Chapter 23
CADE
Miami, Florida
“Oh my God,” I breathe, the words barely more than a vapor as I collapse onto the cold bleacher. The metal bites through my jeans, grounding me into a reality I’m nowhere near ready to face.
Lex is still standing in the ring over Viktor’s broken body. The wooden bat dangling from his fists like a forgotten toy, soaked in red from tip to handle. There’s blood on his throat, on his knuckles, and even in the whites of his eyes.
I can’t stop staring at him. The man I love, bloody and breathing like a god of war.
And this was only the first fight.
Rez murmurs something beside me. He’s talking to Roman. Probably about Lex and what just happened in that ring, but I can’t hear him. His voice sounds like distant waves muffled underwater.
I clutch my sweaty palms between my knees and try to breathe through the nausea making its way up my throat.
The cage door screeches open.
The two guards with Luca’s C branded into their skin step inside. They silently grab Viktor’s corpse. His head lolling backwards as they drag him out by the ankles.
Lex’s eyes narrow in on them.
“Don’t do it, Lex,” Rez roars beside me, his words clearing the fog in my head.
“What’s happening?” Tex seethes in my ear.
The second Lex takes a step toward the guards, his body jolts. The bat clatters to the mat as his legs give out from underneath him. He drops to one knee, the impact ricocheting through the gym. The collar around his neck glowing and hissing.
“Lex!” I surge forward, but Rez holds me in place with an iron grip on my arm.
Lex’s teeth grit hard enough I swear I hear the sound of bones grating. One hand braces against the blood-soaked mat, the other curling into a fist. The beast inside him looking like he might just try to take them on anyway.
The intercom hisses.
“Now, now, Lexie,” Luca’s voice slithers back across the speakers. “You know the rules.”
The other brother sitting a few seats down suddenly stiffens. His hand shoots to his neck, fingers digging in uselessly at the collar as it glows brighter.
“You’re up,” one of the guards says to him.
The guy looks at his brother sitting next to him, then to the mat, and pushes to his feet. The guard stops him before entering and presses a knife into his hand.
The moment he steps inside, his collar stops glowing.
Lex’s too.
Lex reaches down and picks up the bat. The guy charges at him, but Lex swings too wide. The scream that rips from Lex’s throat when the blade connects with his flesh is pure animal.
“What the hell is happening?!” Tex screams into our ears.
Lex staggers, clutching at his bicep as crimson splatters to the mat.
Rez loosens his grip on me and I fall back onto the bleacher. My hands clamp around the metal so hard my knuckles whiten.
“Hello?!” Tex repeats.
“Second guy came at him with a knife,” Roman says into the comms. “Sliced Lex’s arm to hell.”
“Damn it,” Tex grits. “Should have let me take ‘em out from the start.”
“We couldn’t,” Rez spits. “The fucker would have blown Lex to bits, us included.”
“Knox,” Roman seethes. “Where are you with his damn collar?”
“I’m trying!” Knox answers, his voice way too unsteady for my liking. “Zeke did a number on this thing.”
Lex spins and slams the bat into the guy’s leg. The man falls, but somehow claws his way up the rusted cage.
“Ahh!” Lex wails again as the blade slices at his thigh.
“He got him again,” Roman adds. “Leg this time.”
“I can’t do this,” I whisper, ripping the comm from my ear and slamming it onto the bench. I barely make it past the cage before Roman steps in my way, steel eyes blaring into mine.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he snaps, a little breathless.
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I-I can’t watch this.”
My eyes find the blood-soaked cage again as Lex dodges another hit from the knife. Thankfully this time the bat connects with Viktor’s brother’s shoulder.
“I can’t just sit there and watch him become—”
“A what?” Roman growls. “A killer? You don’t have a choice.”
I shake my head, eyes darting between Roman and the love of my life, bleeding in a rusted steel cage.
“You think this is hard for you?” he scoffs. “Just imagine how your boyfriend feels in there?”
I turn away, hands balled into fists. Roman grabs my arm and yanks me back around to face him.
“You have to stay.” His low voice thunders in my chest. “You’re scared shitless, I get it. But if you leave right now, you might as well take that knife and plunge it deep into Lex’s heart yourself, Cade.”
I flinch.
“Huh?” Roman’s hand raises to his ear. “Hold on. What?” he asks into the comms. “Yeah… no, okay… Jesus Christ give me a damn second!”
He tears it out of his ear. “She wants to talk to you.”
“She?”
He cocks a brow. “Just listen to her.”
I put the earpiece in and before I open my mouth a low syrupy-sweet voice punches through my ears.
“Cade, honey,” Sabine says. “I know what you’re seein’ and I know it’s dark. But I need you to listen to me. Right now, you’re the only one who’ll be able to pull him back in.”
“W-what?” I whisper.
“From this darkness, chéri,” she confirms. “Bella ain’t here to do it this time, so that task falls on you.
” She lets out a long sigh. “So buck up, go sit your pretty ass back down, and make damn sure he sees you there. L’ombre needs to know that the love you have for him still burns hot.
Especially through this hell that monster’s puttin’ our boy through right now. You understand me?”
My knees nearly fold, but I nod.
She clicks her tongue. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes ma’am,” I say.
Roman and I head back toward the bleachers just in time to see Lex fall to his knees, the blade jutting out from his shoulder.
“NO!” My scream tears through the room. He rips it out. Blood sprays across the mat, quickly pooling beneath him.
I sprint to the cage, hammering my palms so hard against the rusted metal that they sting.
“Lex!” I shriek.
He’s swaying, his shoulder gushing blood like a split paint can.
“Cade?” he rasps, his head hanging low.
“I’m here,” I cry.
Viktor’s brother leans down, fingers gripping the bat.
“You need to get up,” I order.
Dragging the bat behind him, he prowls toward Lex. His cold, dead eyes glare through the blood weeping from the gash at his brow.
“Get up!” I bang the cage again. “Right now, baby.”
Our eyes lock. The feral, burning blue I love so much now dull and hollow. Like a storm finally run dry.
“Get, up,” I whisper, my fingers clutching at the cage. “Please.”
“Now, Vlad!” the Vasilev from the bench screams. “Do it!”
Vlad towers above Lex’s kneeling body. He tilts his head, locking his eyes with Lex, and raises the bat into the air.
“This is for our brother. You Barinov bastard.”
He brings the bat down with a bone-shattering force.
“NO!” the scream rips through me.
THUMP.
Lex catches it with a low grunt.
The bat cracks into his palm, halting mere inches away from his skull. He pulls the bat down, bringing Vlad closer to him. Lex rips the knife off the mat and plunges it deep into Vlad’s neck.
It all happens so fast that if it wasn’t for the fountain of red now pouring out onto the mat, I would have missed it. Vlad crumples, choking on his own breath.
“Motherfucker!” the last brother roars, launching from the bench at me like a missile.
I don’t have time to react as arms wrap me up from behind, spinning me around and crashing my back into the cage. My windpipe collapses under the weight of his grip. I claw at his hands, but my fingers slip on his sweat.
“You took my family,” the last brother snarls at Lex. “Now I’ll take yours.”
My mouth opens, but no air comes out.
His collar begins to beep and glow. I can feel the tremor ripple through his hands as his body is shocked, but it’s like he doesn’t feel it. Or if he does, he doesn’t care. Hell, he’s got nothing left to lose.
“Get the fuck off—” Rez growls, but the guards pull their guns on him and Roman before the guys can even attempt to reach me.
“Lex,” I try to shout, but it’s a drowned whisper in my own body.
“CADE!” Lex’s voice roars full of fury.
Footsteps shake the mat behind me. There’s a quick whistle and a slight blur.
THUNK.
The man crushing my throat jerks once. A knife handle sticks out of his eye socket like some sort of grotesque flower.
He falls to the ground, taking me with him.
The back of his head slams into a sharp, rusted corner of metal as our bodies crash into the bleachers.
He twitches twice before his grip finally loosens on my throat.
I roll off him, coughing and wheezing. As I push myself up, my hands slip in the rush of warm blood and skid against the freezing metal of the bleachers.
“Cade?” Lex’s muffled voice sounds from the ring.
I scramble toward the cage and interlock our fingers through the metal. His ice-blue and wild eyes meet mine, searching.
“I’m okay,” I rasp. “I’m okay.”
The gym lights flicker back to normal as Luca’s voice oozes from the speakers. “Well,” he starts, adding a sick little chuckle. “That wasn’t exactly how I imagined my Red Hour going. But, you did well, Lexie.”
A pause.
“Messy. But entertaining as ever.”
None of us respond.
“You boys go ahead and clear out,” he continues, his voice slick with disdain. “My guys will clean up your mess.”
The two guards head over and pick up the slumped body that’s bleeding out on the bleachers. Rez takes a step in front of them when they begin dragging their cousin out.
“Rez,” Luca’s voice chimes in.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warns.
Rez looks over at Lex, whose beeping collar is now glowing a brighter red. Everyone freezes.
“Very good.”
The beeping slows.
“Now, Cade,” Luca says, his voice chipper again. “I can’t wait to see what art you choose to add to our little collection in twelve short days.”
He hums in amusement. “I loved the first one. Makes me all tingly inside and everything every time I look at it.”
“You sick bastard,” Lex barks at the speaker.
“Awh, Lexie. Name calling again? And here I thought we were getting close.”
“You’re dead,” he mumbles. His body swaying as red gushes through the fabric of his shirt. “Fucking dead.”
“You keep saying that,” Luca taunts. “And yet you’re the one bleeding from well… everywhere.” Another chuckle. “Anyway, you all have a safe flight back. Got to go get ready. I have a date with a beautiful little Italian dancer tonight and she gets mad if I’m late.”
The speakers crackle.
“Oh!” Luca exclaims. “One last thing before I go. If my men don’t make it back to Eden tonight because one of you gets a little jumpy—Rez, I’m looking at you—Izzy will pay the price.”
The speaker crackles again and then quiets.
Lex’s collar beeps twice. The red light dimming until finally the lock disengages with a click. He rips it away from his skin and hurls it across the cage. His body hitting the mat before the collar lands.
“Lex!”
Rez and Roman beat me to the cage, wrenching the door open with a snarl of rusted metal. I slide in behind them as fast as my body allows, the blood on the vinyl mat slick beneath my shoes.
“Sabine we need you!” Rez barks into his comms. “Now!”
Lex is slumped sideways, breathing fast and shallow. His lips are pale. So is his face. There’s a trail of red down his bicep. Another running down his thigh. Even more at his shoulder where Vlad’s knife split him open.
Roman drops beside him, rips off his jacket, and lays it over Lex’s chest. He shoves his hands on Lex’s shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. Roman yells something over to Rez, but I’m not listening. I drop to my knees and grab Lex’s face with both hands.
“Hey… hey, look at me.” The words grate against my throat. “Baby, look at me.”
His eyes flutter open. Faded blue. Ice washed thin with pain.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
He blinks a few times like he’s trying to place me. His lips move, but no words come out at first.
“C-cold,” he whispers, though it’s barely audible.
I glance down and realize he’s shaking. His entire body vibrating with pain and adrenaline.
Sabine, Knox, and Tex rush into the cage. Sabine covers him with a blanket. Knox starts handing gauze pads and some sort of liquid in a bottle to Roman and Rez. Tex is on the phone yelling at someone on the other end.
“Cade, keep him talking,” Roman orders.
“Lex,” I say, trying to still the panic in my voice.
Knox pours the liquid over his thigh. Lex hisses. His body buckling in pain.
“Shh, babe. It’s alright.”
“I-I don’t,” Lex mumbles. “I don’t feel right.”
“I know, but you’re going to be okay.”
“No.” He coughs. “I’m cold, Cade… I-I.”
His eyes close.
“Lex!” I say, tapping his face.
His eyes flick up to me again, barely open. I brush the hair from his brow and press our foreheads together.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper. “You hear me? I’ve got you. Just stay awake for me, please.”
“Ambulance is here!” Marisol calls from outside the cage.
Lex lets out a shallow breath. It stutters in his chest.
“Lex,” I choke. “H-help is here. Help is—”
The EMTs arrive in a haze of sound and motion, pushing Roman and Rez back. Their boots shake the spring mat underneath us. Latex gloves slap on gauze pads over bleeding muscle. A stretcher unfolds next to Lex like a blade. I can’t register who is talking or what’s being said.
Everything is happening too fast and far too loud.
Warm fingers wrap around my shoulder. “Cade,” Sabine whispers. “Let’s let them work.”
“N-no,” I cry, my fingers cinching around his arm. “I can’t leave him.”
“I know,” she says, leaning down behind me. “But you must. He knows you’re here, honey. He knows.”
My grip loosens and I rise to my feet. I stumble back as cold air rushes over me.
The EMTs descend. One of them cuts Lex’s shirt off. The other starts shouting vitals.
“BP’s crashing! Get the fluids started.”
They move with a brutal grace as they lift him onto the stretcher. His head rolls and his eyes find mine. And for one, quick breath, he smiles at me.
Rez catches me as my legs give out.