrives, he sees my eyebrow is bleeding into my eye, that my fists are cracked and my knuckles bruised. He stares at Scorpion, his mouth hanging open. “Rem, what have you done,” he gasps.
“No one’s talking,” I stress out to placate him, and when he keeps gaping, I snap my fingers before his eyes. “Hey, hey, man, focus! You’re to secure Brooke’s sister until I tell you and they release her to me. Do you hear me?”
He blinks. “Dude, you need stitches.”
“I’ll get some f**king stitches,” I growl. “Just take her away from that ass**le.”
I turn to look at Scorpion. Holy god, I still want to kill him. He’s slumped and bruised, and bleeding, but he has a gleam of victory in his eyes.
“I can’t wait to break you up on that ring,” he tells me as I walk out.
And it doesn’t matter.
“AND NOWWWW, LADIES and gentlemen, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Our reigning champion, the defender, the one and only, Remington RIPTIDE Tate!”
I am zoned off from the crowd and even of the way my body is primed and pumped to fight. I trot out to the ring and all I can see is Brooke draped in this same fabric around her skin. It brushes against me. I feel calm. I am reminded that she’s the reason why tonight I’m going to be hitting the canvas.
I can feel her gaze on me as I hop into the ring and let Riley pull off my robe.
This is the moment I always look at her.
My stomach is burning with determination. If I look at her, she’ll be wearing that worried look on her face. She’ll weaken me. She’ll make me want to fight. Fuck.
The crowd yells my name in a chant, and I hate that she’s going to have to watch this. But she wants her sister back. I won’t let her be with Scorpion.
The announcer then calls, “And nooow, ladies and gentlemen, the nightmare you’ve all been dreading to come alive is here. Watch out for Benny the Blaaaaaack Scorpion!”
And here he comes, the motherfucker. Walking slow as poe to test my f**king patience, with both his middle fingers stretched out to me and the public.
He feels badass tonight ’cause he knows I won’t be having any game tonight.
I wait for him to get up here, reliving the way I stuck a pencil into his f**king tattoo. I think of Brooke kissing him and my blood boils again.
He hops onto the ring and his black cape is removed, and I’m glad to see the motherfucker looks like shit. He’s been stitched up where I carved the tattoo off his f**king skin, and his yellow eyes land on me, and I can see the joy he feels that he’ll get to publicly kick the crap out of me.
Ting ting.
For a blind second, instinctively, I feel my body start to bounce into place: guard up, feet apart, going toe to toe with him, but I catch myself before I swing and let him have it. He punches me in the ribs, then my jaw, double. I shake myself to recover, then go back toe to toe.
I’m so wired up, it even feels good.
Scorpion hits me right in the gut, then goes for an uppercut, and I straighten my head. I’m not going to be knocked down by those sissy swings. If I land on the canvas, I f**king land on it because I can’t stand.
I take three punches in the body again, chest, and rib cage, and my body, my muscle memory, is at war with my brain. I’m going against every single instinct inside me. But I tell myself I might not have the championship, but I will have her.
I can see myself and the way she will look at me when I bring her sister. She will have that young girl back and she will know, once and for all, that I will f**king do anything for her.
Scorpion goes for my jaw, then goes straight and knocks me to my knees. The public doesn’t like it. I stand up, a little dizzy.
“Boooo! Booo!”
“Kill the bastard, Riptide! KILL HIM!”
We keep going. Punch after punch, I concentrate on not protecting, on not punching back.
We’re going round after round, and I’m just taking it. I feel my systems shutting down somehow. My muscles throbbing, my skin bruised, my bones tender. My brain slowing, my lungs straining to oxygenate every bruised part of me. I don’t even know where it hurts, my body is producing tons of numbing shit, and I am grateful for it.
I wipe my forehead and keep breathing, my arm ends stained in blood from my eyebrows, my lips, my temple. I slam onto the ground again, and I hate that this motherfucker can’t knock me down unconscious even when I want him to. I jump back up and spit at him, angering the motherfucker so he will give it to me good.
“Remy, fight him!” I hear Brooke’s unmistakable voice, and it freezes me. “REMY, FIGHT HIM! FOR ME! FOR ME!”
I hear it. Holy god, she has never screamed for me like this. It breaks me, and for the briefest second, I want to knock Scorpion with whatever force I have left. I am the strongest, the fastest, so she knows I don’t go down. I am her mate and I want her to be proud of me. The jabs come, and all I can hear is her begging me to fight. For her. And for the first time in my life, I feel completely humiliated. Can’t she see I’m allowing this?
This one’s for you, little firecracker—ooof.
My breath goes, my body contracts to hold the pain. My thoughts scatter and my head spins.
He goes for my head now, and my brain spins in my cranium like jelly. I can hear his fist connecting with my jaw until my head swings on the last crack!
Keeping balance is impossible.
I slam to the floor.
I feel it under me. I almost like it. The only solid thing as my world spins. Something about knowing I can fall and the motherfucking floor is there for me is comforting.
A wet puddle of blood is beneath me. My eyes are nearly shut and swollen. And my ribs feel like they’ve been punched into my lungs. I plant a hand on the canvas, and then the other, and I hear counting. I try pushing up, and for a moment there I don’t know if I can.
I hate him. I hate him with a passion. All I can think about is me standing here, seeing those yellow eyes and that face, and busting it open the next time I face him.
I push up and spit blood, and as soon as I am up, I catch a left hook on my side that swings me around.
I stumble and almost fall again, need to shake my head. The room is spinning. And all I can think of are Brooke’s arms, and how good they will feel when she holds me tonight. I’m going to cuddle her to me and let her put ice on me and work her magic, and she’s going to love me for giving her back her sister because I thought I wanted the championship, but not now.
Now all I want is the woman I love. To love me. Like nobody in my life has loved me before. And I’ll fight harder for her than for anyone.
I hear Riley and Coach yelling at me over and over, “Your f**king guard! What the f**k is wrong with you?”
People yell all over the arena. They’re getting thirstier and thirstier for blood, but today I can only give them mine.
“KILL HIM, RIPTIDE! KILL HIM!”
The next hit sends blood splattering across the canvas, and the people shout even louder. “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”
My heart has never pumped so hard. No part of my body understands why I’m not using it. My fight tonight is with myself, with every f**king instinct inside me, my muscles, which want to work, my nerves, which jump reflexively to protect. But I can’t move my right arm anymore. It hangs limp at my side, and it doesn’t even hurt.
“Remy, Remy, REMY!” people continue yelling.
Scorpion growls in rage. I know for a fact there has never been a moment in his life when anyone rooted for him.
I spit in his face. “Next time I see you, you’re going to eat my fist,” I tell him.
He swings his arm back with a roar and I wait for the slam. It comes and I’m down. My vision tunnels and goes black.
I HEAR MUSIC in the dark. I hear the songs Brooke has played me, songs I have played her. My body aches and I try to move but can’t pull out of the dark. I feel hands on my jaw, and I hear sounds close to my ear. Sobbing little sounds. I feel her kisses on my temple, her fingers on top of my hair. I hear the music and lose it . . . lose her . . . No, I’m never going to lose her. I’d do everything for her. She has to know I’d do everything for her.
Light burns into my retinas. My body is leaden and numb. My chest hurts. I peel open my eyes wider and assess my surroundings.
Hospital. Riley.
And Brooke?
Panic seizes me. I try to talk and something is stuck in my throat, so I groan.
Riley’s head shoots up from where he sits in the chair. “You’re up, thank god!” He comes to me. “Holy god, Remington, I’m f**king glad you made it so I can kill you myself. You had us all—”