SYLVIE
For once, Rick and I both had the same reaction. “What?!” we both said at the same time.
“I’ll fight.” Aedan pointed at me. “Instead of her. Call off the girl fight. It’ll be me against whatever guy Alec was going to fight.”
Rick seemed to relax a little. He’d looked scared, before, but the balance of power had subtly shifted, now. “You’re fucking her,” he muttered, glancing at me. “Interesting.”
I saw Aedan tense up. I realized Rick now had leverage over him. But why was Rick so scared of him in the first place? What had happened between these two?
“I’ll fight!” Aedan snapped. “Me instead of her!”
Rick glanced between us, considering it.
My heart jumped into my mouth. Had Aedan been planning this, without telling me?
Was it possible Rick would accept? The idea of Aedan in the pit, with some thug pounding at his face, made me sick.
This was my problem—I couldn’t let someone else take it on for me.
But I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t a small part of me that prayed for Rick to say yes.
This whole nightmare could be over for me in a heartbeat.
“No,” said Rick. “Tempting, but I don’t have anyone I could put up against you.
You’d beat the hell out of anyone I could get.
” Then he grinned. All his usual confidence had returned.
“Besides, it’s good to try new things. You’ve had your day.
It’s time to try women. The crowd seems pretty excited. ”
Aedan glared at him. “You fecker! It’s not right!”
Rick shrugged. “Wasn’t my idea. It was Sylvie’s. Anyway, times change. Women are always saying they want equality. Well, here it is.” He grinned a crocodile’s grin at Jacki and me. From her sneer, I suspected she felt much the same way about him that I did.
He stalked out into the pit, brandishing his cane, and the crowd roared. Aedan pulled me away from Jacki and into a corner. His whole body was rigid with tension.
“What was that?” I demanded. “You were going to take my place? When were you going to tell me?”
He stared at me angrily. “I don’t want to see you get hurt!”
We glared at each other for a moment and then I softened, seeing the worry in his eyes. His plan hadn’t worked, anyway, so it was irrelevant. And I loved him for trying. I put my arms around him and hugged him close.
He squeezed me back. Then I felt the tension return to his body and he whispered in my ear. “This is bad,” he said. “I’ve been teaching you boxing. She’s used to handing out beat downs in the street. It’s going to be dirty.”
He sounded worried and that scared the crap out of me. “OK, so...what do I do?” I looked up into his eyes, ready to absorb as much as I could as fast as I could.
“...I have no idea,” he said at last.
“What?”
“I never fought a woman!” he snapped. “If it was boxing then it doesn’t make any feckin’ difference—a woman’s just like a smaller man. But she’ll fight like she fights on the street. That’s completely different.”
My heart was suddenly pounding. This was much, much worse than anything I’d prepared myself for. I might as well not have trained at all. Out in the pit, Rick seemed to be coming to the end of his speech. We had seconds. I started to panic-breathe.
Aedan grabbed my shoulders. “OK, look. If it was a man, he’d try to bite and gouge. So keep clear of her teeth and be ready to block her when she scratches at you. And a man would try to knock you down and pin you so he could finish you off, so stay on your feet.”
“Okay,” I said breathlessly.
“It’s not all bad,” he said. “She probably hasn’t been trained. She’ll be undisciplined. Unbalanced. Keep your guard up and look for a weakness. Remember you’re an out-boxer—keep your distance.”
“Okay,” I said again.
In the pit, we could hear Rick giving it everything he had. “From the mean streets of New York City!” he bellowed. “Raised by a junkie mom and a deadbeat dad, she started selling her body at fourteen. She beat up girls who tried to steal her turf and now she lays down the law in a gang. Jacki!”
I saw Jacki roll her eyes and wondered how much of that story Rick had made up. But she stalked out into the pit to huge cheers.
“Just stay focused,” said Aedan, rubbing my shoulders. “Don’t panic. Don’t drop your guard.”
“And from the Upper West Side!” Rick yelled.
What? I wasn’t from the Upper West Side. Even when Dad was alive, even when Mom was alive, we were still poor.
“She was society’s it girl,” Rick told the crowd. “Pampered and privileged. Sent to a Swiss finishing school to learn manners, where rumor has it she fucked half her male teachers. Then to Harvard, where she studied law...”
The crowd growled. Everybody hated lawyers.
“But then she fell from grace!”
The crowd roared their approval.
“Unable to resist the bad boy charm of her very first criminal client, she eloped with him...only to be dumped by the roadside. Disowned by her wealthy family, desperate for money...now she’s here!”
The crowd went wild. I exchanged disbelieving looks with Aedan, feeling sick. Not only had he made up a ridiculous story for me—and probably for Jacki, too—but he’d set her up as the underdog and me as the wealthy, snobby girl who needed teaching a lesson.
It was clear who the crowd would want to win.
“Sylvie!” yelled Rick.
Aedan grabbed me and kissed me hard. Then he lifted his fists towards mine. I realized he wanted me to tap fists with him. The same good luck ritual I used to do with Alec. I stared at his huge, scarred hands and at my own much smaller ones, and then I tapped.
And ran out into the pit before I could change my mind.