Chapter 9 #5
The next fight begins. Two fresh men, circling, feinting, testing each other’s defenses. This fight is more technical. Fewer wild swings, more calculated strikes. I watch Vincenzo watching them, noting how his eyes track every movement.
“The one on the left keeps dropping his guard after he jabs,” he murmurs. “See it? There, he did it again. If the other one was paying attention, he’d counter with a right hook and end this.”
As if on cue, the fighter on the right notices the same thing. His fist connects with his opponent’s jaw, and the man crumples.
“Took him long enough,” Vincenzo says.
The winner is helped from the ring, triumphant and bloody. A Dervishi soldier approaches him and claps him on the shoulder, then gestures toward the roped-off section near the front.
In the VIP section, Dashamir watches the proceedings with detached interest. Aleksander sits beside him, laughing at something, a woman draped across his lap. But Dashamir is alone, a spider at the center of a web. I force myself to look away before those colorless eyes find mine.
More fights. More blood. I lose count of how many men enter the ring, how many leave victorious, how many are dragged out unconscious. The crowd’s energy builds with each bout, their bloodlust a living thing that pulses through the warehouse.
I keep my expression neutral. Interested. I laugh when the crowd laughs, cheer when they cheer, and try not to think about the broken bones and split skin.
Then the referee steps into the ring and raises his hands for silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen! For our final bout of the evening, in honor of Dashamir Dervishi’s birthday, a chance to see a man die!”
My attention was wandering, relieved that the fighting is almost over, but now it snaps back to the ring.
A man ducks through the ropes. Not a man. A mountain. He’s enormous, easily six and a half feet tall, with arms like tree trunks and a shaved head that gleams under the lights. Scars crisscross his knuckles, his chest, his face. He looks like he was built for violence and nothing else.
“Our reigning champion!” the referee bellows. “Undefeated in twenty-three fights! Who among you has the courage to face him?”
The crowd whoops and stomps, everyone craning their necks to see who has a death wish.
“The prize tonight is one hundred thousand dollars! Cash! Who wants to be a rich man?”
The screaming intensifies. The mountain stands in the center of the ring, cracking his neck, rolling his massive shoulders. He looks bored. Like he already knows he’s going to win.
“No volunteers?” The referee scans the crowd with theatrical disappointment. “No one brave enough to face our champion?”
You’d have to be desperate to throw yourself into the ring with that death machine. Or crazy.
Vincenzo turns to me.
His hand cups my jaw, tilting my face up, and then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is sudden and deep and hungry, and for a moment I forget where we are.
I forget everything except the taste of him and the heat of his body against mine.
This is what I’ve been craving all day. His lips, his hands, his attention focused entirely on me.
My mind races, even as I kiss him back desperately.
His car. We could go to his car. Or find a bathroom, a closet, anywhere with a door that locks.
I need to be alone with him. I need his hands on me, and his muscular chest pressed against me with nothing between us.
I’m ready. I want to give him everything.
My body, my virginity, all of it. The ache between my legs is unbearable, and I’m so wet I’m sure he’d slide right in if we just had somewhere private, somewhere I could strip off these clothes and pull him down on top of me.
The thought makes me whimper into his mouth. I don’t care that we’re in public. I don’t care about anything except getting him alone so I can finally have him.
When he pulls back, I’m breathless. Dazed.
“Can we—” I begin to ask.
My desire for Vincenzo is reflected back at me tenfold in his eyes, but he swings away from me toward the ring, and calls out, “I’ll fight him.”
His words cut through the noise of the crowd, and suddenly everyone is turning to look at us. At him. The mountain in the ring grins, showing his teeth, some of which are missing.
I’m so overwhelmed by my body’s reaction to him that it takes me a second to catch up with what he’s just announced.
“Vincenzo,” I hiss, grabbing for his hand. “What are you doing?”
He looks down at me, and his eyes are wild and reckless. “Trust me, doe.”
Then he’s striding toward the ring, and the crowd is parting for him, screaming and applauding wildly, and I’m left standing alone with my heart in my throat, slick heat between my thighs, and the taste of him on my lips.
No, no, no.
This is insane. Vincenzo is tall and well-built, but he’s not a giant. The mountain outweighs him by at least sixty pounds and has arms that could snap Vincenzo’s spine like kindling. Twenty-three wins. Twenty-three men who thought they could take him and failed.
I’m going to watch Vincenzo die.
I try to move closer, but the frenzied crowd closes around me.
The referee checks Vincenzo over for weapons. “You want to take your shirt off?”
Every other fighter who’s entered the ring has stripped off his T-shirt and grandstanded with his arms spread, showing off his muscles.
“I’m good, man.”
“Suit yourself,” the referee says with a shrug, and steps back.
The bell rings.
Vincenzo and the mountain circle each other.
The mountain moves first, throwing a massive punch that would cave in Vincenzo’s skull if it landed. Vincenzo ducks under it, but barely. The crowd roars its approval. The mountain swings again, a brutal hook aimed at Vincenzo’s ribs.
The sound of the impact echoes through the warehouse. Vincenzo staggers, his face twisting in pain.
I’m standing on tiptoe without realizing it, my nails digging into my palms.
Dodge away. Hit him back.
The mountain presses his advantage, throwing punch after devastating punch. Vincenzo blocks some, dodges others, but one gets through, a vicious uppercut that snaps his head back and sends blood spraying from his mouth.
He goes down on one knee, bright red blood flowing down the front of his white T-shirt.
The crowd screams. The mountain raises his arms in premature victory.
I can’t breathe. All I can see is Vincenzo on the ground, bleeding, and the monster looming over him ready to finish it.
The referee’s ghastly words echo in my mind. In honor of Dashamir Dervishi’s birthday, a chance to see a man die.
Then Vincenzo spits blood onto the concrete and stands up.
His eyes have gone cold. Focused. The recklessness is gone, replaced by something clinical. He rolls his shoulders once, testing, then moves.
And God, does he move.
The mountain swings again, but this time Vincenzo isn’t there. He slips to the side with a dancer’s grace and drives his fist into the mountain’s kidney. Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession.
The mountain grunts and swings backhanded, trying to catch Vincenzo with sheer reach. Vincenzo ducks under it and hammers another combination into the man’s ribs. I can hear bones crack from here.
“He’s faster,” someone near me mutters. “Look at him fucking move.”
Vincenzo is everywhere the mountain isn’t. Slipping punches, countering with precision strikes that target weak points. He’s not trying to overpower his opponent. He’s dismantling him piece by piece.
The mountain is bleeding now, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He’s slowing down, announcing his punches. Vincenzo reads him like a book.
A jab splits open the mountain’s eyebrow. A hook to the stomach doubles him over. And then—
Vincenzo steps in close, plants his feet, and drives an uppercut into the mountain’s chin with everything he has.
The sound is like a gunshot.
The mountain’s eyes roll back. He sways for a moment, already unconscious on his feet, then crashes to the concrete like a felled tree.
The warehouse erupts, hounds baying at him.
I’m screaming. I don’t remember starting, but my hands are in the air, screaming for Vincenzo along with the rest of the crowd. My throat is raw. My hands are shaking. He did it. He fucking did it.
The referee raises Vincenzo’s arm, and the crowd loses its mind. Bodies surge toward the ring, climbing over the ropes, surrounding Vincenzo in a crush of celebrating people. They’re chanting, shoving, grabbing at him.
Suddenly his shirt is torn off.
It rips away in two pieces, pulled from his body by a dozen grasping hands, baring his chest.
I realize with horror why he didn’t want to take his T-shirt off. The raven tattoo inked across his chest. The massive black bird spreads its wings across his sternum, talons extended, beak open in a silent scream.
The Vici family crest.
The people closest to Vincenzo step back and fall silent. Confusion turns to recognition, which turns to fury. It spreads outward like a ripple, the jubilant atmosphere being replaced by something darker. Men in the VIP section shoot to their feet.
A Dervishi soldier steps forward. Then another. A dozen more.
Vincenzo stands in the center of the ring, shirtless and bleeding, surrounded by Dervishis with murder in their eyes.
Panic crawls into my throat.
He’s about to be beaten to death before my eyes.