Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rage
We’re scheduled for five three-minute rounds.
It’s not exactly regulation but close enough.
And Bronco opens the fight with a spinning back kick, but his foot barely glances off my abs after I angle away from him.
He resets his stance and comes right back, trying to take me down by shooting for a single leg takedown, but I’m ready for it as I sidestep away.
I’m about four inches taller and my arms are much longer, so he’s at a disadvantage in that department because his underhooks aren’t nearly as effective.
He’s strong and fast, though. I catch his speed as with a quick, explosive burst of energy Bronco gets back to his feet before I can punish his takedown attempt. I feel it when he catches me in the ribs with a hook after he feints with two jabs and a cross.
Normally, I work on the body first and then go for the head but now I’ve learned his timing so I fire back hard, catching him in the side of the face with a hook hard enough to make him stumble.
He shakes it off and comes at me with a flurry of blows that end with an upper cut that’s hard enough to take us both down to the mat. Somehow, we manage to stay standing.
With him so close in my guard, his elbow is vicious as it batters my ribs and arms. Nothing I can’t handle, but I really have to end this. I bring up my knee, catching him in the ribs, and he winces.
Interesting.
In all fairness, I was mostly testing the waters—I didn’t put a lot of weight into it.
Maybe this will be easier than I thought.
I circle to create some distance as he recovers, the swing twice, a left hook, followed immediately by a right upper cut, backing him against the side of the cage.
He kicks out forward with his right leg trying to stop my advance, but I easily move within his guard as I counter with a low jab into his ribs, followed immediately by a cross to his solar plexus, with a hook that’s searching for the knockout.
His elbow comes up and blocks my hook, making it a glancing blow.
He responds with a jab, but I bob out of the way and counter with three quick hooks to the side of his ribs I haven’t hit yet.
If I can keep him where he is, it’ll make his life so much more difficult.
As long as his back is against the cage, he won’t be able to generate any real power to fight back. Which is exactly what I want.
“That all you got?” Bronco grunts, blocking my next punch with his forearm.
“You don’t want all I got,” I snap.
He smiles. “Yeah. I do. Let’s get this done.”
Does he want me to beat him?
Before I can process that, he pushes me off of him and I instinctively bring up my leg for a kick to the head.
He’s visibly shaken, teetering back a few steps after it connects, so I follow it up with a roundhouse kick specifically to the ribs I tendered up earlier.
I can almost see the air leave his lungs as my kick knocks the wind out of him.
There’s a small gasping sound and then Bronco hits the mat hard.
I can smell the defeat radiating off of him.
I follow him down, pass his guard, and manage to get side-control, where I rain down my elbow on him.
Once. Twice. By the third time, I know it’s over, but I don’t stop.
I pop up to knee-on-belly, and then pummel him with my fists, throwing some elbows in for good measure.
Until the ref pushes me off him and I get to my feet, lifting my arms in the air even though I don’t feel much triumph.
My eyes immediately go to the chair next to Courtney—it’s still empty. Courtney’s eyes meet mine and I see the worry there. I spin to look at Grim, motioning to him.
“Where’s Luna?” I yell over the roar of the crowd.
“I don’t know. She never showed up.” I can’t tell what he’s thinking, the look in his eyes inscrutable.
“God dammit.” I jump over the wall of the cage and onto the ground.
“What’s going on?” Metal is right there, handing me a T-shirt.
I pull it over my head and motion to Daniil, who manages to push past the crowd of people trying to get my attention.
“Where’s Luna?” he asks me.
“That’s what I want to know.”
All of us stand there for a beat.
“We had a…disagreement,” I mutter. “I asked if she wanted to talk about it and she said no, that we’d talk after the fight. It wasn’t serious enough for her to not show up.”
Was it?
“She was talking to Jonas at…” He looks down at his phone. “Around eight thirty.”
“She was talking to who?” I stare at him.
“Let’s take this in the back,” Grim says, looking around at the crowd of people warily. I think he’s more worried about Daniil than anything else, but regardless, we probably shouldn’t do this right here anyway.
“Rage!” Garth is approaching with a big smile on his face. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” I nod and turn, pushing toward the back. Grim, Metal, Daniil, and Courtney flank me and we walk toward my dressing room.
“You never saw her?” I ask Courtney.
She shakes her head. “No. She texted me that she was going to get a drink and use the bathroom and she’d see me in a few. That was around eight.”
I slowly turn to Daniil. “Why was she talking to Jonas?”
He meets my gaze. “Because she wanted someone who wasn’t her to go through the security cam footage from her apartment to see if there was any interruption of service or if anyone had tampered with it.”
Fuck. Me.
A bad feeling winds through my gut.
“And?” I barely grit out the word.
“He found sections of the footage had been deleted.”
“During the times she heard that weird knocking.” I close my eyes, trying to keep the fury coursing through my veins at bay. I thought it stopped because she stopped mentioning it. But it didn’t.
Mother. Fucker.
She’d known something was up, and I fucking convinced her it was all in her head. That it was stress. Hormones. Kids in the building. Whatever the fuck else I told her.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“So, you guys had a fight?” Grim asks quietly.
I nod, still too pissed off at myself to form words that aren’t laced with profanity.
“Like, a bad fight?” Metal asks slowly.
“No!” I snap. “It was stupid. I guess it’s more like I was stupid but not…” I clench my fists. “Someone call her.”
“I’ve been calling her,” Courtney says softly. “Through the whole fight. It goes straight to voicemail.”
“And I just got a text from Allora asking if you two have made up yet,” Grim says wryly.
“Apparently, the girls talked earlier, and she said Luna was frustrated with whatever you two argued about but was absolutely planning to be at the fight. She even told her you’d agreed to talk after the fight. ”
“But she never got here.”
“No, she did,” Courtney corrects me. “She told me she was in line to get a drink and then going to the restroom. She was in the building and planning to come sit with us.”
“Then where is she?”
The question is rhetorical until Daniil looks up, and the expression on his face makes my gut tighten with concern.
“What?” I ask. “Tell me.”
“Uh, Luna gave Jonas access to her personal computer. She needed him to look something up.” He pauses, glancing at Courtney and then back at me.
“Are you going to keep us in suspense?” I demand, my patience hanging on by a thread.
He lowers his voice. “She kept a copy of…the list.”
“What list?” Metal asks, frowning.
“Oh, no.” Courtney’s eyes widen.
“The list?” I’m momentarily confused.
“The list.” Daniil meets my gaze, eyes boring into mine. “The one that caused all her problems.”
Oh, fuck. The Assault Academy’s list of clients.
Fuck. Me. That list.
The list that got her arrested and forced into witness protection.
“Dammit.”
Daniil shakes his head. “I thought I knew everything about her past, but I didn’t know she kept a copy of the list.”
“And Jonas has it now?” Grim asks finally.
Daniil swallows. “He does. But before they hung up, she asked him to look up a name.” He pauses, glancing over at Bronco. “Well, two names. But only one was on the list.”
“Who?” I demand, my fists clenched again.
“Garth Harrison.”
Blood roars behind my ears, and I yank the nearest bench off the ground, vaulting it against the wall with a growl of sheer fury.
I whirl to Daniil. “He’s got her. I know it with everything I am—he has her.”
“Then we’ll get her back.”
“Who has who?” Bronco comes into the room. “Is Garth up to more fuckery?”
I almost tell him to fuck off but catch myself, turning suspiciously. “More fuckery? What are you talking about?”
“You know he asked me to throw the fight, right?”
I stare.
I suspected but none of that matters now.
“Look, I don’t know what you two were up to but right now, I think he’s got Luna. And I don’t know what the hell he’ll do to her if I don’t find her before he does it.”
Unless he’s already killed her.
No. I can’t go there.
“Why would he hurt her?” Bronco asks, frowning. “This whole thing was about money for him, paying off his debts.”
“I don’t know how or if the fight was part of his plan, but he’s been trying to get to Luna for months. And we essentially gave him his in.”