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“I’m not sure how much, but Nikolai seemed pretty happy about it.”
“Then go get ‘em, baby.”
“God, I love you,” I say before pressing my lips to her. She tightens her arms around me and kisses me back. It may be a quick kiss, but there’s a promise of later in it, and when I set her down, she looks up at me with a heat in her eyes that has me biting back a groan. I lean down and kiss the tip of her nose, making her smile. “Be good, wicked girl. Don’t distract me too much. I need to focus.”
She grabs my taped hand and gives it a kiss. “Be careful, Dima.”
I give her a reassuring smile and take the gloves that Nikolai is handing me. I meet his dark eyes before putting the gloves on. “Keep her safe. No matter what.”
Nikolai switches to Russian and grabs me a bottle of water. “It’s done. Stop worrying about Gina. She’ll be fine. Now get your ass in the ring and take care of this fucker so we can be done with the whole damn thing.”
I give Gina a wink before downing the bottle of water and stepping into the ring. I look back at her, and when I see her small frame surrounded by Nikolai, Aleksei, and Anton with Jamie beside her, I relax and push everything from my mind except the Irish fucker in front of me.
Liam gives me a smirk that I can’t wait to punch and turns his eyes toward Gina before looking back at me. “She sure is a pretty little thing. Don’t worry, Dmitri, I’ll take good care of her once you’re out of the way.”
I laugh, which judging by his expression is the last thing he expected, and say, “You could not handle her. She is way too much for you.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I shout to Paddy. “Can we start this fucking thing now so I can get back home?”
Paddy waddles over, and the crowd quiets down to hear him. He’s already sweated through his cheap suit, and his balding head is shiny enough to create a small glare. “All right, these boys are obviously ready to get down to it. You know the rules: no photos, no videos.” He swipes a beefy hand at the crowd. “Just put your fuckin’ cell phones away.”
Looking at Liam and then me, he says, “Try not to kill each other. Other than that, fists only and it ends when one of you doesn’t get up. Now, let me get my ass out of the ring before you start.”
While Paddy labors over to the side, the crowd starts cheering—an angry mix of Russian and English that I quickly tune out. All my focus is on Liam who’s lightly bouncing on his feet and starting to circle me, hands up blocking his face and a murderous look in his eyes. I move, never allowing him to get behind me, and when he comes closer to throw a punch, I block it and weave around him.
“You will have to do better than that,” I taunt him. “I am not girl you can push to the ground.”
“Fuck you,” he snarls and comes in for more.
My instincts take over, blocking and returning punches before my brain even has time to process what’s going on. I manage to land a good one to his jaw that knocks his head back and probably loosens some teeth, but he comes back with an uppercut to my ribs that I wasn’t expecting. I curse my own stupidity and breathe through the pain, wondering if he’s cracked a rib.
We’re both dripping sweat and breathing heavily, but neither one of us is even close to being done. After a few more rounds of punches, he hits me with a hard right hook to the eyebrow, splitting it open and blinding my right eye from the blood. I brush it away as best I can with my glove and return the favor by faking a punch and then coming in hard when he moves his hands enough to give me access to his unprotected face. The loud crunch of his nose breaking has his eyes widening in pain and surprise and my mouth turning up into a huge grin. His eyes water as he takes a step back.
“Get him, Dima!” I hear Nikolai yelling in Russian, but I stay where I am, keeping my hands up and waiting for Liam to recover enough to see, knowing he would not extend me the same courtesy.
My sportsmanship dissolves the second Liam turns aside and spits out a ball of blood before saying, “I’m going to fucking kill you, and then I’m going to fuck your bitch. Some bruises on her arm are nothing compared to what she’s going to look like when I’m done with her.”
And just like that, a rage rushes through me, consuming me until all I can think about is beating this piece of shit to within an inch of his life. I come at him hard, not even feeling the return punches he’s giving me. There’s nothing but the feel of my gloves meeting bone and flesh, but it’s not enough. Sweat and blood fly through the air, and soon he’s on the ground with a loud grunt, and there’s nothing to stop me from finishing this thing once and for all.
Liam’s face is a bloody mess, and there’s a part of my brain that’s screaming at me to back off, but all I can think about are the threats he made about Gina.
MyGina.
No way in hell am I going to let this fucker live to hurt her. I go to throw another punch, but my arm is stopped by a pair of strong hands. I let out an angry grunt and bring my other hand around to hit whoever is stopping me.
“Fucking hell, Dima!”
Nikolai’s angry Russian is like a bucket of ice water on my head. I drop my hands and look down at Liam’s bloody, battered body beneath me. When I see the rise and fall of his chest, I let out a relieved breath and let Nikolai and Aleksei haul me to my feet.
“The cops just got here.”
I’m so fucking exhausted, but Nikolai’s words send another rush of adrenaline through me. “Gina?” I ask, scanning the crowd for her. As soon as I see her scrambling over the side and into the ring, I let out a relieved breath.
“I told you I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
Nikolai and Aleksei let go when Gina runs up to me and wraps her arms around my waist, not caring that I’m covering her in sweat and blood. I lean down and kiss her head, pulling my gloves off so I can cup the back of her head and hold her close. I look over her and see her dad storming toward us with way too many cops to run away from. At least I won’t have to worry about Liam hurting her while I’m in jail. I think his fighting days might be over.
“Fucking hell,” I hear Paddy curse when he walks over to check on Liam. He looks back at us, and I almost feel a shred of sympathy for Liam at the complete lack of concern Paddy is showing. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about whether or not his fighter is okay. All he cares about is the lost money. “Which one of you fuckers called the cops?”
“Nobody called us.” Chief Belov climbs into the ring with two other officers while the others guard the exits to keep the crowd from leaving. I’m not worried about any of them talking. They’ll all say they stumbled upon a fight and wanted to watch. No harm in that. They’ll be so lawyered up, it won’t be worth the hassle to pursue. I’m looking guilty as hell at the moment, though.
