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On the front step of my high-rise condo, I pull up the hood of my lightweight sweatshirt, huddling down into the fabric as I begin to jog to my new training center. Today is hot as fuck, but I’m more comfortable burning up than going without my hoodie. Being back in the U.S. still feels weird after living overseas for almost a decade. The sights, the sounds, hell, even the language seems unfamiliar.
Not even a little bit winded five miles later, I enter the enormous facility I’ll be calling home for the next six months as I prepare to become the newest fighter for the FLA. One step into the building and I know this place is serious about training. It’s not quite seven in the morning and the gym is buzzing with activity.
“Hello. You must be Mr. Bishop.” A tall, incredibly fit woman with bright blue hair steps out from behind a counter, extending a hand.
I nod and grunt. “Yeah.”
She gives me a wide smile. “I’m Roxanne Frasier but everyone calls me Roxie. Nice to meet you.” She’s beaming and happy until her eyes meet mine beneath the hood of my sweatshirt. Roxie flinches. The movement is subtle, but it’s there. I drop my gaze.
Reluctantly, I pull my hand from the pocket of my hoodie and shake hers, but don’t add anything more to the conversation. My reputation for being an asshole hopefully preceded me because she doesn’t question my lack of social skills or my silence.
“Gabriel is in the back. He’ll show you around.” Careful to avoid making eye contact again, Roxanne looks away as she turns and heads into the gym. “Come on.” she says over her shoulder, again avoiding my eyes.
I follow her into the huge open space. It’s clean and modern, the concrete walls painted white and the ceilings lined with steel crossbeams. This is a far cry from the small, stark facility I trained at in Brazil. And it’s a whole fucking world away from the run-down place in the slums of Thailand.
We pass several men who are warming up, doing stretches or light bag work. Multiple full-sized octagons take up one entire side of the room. Rafael, my trainer in Brazil, wasn’t kidding when he said this place is serious about turning out real MMA contenders.
“Olá!” A large, dark-haired, dark-eyed man of about fifty approaches, his hand extended in greeting. “You must be Keller! Rafael has not stopped talking about your talent!”
The man grips my hand enthusiastically, pumping my arm up and down, the large smile on his face never breaking.
“Killer. I go by Killer,” I growl, head down.
He’s not fazed in the least. “Of course! Desculpe, desculpe,” the man apologizes in Portuguese. “I’m Gabriel Souza.”
Gabriel doesn’t know I studied tapes of most of his fights from the early days of professional MMA and those of several fighters he currently trains. I know who he is and what he’s capable of. He’s the sole reason I accepted Rafael’s suggestion to come here to prep for the FLA. Never in a million years would I set foot back in this city otherwise.
“Let me show you around,” he continues in Portuguese. After living in Brazil for the last five years, I know the language well enough to keep up. The tour is brief but informative. They have everything I need to stay in peak shape for competing.
“Over here is our conditioning and sports therapist,” Gabriel says, switching to English as he motions to a small, slender wisp of a blonde girl with big blue eyes as she descends a flight of stairs. “Britt, this is our newest client, Killer Bishop. Killer, this is our token college graduate, Britt Reeves.”
The girl’s dark eyelashes flutter and her pale skin pinks up when we shake hands, but she meets my eyes directly and never drops her gaze.
Weird.
“Nice to meet you, ummmm, Killer?” she says at a near whisper. I grunt in response, ducking my head and shoving my hands back into the kangaroo pouch of my hoodie. For some reason, I’m tense around this girl. I rub my finger and thumb together inside the pocket as I catch her studying me in my peripheral vision.
This is surprising. People are universally afraid of me. I look dangerous. My nose has been broken more times than I can remember, and my ears are halfway to becoming the thick, cauliflowered ears of a fighter, each with black gauges in the lobes. There are tattoos on my hands, arms, back, chest and neck. Most people can’t look past the outside, but when they do look past it—and I mean really look—well, let’s just say I’ve been told more than once I don’t have a soul behind my cold, lifeless eyes.
They’re right. There isn’t one.
It’s the reason I hide behind the hats, the hoodies, sunglasses, ink, intimidating scowl—pretty much anything I can find. Because when people look into my eyes, they see the truth.
That I’m a killer.
This girl, though? For some reason, she meets my gaze, unwavering. She isn’t aware of how tainted I am, how threatening I can be. She would be wise to learn fast.
“You have time to talk to Britt?” Gabriel turns to me, an eyebrow raised. “She’ll discuss any injuries you’ve had in the past, then watch footage of you fighting to look for problems with your form to address issues with joints or tricky spots, and help you adjust to prevent reinjury.”
I lift my head and nod, my response gruff. “Sure.”
Britt’s eyes fly back to mine and I’m captivated by what I see. Not just the deep blue-green color, which is beautiful on its own. What draws me in is the understanding in her eyes, a common bond we share. Pain and misery skims the surface, not quite as consuming as what holds me prisoner in my own mind every day, but it’s there in this girl’s eyes, plain as day if you know what to look for.
What haunts Britt? What horrors does she hide behind the pretty face, quiet voice, and unshakable demeanor?
If I’m not careful, I could let down my guard around this gorgeous girl and go after everything I don’t deserve. My mile-high walls are the only thing that stands between me and the crushing grief of the past. But the desire to hold her, to run my fingers through those long blonde strands, to stare into those eyes and weed out her deep dark secrets, is so tempting I have to bite the inside of my cheek to snap out of it.
I blink away thoughts of the girl and force myself to remember I don’t give a shit about her or her problems. I don’t care about anything, really. The only time I feel at all is when I fight. In the cage I receive the pain and suffering I deserve if the other man can get a hand on me. Like a ritualistic cleansing, I let out my anger and frustration and self-loathing on my opponent using my fists and feet. Yet no matter how much I fight, how much I unload on my victim, I’m never, ever clean.
