I hit. He hits back. Wham-pow-wham.
In my peripherals, I see Brooke’s sister by her side. Her sister who she loves.
Her sister who this motherfucker screws around with, which means he indirectly screws around with Brooke.
I start battering Scorpion until he’s stumbling on each step—but he still won’t fall.
He will.
He’ll be falling at my feet and it’s only a matter of three . . . two . . . one . . . Clenching my teeth when he doesn’t, I grab him by the neck with one arm and spin him around to look at the girls.
“You think I wouldn’t kill you in front of them? You think I wouldn’t enjoy having them watch me break you?” I growl.
He laughs and I promptly break his elbow. He moans as I let go of his arm, and it drops at his side, dangling and useless.
He backs away now, and I corner him, slamming his head to the side, over and over. He rams his knee into my gut, but I recover and punch, left-right, left-right, until I drop him to his knees.
I won’t be merciful. I grab Scorpion and pull him to his feet, forcing him to look at Brooke. Her sister is crying, her head down, and Brooke’s cheeks are stark white, and the helpless fear in her gaze only makes my protectiveness rise tenfold.
“Look at her very well,” I whisper with my lowest voice in his ear, “because what you see belongs to me. It’s because of her that I’m going to break every inch of your body, beat you to within an inch of your life, then I’m going to prolong your agony until the pain alone is what kills you. You think I won’t kill you because she’s watching? You’re wrong. It’s because she’s watching that I will kill you.”
He spits black blood to the mat.
I shove him away, pull up my fists and pop out my knuckles, ready to go at it again.
We don’t lose time. We fight. I punch him, over and over, slamming hard and fast, all my power running up and coming from my gut, straight into my hit. I jab, jab, hook, until the sound of my knuckles meeting his flesh is replaced by the sound of his body crashing to the mat.
The chant rises up. “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”
“Rip! Seal the deal, Rip!!!!!!!!”
I head over to his prone form, working some air into my lungs. Sweat drips down my chest and arms. I watch him crawl on the ground in an effort to avoid me. I keep approaching, my eyes on Brooke now, because that’s where I’ll see the victory, and not anywhere else.
“Go, Remy!!!!!” she says.
At my feet, Scorpion tries to move, and I swing my arm and slam him down.
The crowd roars. Bending over, I grab his unbroken arm and break all his fingers, then I move to his wrist, and I lift it up for the crowd to see, then I break that easily too.
A low sound rumbles up his throat, and he squirms on the mat. I slide my hands up to his elbow and I start twisting, wanting to make it painful, and slow. Oh, yes, f**ker. It’ll be slow.
He thrashes and sputters, and the bone is about to snap when I hear his coach yell out, and a black towel falls into the ring.
I see the towel and grit my teeth in frustration when I do.
“Booo!” the public shouts. “Booo!!”
Fuck me, I’m so wired, I don’t think I can back off. I want his blood. I want to break his elbow, his shoulder, and then his goddamned face. I want him to pay for the little box of goodies he sent Brooke, and I want him to pay for what he did to her sister, and I want him to pay for what he did way back when that meant I’d never be able to box professionally again. It would be so easy to pretend I didn’t see the towel, and just like that, I can twist his neck and he’s dead.
. . . And I’d prove to Brooke that I’m a killer.
Only seconds before asking her to marry me . . .
Which isn’t right.
With an inhuman effort, I let go and step away. Scorpion spits out blood and raises his head to look at me. I start walking away when I hear him, “Pussy, come and finish me!”
I do. I turn and slam my fist down, hard enough to knock him unconscious.
“RIPTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!” the announcer’s yell reverberates across the arena.
The crowd stands with a roar, and I immediately search the stands for Brooke. I’m f**king hungry for her. For the acceptance I see in her eyes, the joy. I want to see that she’s proud of me, and I want her to know I would kill him. For her. I would maim, destroy, do anything, for her. But I also won’t. For her.
Her lips are curled into the sweet little smile I like, but her forehead is puckered, and she’s crying softly in her seat, the only person in the arena that’s not standing.
I’m barely aware of my arm being raised as a kernel of fear settles deep in my gut.
“The winner of this season’s Underground Championship, I give you, REMINGTON TATE, RIIIPTIDE!!! Riiiiiiiiptide!! Riptide . . . where are you going?”
Something’s the f**k wrong. Something’s the f**k wrong and the instant it hits me, I leap off the ring and charge for her, kneeling at her feet, wrapping my sweaty, bloodied arms around her.
“Brooke, oh, baby, she’s coming, isn’t she?” She nods, and my heart has never pounded so hard as I wipe away her tears, murmuring, “I got you, all right? You got me, baby, now I got you. Come here.” I scoop her up in my arms, and she cuddles into me, so vulnerable and sweet as she cries into my neck.
“He’s not . . . supposed . . . to come yet. . . . It’s too soon. . . . What if he won’t make it . . . ? ”
The crowd has flocked around us, but I tuck her head under my neck and use my shoulders to bulldoze past the fans, determined to get us out of here as fast as I can as hands reach out to rub me. “RIPTIDE, YOU ROCK! RRIIIIPPPPTIIIDE!” they scream.
White roses start raining over us from the stands when the announcer speaks.
Fuck this is all wrong. I’m supposed to be on my knees. She’s supposed to be happy tonight.
“At the request of our victor, who has a very special question to ask . . .”
I spot the exit when the music starts playing in the background, and my heart starts pounding in a way it doesn’t even pound when I’m fighting. Brooke’s confusion seems to grow, and the chorus that asks what I’ve wanted to ask her from the moment I held her in my arms, kissed her for the first time, and introduced myself to her, plays out loud.
She was mine then.
She. Is. Mine.
She will be mine.
“Wh-what?” she asks me in confusion.
Pushing out through the exit, I tell Pete, “Pull the car around,” and I keep walking until Pete screeches to a halt before us. Brooke’s sister climbs up front.
I tuck Brooke into the back, and she keeps looking at me expectantly, watching me close the door as Pete drives us out of there. I hold her face between my hands, and my heart is still galloping.
This is it.
This is what I want most in the world.
I feel like I’ve been waiting since before I was born to ask her. It’s like asking her to jump off a cliff, with me. It goes against my instinct to protect her, but my instinct to claim her overrules anything else. She’s mine, my girl.
Her eyes hold me, hot and pained but shining expectantly, and I hear the need in my voice when I speak, “The song was supposed to ask you to marry me, but you’ll have to settle on me doing the asking . . .” She stares at me, her lips apart, and she’s trembling so hard, she doesn’t know my hands are trembling too as I squeeze her face between my hands. “Mind. Body. Soul. All of you for me. All of you mine . . . Marry me, Brooke Dumas.”
“Yes!” she exclaims, sobbing and grabbing my jaw and pressing her lips to mine, no hesitation in her answer, no worry, no concern. “Yes yes yes!”
“Fuck baby, thank you,” I murmur, my throat tight as I pull her to me and she buries herself against me. She can’t see my face, and I exhale a breath against her hair and hold her, my adrenaline starting to crash almost instantly. She moans in pain and I quietly rock her, whispering in her ear, “Tell me what to do.”
“Hold me,” she says, groaning softly, then breathing fast, “Stay with me, don’t go black, stay with me.”
I nod and hold her, but I start to worry when she keeps moaning in pain.
Don’t f**king go black, ass**le!
When we check her in, I’m trying to calm down, but she’s moaning and grimacing and I can’t stop thinking I’m the bastard who knocked her up.
I try to think of the look of happiness on her face when I proposed. I try to hang onto it and remember what she’s told me before. We want this. We want a family. We deserve it like anyone else. I try to think of that look of happiness when she’s on the delivery table, pushing.
Holy god, I don’t even know how I’m in one piece.
I hold her hand as her cries tear through my ears and split me open.
I brush her hair behind her face and watch her chew on her lip as she pushes, while I quietly beg myself to please just hang tight and not let my daughter first meet me when I’m black.
It feels like forever by the time Brooke lets go a sigh and drops back on the table, suddenly relaxed, when I see the doctor holding a squirming, wet, pink figure. “It’s a boy,” he says, and a soft cry follows.
“A boy,” she gasps, delighted.
“A boy,” I repeat.