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Before I could dive deep into my very unwise decision, the next fight was announced. Vasquez versus Ishkov. Amir was fighting Grizzled again.
As the crowd roared, I closed my eyes and leaned into Helen. She curled her arms around me, letting me hide for a moment. I wouldn’t be able to hide for long. I was here to see. My eyes had to be fully open so I could move on.
When the bell rang, I opened my eyes again, slowly turning back to the ring. There he was. This violent stranger I couldn’t seem to stop loving. The man in the ring with him, Ishkov, seemed to have grown three sizes and become even more grizzled. Yet, he was light on his feet, dancing circles around Amir, landing testing jabs on his middle.
I gagged on the bile rising in my throat when Ishkov landed a solid right hook against Amir’s jaw. The way his head whipped to the side made my entire body sway in the same direction. My eyes rolled to the side, to the crowd that couldn’t get enough of this, then they landed on Julien, who was sitting on the other side of the room beside Marco, staring back at me. He gave one hard shake of his head and mouthed, “Go.”
He might as well have punched me in the gut. Julien didn’t even want me in the same warehouse as Amir. I’d lost them all. That wasn’t a surprise, but it was finally solidifying in my mind.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed.
He shook his head again. “Go.”
Helen hissed. Elena made a strangled sound. My attention snapped back to the ring, where Amir was pummeling Ishkov. He was going after him like he hated him, slamming his taped fists into the man over and over. Ishkov barely budged, dodging and guarding, but not showing any signs of pain.
It wasn’t the brutality of the hits, but Amir’s dead-eyed determination that nearly sent me to my knees. I didn’t recognize him, but maybe that was a defense mechanism. How could I love a man who turned off everything except his desire to hurt and win? But I did. I did love this man, and I’d known who he was when I fell.
A sob ripped through me, and it might as well have been the entire universe tearing. Blood flew from Ishkov’s face, splattering on the ground. My broken heart sprayed a matching pattern.
We were over. We were really through.
Elena took me in her arms, murmuring unintelligible words of comfort. I clung to her, hiding my face, but needing to stay until the bitter end.
“Oh shit,” Helen hissed. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
I had to see. I had to know. My eyes flew open, but what I saw was worse than I'd been braced for. Ishkov had recovered and was coming after Amir with a renewed strength. He landed blow after blow, his fists slamming into Amir’s body like a cannonball.
It was a horror show, one I couldn’t turn off. The body I loved, that had been over me, under me, inside me, all around me, was being beaten and bloodied. I couldn’t process what I was seeing, only that Amir was losing, and he was losing badly.
A solid punch to his head sent Amir spinning around until he was facing in our direction. His eyes rolled around in his head for a beat before he focused, and when he did, he was staring right at me. The look of absolute devastation that appeared on his face sent a shock wave down my spine. He was yelling, screaming, “No, no, no, no, no!” I couldn’t hear him, but there was no mistaking what he was saying.
I took one step, reaching out for him even though I was way too far away to touch him. He raised his arm to reach back, and that was when Ishkov came at him, slamming his fist into Amir’s jaw, severing our fraught connection.
Helen grabbed me around the waist, pulling me close to her side. “We have to go. Something’s going down here. We need to leave.”
I remembered my promise, that I would leave when she said, but my feet still dragged as she and Elena got us out of there, bundled into Elena’s car. I realized I was rocking myself as we sped away from the warehouse district, back to our pristine, brightly lit campus.
“Did you get bad vibes?” Elena asked as she pressed the accelerator, defying the speed limit.
“Yeah. I was checking out the crowd, the dudes who were frothing at the mouth when Amir started losing, and it dinged that part of my brain—the caveman part that reacts lightning fast to danger. I don’t know, but my gut was telling me we needed to get out.” Helen twisted in the front seat to check on me in the back. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head, pressing my lips together to stop from crying. “No.”
Helen sighed, reaching back to take my hand. “You want to go back to the suite, eat mozzarella sticks, and watch a shitty movie?”
“Yes, please,” I whispered.
Amir had been losing. But Reno wouldn’t let him get really hurt, would he?
God, I hoped not. Amir had to be Reno’s exception. The one person he cared for. Even if we never spoke again, I couldn’t bear the possibility that Amir wouldn’t walk away from that fight.
So, I convinced myself nothing was wrong. Everything was all right. I was fine. He’d be fine. All of it was fine.
