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He also heard how I slammed the door.
And I heard how he laughed behind me.
That goddamn Savage.
“Please, don’t.” Jade twisted the collar of my shirt and kissed me deeply again. My mouth was sore from kissing her pretty mouth so many times, but it was the only thing that soothed me. I felt like I was going to explode when I arrived back to my apartment, and luckily, Jade was there to comfort me.
Even more luckily, Carter wasn’t there to have a heart attack when he witnessed how we fucked on the sofa, right on his favorite seat where he watched CSI: Miami.
“You know I can’t say no to Graham,” I growled, a feral sound escaping my mouth. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t really have much choice. I would get in the cage with Stefano. Whether I’d like it or not, these were just the codes of the world we lived in. However, I still hadn’t decided on the outcome of that fight. Was I going to lose for peace, or was I going to win for revenge?
“Cole.” Jade nuzzled her nose into my neck and inhaled. “Stefano is dangerous.”
I rolled my eyes and pushed her from me. I was sitting on the couch, and she was straddling me, her thighs clenching my waist in a death grip that was the beginning of a second round. “If you’re implying that there’s a chance for me to lose this fight unless it’s on purpose, then you better pack a pretty bag and get the fuck out of my sight.”
I knew I was over the fucking top and then some, but everything about the situation drove me mad. And Jade knew me better than to think I was serious. She sighed and clasped my face in her tiny hands.
“He doesn’t play fair,” she hissed.
“I don’t play at all. I destroy,” I retorted, unblinking.
“I’m scared for your life.”
“You should be scared for his.”
“If it comes down to you or him, I want the bastard to die,” she gritted out through gleaming eyes. I smiled.
“Well, Butterfly, then I believe that he will.”
Nothing felt the same when I entered the cage the night I fought Stefano. Nothing.
For one thing, Jade had decided not to come. I understood it, for the most part. This was the guy who sexually and physically abused her, who kidnapped her and had every intention of killing her, her best friend and her two daughters. I was going to fight him now, and she was supposed to sit there and just watch us brawl?
Second of all, I didn’t want her around all of these drunken Irish and Italian men anyway. The bar was buzzing with trouble that night, with Italians pouring in from the streets with red noses, thoroughly drunk and completely incoherent, and banged their fists against the wooden tables demanding the fight start two hours earlier. They pinched the butts of the waitresses and got into fistfights with some of the regulars. The Irish, in the meantime, were placing bet after bet on me. They shook their wallets and emptied their pockets, all of them sure that I was going to win easily.
I was betraying my own.
Betraying the men who came there every week to support me.
Men who worked so goddamn hard for their money. They weren’t Graham Savage. They didn’t live in skyscrapers in Manhattan. They lived in the Bronx and Brooklyn. They were manual workers who had to consider the pros and cons of ordering another beer every time they walked in there.
These were the men we were robbing.
Graham Savage wasn’t my Robin Hood anymore.
He was the motherfucking government.
Even though guilt swirled in my gut, hot and angry, I still didn’t make up my mind. Not when Carter wrapped my hands silently and glanced behind his shoulder time after time again, wondering where the hell Jade was, and not when he gloved me and gave me one of his useless pep talks.
No.
I had decided I was going to win this fight when I saw Stefano waiting for me in the cage.
He looked very well for someone who had been shot not too long ago. Strong, tall, pretty buff. Probably juiced up to the max, but this wasn’t the UFC or WWE. No one was going to test him for drugs.
The judge was waiting inside the cage, and when I walked in the crowd screamed so loud I thought the whole building was going to collapse. My heart stuttered in my chest as I locked eyes with the man who had almost ruined everything I cared about.
He hurt my baby.
