AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Probably another mafia guy.” I said, off-handedly. “Another made man.”
“No.” There was a strange conviction in Hugo’s voice. “I’ve seen him before, in-person. In Kapisa.” He was referring to where he was stationed in Afghanistan. “We got a high value target, and that guy came in an unmarked helicopter tointerrogatehim. His name was… Brett? Brad? Something American.Eugh.”
“Interesting.” I commented, because I had nothing to add, and I was only listening with one ear.
I was distracted by Rose’s opponent. Morosov’s grin reeked of a man who thought that this would be a piece of cake. As if the world’s most interesting, and as yet undefeated, underground fighter wasn’t his opponent.
“I do believe this fight is going to be rigged.” I leaned into Hugo and turned my eyes back to my woman. “I think they’ve decided that she needs to throw in the towel.”
“Does the woman know that?” Hugo chuckled. “She’s out for blood.”
Chapter 3
Rose
Thebellsounded.Morosovand I touched gloves near the center of the ring, and the crowd went silent.
I was focused, my vision tunneled on a single thing: my opponent. He smiled as though we were friends. As if we were in this act together. The man was delusional.
We circled each other like roosters in a cockfight. He tried to jab. I blocked with a twist of my body. Then he did a one-two jab-cross combo. I blocked both. I didn’t move to strike. He tried again to jab and followed it with a sloppy combo that ended on a hook that I allowed to fall onto my back.
I was fucking with him, letting him think that I was playing along with their game.
I blocked most of his punches, but allowed a few to land. A jab here, a weak little hook there. All the while, I could hear him snort. Before he tensed and twisted his body to throw a cross punch, hook, or uppercut, he would let out a sound from his nose like a pig rooting for mushrooms.
This man was clearly out of his league. LeBlanc hit me harder when we were goofing off.
“Alright, Rosie.” I heard LeBlanc’s voice. It didn’t matter how loud the crowd was, I could always hear that man’s voice. It always pierced through the noise and detritus. “Don’t take too long.”
His comment made me grin. He was telling me to knock him out. It was another reassurance that he backed my play.
Morosov and I were in a dance, circling and taking pop shots. The bell chimed, telling us that the five-minute round was done. I went to my corner, and LeBlanc jumped into the octagon. I spit out my mouth guard, as he checked my body, and reapplied vaseline to my eyebrows.
“He’s getting tired.” LeBlanc remarked, the corner of his lip rising.
I winked at him. “He doesn’t have you as a coach.”
“It almost looks like you’re thinking about throwing it.”
“I’m not.” I insisted. “I’m just playing with him.”
LeBlanc’s eyes were heavy with so many unsaid things. He took my hands in his, and my fingers curled around his palms.
“I’ll never fight again, no matter what I do, will I?” I said in a low whisper.
“You’ll fight again, but in different ways.” He held my gloved hands in his. “It might not be in this circuit.”
“Will I have to go into hiding?” I asked him. “Won’t they… hunt me down for disobeying them? How far is their reach?”
“Oh, it’s far.” He said with a chuckle. “But ours is farther.”
“Ours?”
He cupped my face in his hands, his expression kind. He always waxed between being a hard ass and a softy. I never asked him, but I always wondered if he had daughters. I bet he’d have been a great girl dad.
“You’ll land on your feet, no matter what,” he said. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“We?” This was the second time he’d spoken of himself in some kind of plural collective.
