45. Oliver
45
Standing outside the octagon with my father and my team behind us, I watched my opponent warm up inside the ring, his body toned and sporting about two more “packs” than me. Is this really happening? It’s what I’d been training for back at my dad’s place, but not like this.
The virtual ref on the wall gave us the five-minutes-to-start warning, and I was glad to see he was actually a real human, not some Wii Fit AI creation.
I looked away from the screen, taking in what felt more like a middle school gymnasium. Basketball goals were on each end and bleachers lined the walls. Nicholas had a water station prepped for us, and I was slightly shocked he’d done that.
Aside from the octagon at the center of the beat-up wood floors, there was a two-way drop screen displaying video from the overhead cameras as well as those from each corner of the room.
Redirecting my attention to Mya on the bench about twenty feet away from where I stood inside the cage, she gave me a nod, and mouthed, “I love you.”
I’d already kissed her, despite the fuckery about to happen and those there to witness the moment, but like hell was I getting into the octagon without one.
“Love you, too,” I mouthed back, my hands resting above the waistband of my black shorts as I tried to grapple with the fact she’d have a front-row seat to my throwdown with Hugo. I’d joked about it back in Thailand, threatening to do just this if he’d so much as checked out her ass in the meeting. That meeting never happened, yet here we were anyway. Did I manifest this? It was Mya who believed in that stuff, but damn.
Standing on the bleachers, Jesse held up a fist. His way of letting me know, You’ve got this.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure.
Only in my shorts, with no protection allowed of any kind, not gloves, a cup, or a mouthpiece, I finally faced the man in my corner. I had to refrain from looking out at the other side of the gym where Mya’s parents sat.
There was hating your future-in-laws, and then there was wanting to murder them. I had every intention of one day marrying Mya, but before then, I had to figure out how to deal with her father without personally getting his blood on my hands. No plans to ask him for Mya’s hand in marriage, but I was pretty sure it’d be bad luck to kill the father of the bride.
“You can do this.” My dad set his hands on my shoulders, eyes on my chest, which reminded me there was one more thing I needed to remove.
“Will you hold this for me?” I carefully took off Tucker’s dog tags from around my neck and waited for him to open his hand. “Maybe keep them forever after tonight. Put them in a safe or something.”
I wasn’t so sure I could continue carrying the weight of the tags around with me. There was a reason I’d made Julia stop wearing them. She couldn’t move on if she brought her guilt about losing Tucker with her everywhere. I supposed the same held true for me.
“I’ll keep them safe.” He closed his hand around the tags, and like Carter had done outside, gave me a quick one-arm hug, cleared his throat, then choked out, “Now go warm up. Get this done.” Was my father blinking back tears?
Am I now?
One more glance Mya’s way to calm my racing thoughts and heart, then my dad left the cage, and I turned toward my opponent.
Hugo locked eyes with me, rolling his shoulders, bouncing from left foot to right. From what I knew about him, he was a master in Krav Maga, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and?—
Muay Thai. Aka, Thai boxing, originating from Thailand. And I had a feeling this prick would default to that style just to try and fuck with me after what happened in Bangkok.
“Surprised you actually showed up.” Was that Hugo’s attempt at trash talking? Nah, he’d have to do better than that.
I rotated my neck, not feeling remotely loose at all. Nope, pretty much strung the fuck tight. Closing my eyes, I counted backward from ten, then tried to latch on to some of the advice Jesse had given me over the last few days. Then I thought about Adam’s words, his thick Irish accent solid in my head as I remembered the specific details he’d taught me about Thai boxing.
“Thai combat is about using eight points of contact of the body like weapons,” Adam had said. “The hands are the sword. An elbow to your opposition is the hammer. The leg is the ax . . .”
His words slipped free from my mind, and I opened my eyes when the ref announced we were down to two minutes.
“How’s that shoulder of yours?” Hugo lasered in on my messed-up tattoo. How the hell did he know about that?
It clicked a few seconds later. He’d studied the video footage from the room in Bangkok like game tape. He’d seen me reset my shoulder after partially dislocating it. Throw in the fact there was still the signature imprint of a GSW there, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out my shoulder was a problem for me.
I ignored his taunt and gave him back a jab of my own, keeping on my side of the ring. “I see your father chose not to be in your corner.”
His lip hitched at the side. “I don’t need anyone to have my six, unlike you.”
“Guess not even your brother. Looks like trouble in paradise in the Soren household.” I did a few arm swings, doing my best to remain casual despite how fast my heart was pounding right up into my ears. “Was he the prelim fight? Your warmup to tonight?”
Hugo cracked his neck, seemingly unbothered by my words about his brother. “You know, I was in Thailand that day, fully prepared to meet Little Miss Lois Lane. I wasn’t convinced she needed to be ‘handled’ just because you two saw those pigeons. I was hoping to pull her in, but I had to know for certain where her loyalty lay. I assumed there was a reason the Vanzettis hadn’t pulled her into the fold yet.”
The listening device changed your mind, then?
“The Vanzettis began pushing for a union between us once she joined FYVM, though.” The grin on his face was about to be removed when the ref started the fight. “It wouldn’t be a horrible idea. Her family is important to our organization. And Mya, well,” he said with a menacing laugh, glancing her direction, “the woman’s ass more than makes up for her tits not being as big as I’d prefer. I was willing to sacrifice being a bachelor for that one.”
I locked my jaw tight, knowing this was some type of pre-game strategy to get into my head, and I refused to let him win.
He stalked across the cage, closing in on me while lowering his voice so I barely caught a hint of his accent. “But my brother tripped into some shit with his attempted power move for control, didn’t he? Landed right in it, not having a clue who you all really were. Then, he proceeded to open his mouth to his wife.”
His face was far too close to mine, so close I felt his breath and could detect a hint of a recently smoked cigar, he added, “But then again, you already know that part, now don’t you? Alyssa’s why you kept surviving when you should have died. Your people weren’t better than us, you just had a heads-up.”
He backed up before I had a chance to forget the rules and test out my right hook early. “Tragic what will happen to Alyssa. We’ll keep the kids alive, though. Raise them right, don’t you worry.” He winked, the bastard. “But wrongs must be corrected for the balance of the world to continue.”
I chose to believe our message to the hacker made it in time to save Alyssa Soren and her kids, but I couldn’t think about that, not with what was about to go down. “And The Collective is what makes the world go round? They know what’s good for people, so they make the hard choices for them?”
Thirty seconds give or take left, and I was officially ready to fight this fucker. “So, why didn’t you follow protocols? Tell your little club we identified your names as part of The Collective? You do love to gamble, don’t you? Why didn’t you gamble with your life and let the chips fall where they may?”
He closed one eye, waving a finger at me like we really were just sims in a game. In that case, the little diamond over his head was about to go lights-the-fuck-out. “At least you have balls, unlike my brother. Considering the choice you made in that room in Bangkok, I almost respect you.” He shot me a smug look before sharing, “You secretly hope the man you killed worked for me, don’t you? That valet, what was his name again?”
I honestly didn’t think I was that lucky, no, but now that he mentioned it . . .
“Well, he didn’t. You murdered an innocent man.” He snickered.
A Muay Thai fighter all right. His words were the sword, though, not his hand.
“From what I know, he did beat his wife and slapped his kids around quite a bit. But that doesn’t deserve a death sentence, now does it?”
His words had me faltering. Beat his wife. Slapped his kids. Anurak? The guy with kind eyes and a nice smile? I doubted Hugo was bluffing, though. Not about this. Perhaps Anurak was the definition of never judging a book by its cover.
“Ten seconds. Prepare to face off.” The ref broke through my thoughts, and I raised my hands in preparation “Annnnd it’s time.” The ref dragged out each word like some Bruce Buffer wannabe.
Not even ten seconds into the opening round, Hugo wasted no time, coming at me not swinging, but kicking.
He connected a right high kick flush with my bad shoulder, and I bit back a hiss at the contact as my arm lit on fire. I had no time to pay attention to the pain, because he was already preparing to strike me again.
A barrage of attacks followed. He unleashed on me as if he had no plans to draw this out to three rounds.
I blocked and defended, doing my best to escape everything he threw at me, hoping he’d wear himself out. I’d yet to throw a single strike when I finally managed to get him into a clinch and delivered a few powerful knees to his abdomen.
The clinch helped slow down the pace, buying me some time as we remained like that for I had no clue how long.
An elbow to my nose finally forced me to break away from him. I spit out the blood pooling in my mouth as Hugo came back at me hard and fast, kicking my side. But it was the repeated kicks to my shin that had me gritting down on my back teeth.
The next time he came at me, I managed to catch him off guard and sweep his leg, taking him down. I wasted no time dropping my full weight on top of him, trying to gain the advantage. From my peripheral view, everything was a blur, but I could swear I saw Mya rising to her feet, my dad clinging to the side of the cage.
Focus! I reset my attention on the asshole beneath me, working to dominate him. I knew he’d never submit, but if I could keep him on the ground, I might be able to wear down the clock to get through the end of round one.
We wound up going back and forth, our positions alternating frequently as I gave him everything I had, and then some.
It wasn’t enough. Ultimately, his wrestling skills were superior, right along with his ability to push the boundaries of the human body, and he gained too much control.
A knee to my back, my cheek smashed to the mat, he twisted my arm around, then drove an elbow into my bad shoulder, and the guttural sound that left my mouth . . .
I barely registered the ringing in the background, signaling the end of the round. Hugo took his time in letting me go and stood as my body collapsed against the mat, never appreciating the term “saved by the bell” more than in that moment.
“Son,” Dad called out as I tried to get to all fours, spitting out more blood.
My shoulder was screaming at every movement. It was out of whack, and I had no choice but to try and reset it. I jerked my body forward, sending my shoulder against the mat to lock it back in place. I hissed at the stinging pain there, drawing in a deep breath as my dad helped me to my feet.
Once upright, it was Mya I looked at first. At her hands in prayer position as she held them against her lips and stared at me. Too far away to see if there were tears in her eyes, I knew her well enough to know that’d been harder on her to watch than it’d been for me to survive.
“You did good. Two more rounds and you’re done,” Dad said while helping me over to the corner and offering me a bottle. “Shoulder looks bad.”
“Because it is bad.” I groaned and squirted some water in my mouth when the ref gave us a thirty-second warning to return. If I drank too fast, I’d puke. “He’s going to kill me before the end of round three,” I admitted, not caring about pulling off a miracle and winning. I only gave a damn about making it to the end alive.
Feeling defeated after only five minutes told me everything I needed to know. I was in trouble. There’d be no Rocky coming back from the dead to defeat Ivan Drago kind of moment happening tonight.
“Just stay away from those kicks of his.” Dad took the water from me, then set his free hand at the back of my neck, drawing me closer to him. “You’ve got this. He won’t win. You have heart, and the will to live.”
“What if that’s not enough?” I hated how it’d only taken one round for this guy to get in my head, to make me feel like I was wrecked and hopeless all over again.
“Then remind yourself you have a woman who loves you here. You have your mom and brother looking down over you, rooting for you.” His voice became nearly hoarse that time. “You have?—”
“I forgive you, Dad.” I pulled away from him, still working to catch my breath. “In case I don’t get to tell you later.”
“Don’t.” His voice caught on that word as the ref ordered us back to the fight. “Remember who you are,” he called out. “Remember who you’re fighting for.”
I swung my gaze toward the benches to the “who” he was referring to. Mya. My team. And honestly, the whole world given our enemy. No pressure. I coughed into my fist, more blood coming out, hating Mya saw that.
I barely heard the ref announce the next round, and Hugo caught me off guard with a blow to the side of the head.
Somehow, I shook it off, finding my stance again instead of going down. As we circled each other, preparing to make our next moves, I took a second to speed through the facts I knew about Hugo, hoping something would be useful.
Five-eleven with a seventy-two-inch reach. In his two “professional” fights Jesse and I had previewed, he excelled at switching his stance from orthodox to southpaw, going forward and back, making it hard to anticipate his next moves.
But his kicks. Fucking A.
Hugo caught me with an oblique kick so viscous it had me gasping for air, and I had no time to prepare for the knee strike that followed.
I did my best to find my center and maintain my stance to take a more aggressive approach, go after him before he could come at me. Dirty box it is, then. Shirking traditional MMA rules, I landed a solid strike to his throat followed by a headbutt.
Then the son of a bitch managed to hit me back with twice as much as I gave him.
My best shot would be another takedown to ride out the round.
Spitting blood, playing off distracted as planned by looking off to the left, I waited for him to come at me again. Then I went for it. Abruptly shifted course and caught him between the eyes with a palm heel strike, knocking him off-balance.
Then I rushed him. Taking hold of his leg with both hands, I drove him to the mat and used my legs to squeeze both his neck and one arm in a triangle choke.
His dad, or someone on his side, began yelling. Cursing in another language. Swiss German maybe. It didn’t matter. All I knew was that I finally had the upper hand.
I wasn’t sure how much time I had left on the clock, but I didn’t bother searching for the countdown on the screen, remaining in control and gaining my confidence back since he’d yet to be able to break away.
His Achilles’ heel was his arrogance. So, I leveraged that to my advantage. Rattled him up the way he’d done to me in that first round by maintaining dominance until the bell rang.
I stood, not offering him an assist up. When he made it to his feet, his cold, dead eyes cut straight to me.
“It ends this next round.” He stabbed the air before heading to his corner.
I did my best not to limp over to mine, because at some point during that round, he’d nailed my leg pretty hard.
“That’s my boy.” Dad patted my chest, handing me the water. He removed his shirt, using it to press against what felt like an open gash at the corner of my eye. “Just do what you did one more time, and we’re done.”
One more time. Right.
I blinked a few times, grateful the cut was below and not above my eye so my vision wasn’t obstructed.
Handing the water back to him, I then peered at Mya while placing my hand over my heart, signaling to her I was back. I’d lost my way for a bit that first round, but I was finally locked in and ready to finish this.
She gave me a hesitant smile, and I knew it was hard for her to do that with her nerves and one round to go, but I appreciated it regardless.
When the ref called us back over, I was in the zone and prepared. I made the first move, took the first shot. But then everything happened too fast, almost in slow motion.
Hugo let loose, unleashing some type of devil inside him, and took over. I barely realized what was happening as he hit me left and right, my arms going dead limp at my sides.
I couldn’t fight back. What the hell was happening?
It was the final roundhouse kick that sent me to my back, and I crashed onto the mat before he barreled my way and dropped down on my chest with his full weight.
Someone was screaming. Crying for the fight to stop.
Mya? My dad?
My head lolled to the side, and Hugo fisted my hair, jerking my face up as he leaned in closer. I was hanging on to the edge of consciousness, unable to hear whatever shit he was spewing at me between strikes.
The only voice I could clearly hear was my brother’s. I had to be hallucinating, or maybe about to join him on the other side.
“Get up, little brother. Come on, get up. You didn’t come this far to give up now. Get up, get up, get up.” Tucker’s demand didn’t push me to my feet. It didn’t propel me to move.
More strikes. More body blows. And then Tucker’s voice was gone and Dad’s was there.
“Get off my son. You’re killing him.”
“Back in the corner,” someone hollered. Maybe it was the ref, but I was fading, unsure what was going on. But if my dad tried to come over and help, Hugo would end him, and I couldn’t let that happen.
Turning my head, I caught sight of my dad and used up that last reserve of my energy to lift my hand and pat the air, motioning for him to back off.
Hugo stopped hitting me, but it was so I could clearly make out his next words. “I’m going to keep Mya alive after this. Make her my prize trophy. I’ll fuck her into submission.”
His words dug deep.
Reached far inside me.
I was back in that room in Thailand again.
Back to that hell where Mya was in danger of being hurt.
“I’ll make her mine after all of this ends,” Hugo went on, not understanding his threats had awoken the fucking beast inside me.
He let go of my hair and shifted into a crouched position over me, about to finish me off, but his cocky arrogance made him careless, and at that angle . . .
I drew my knee between us and connected it with his balls. “I think . . . the fuck . . . not,” I gritted out while shoving him off me completely. “You’ll never touch her. I didn’t let that cocksucker back in that room do it,” I began while somehow finding my way to my feet as he worked to do the same, “and I sure as hell won’t ever let you.”
Before he made it fully upright, I stepped back and connected my foot to his jaw, sending him to his knees, and he fell back onto his heels.
He stared up at me in shock, and that’s when I did what I hadn’t known I could do. Not until that final threat from him reared its ugly head. I finished the bastard off with one final blow, sending him flat on his back before the bell rang.
Despite the fight ending, I was tempted to go at him and return the favor of beating an already-fallen man, but that’d make me like him. And I refused to lower myself to his level. If I ever truly wanted to get better, I had to rise above and show restraint.
I sank to my knees as Nicholas appeared on the screen instead of the ref. Everyone in the gym was on their feet, but I could barely make anyone out, still trying to focus on the fact it was over, that I won.
“We done?” I asked Nicholas, noticing Hugo starting to come to. He was shaking his head, trying to sit.
I leaned forward, grabbed the back of his neck as he’d done to me earlier, and I knocked him back out.
I didn’t have that much restraint.
“Time for part two,” Nicholas announced, and I was surprised Stef Soren hadn’t protested my late post-match hit on his son. “Three minutes to get out of there and into your positions.”
Twisting around, I looked over toward the bleachers. “Get her out of here,” I hollered, because why was Mya still glued in place?
She wasn’t looking at me, though. She’d zeroed in on her parents who were being ushered toward the back exit by Sly and Stef Soren.
“Oliver,” she warned as if I wouldn’t notice the two bodyguards approaching the cage.
It didn’t matter. They were outnumbered. And they’d have to stand there and wait for the clock to wind down those three minutes before they could come for us.
I shook my head, not too shocked that Stef had left his son behind without so much as glancing back at Hugo, still laid out in the ring. Keeping Sly alive must’ve been his contingency plan if Hugo lost.
My dad offered his hand as Jesse and Mason joined us in the cage, squaring off with the bodyguards now in there, too, waiting for the moment they could get to work and take them down.
From the corner of my eye, I noted the rest of Falcon moving into action as planned, leaving to head for our hidden weapons. But Mya was still standing outside the ring like a statue as Sydney tried to pull her away.
“Go,” I begged. “And you, too, Dad. You should already be gone.” I checked the timer on the screen. Ninety seconds until we were allowed to fight again, but that was assuming Stef didn’t order his side to abandon the rules given what happened to Hugo.
“Oliver.” Mya’s soft voice hit my ears.
“Please, go,” I pleaded, my voice breaking as I held my shoulder. “I love you,” I called out to her just before Sydney forced her out the door, thank God.
“Don’t leave her side, not for a second,” I directed to my father, trying not to get choked up while letting go of my bad arm. “If anything happens to me, though, you . . .”
“Nothing will happen. Now go kick some more ass.” Dad slapped my good arm, gave me a confident nod, then hurried from the cage, disappearing in the direction I’d last seen Mya.
“You solid?” Jesse asked, keeping an eye on the clock while Mason remained focused on the bodyguards as time dwindled down to less than ten seconds.
Nicholas was still looking on, an eager crowd gathered behind him at the bar.
God, this was some fucked-up shit.
The pain in my body was starting to catch up with me now that the adrenaline rush had worn off.
“I’ll be better when Mya’s off this island,” I said under my breath just as the timer went off.
Jesse didn’t hesitate, quickly neutralizing his target as Mason followed suit with his mark and I kept watch to ensure we didn’t have any surprise visitors. As phase two had barely begun, I doubted Soren’s men had made it onto the island already, but I wouldn’t put anything past them.
Once both bodyguards were lights-out, Jesse went over to Hugo, in preparation to drag him out.
We’d had three plans set in place based on the outcome of the fight, and I was relieved we were falling back on plan A. My knockout win meant we’d be taking Hugo with us. We needed him alive for questioning. He’d die at some point, and if I was lucky, it’d be by my hand.
“We should get—” Loud back-to-back booms, sounding a lot like fireworks, came from outside. But this was no fucking victory celebration. “Mya!” I yelled on instinct, fear gripping hold of me.
The three of us rushed from the cage, leaving Hugo there. I took off in a sprint for the door with zero regard for what I’d find on the other side of it and not remotely giving a damn I was shoeless and only in shorts. I had to make sure Mya and the others were okay.
Mason swung the main door open and we hurried outside to find a Reaper engulfed in flames. The drone had crashed a hundred feet or so away. Looked like the Sorens had opted to violate Nicholas’s rules and take out the overhead protection, more than likely with the help of that CIA fuck.
“The smaller camera drones have been taken out, too.” Mason pointed to two other burning objects.
The surrounding area was empty, and I hoped to God that meant Mya and the others safely made it to their positions.
“Why in the hell would they take down the Reaper?”
Jesse did a three-sixty, looking around for potential snipers. I doubted they would be in overwatch positions yet, not unless they snuck on the island early. Then again, Wyatt had planned to do that very thing.
“I get the cameras and wanting to kill signals, but don’t the Sorens realize what they just did taking down the drone?”
“How could they not know they’d open Pandora’s box with that move, and we’d have no choice but to protect the skies by calling in the Air Force for backup?” Mason gestured for the door, reminding us we still had to complete our part of the mission and secure one of the Sorens to take with us for questioning.
But then a thought hit me, and I went stock-still. “Because it wasn’t the Sorens who did this.”
“Shit, you’re right.” Mason nodded in agreement, reading my thoughts. “I guess we’re skipping to the emergency plan. We need to get Hugo before it begins raining RPGs on us.”
He opened the door just as Jesse yelled out, “Incoming.”
Mason let go of the door, and I wasn’t sure what in God’s name he was thinking, but he shoved Jesse and me off to his side, throwing himself on top of us as a human shield before the building blew up.