Ringside (8 page)

Angel

Third round. Those
words echoed at me from somewhere, and it took me way longer than it should to
know where I’d heard them so recently.

Jessie. He’d told
me the smart money was on Nitro putting me to bed in the third.
Well, here we are. Just try it.

I tried to look
around at the faces in the crowd for Sloane. She wasn’t in the seat I’d gotten
Jai to save for here, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t here.

The faces were all
blurry though, and I found that trying to focus on any of them for too long
gave me a jolt of pain behind my eyes.

“Don’t break
focus,” Jessie barked, grabbing my head and yanking my attention back to Nitro
on his stool across the way. “That guy thinks he ends it here. Get yourself
ready to prove him wrong.”

Jessie was
probably right. The way I was feeling, if I didn’t catch a break or really
steel myself for the next few minutes, I was liable to get my head taken off.

That damn air horn
screamed again, and I got to my feet.

At least, I tried
to. One second I was on my feet, trying to get my head together, and the next I
had Jessie’s greasy hands on my hips as he steadied me.

“You okay?” he
asked, peering up at me.

It was the first
time in all of my time with him that I’d ever seen him show so much as a hint
of compassion.

He was genuinely
worried.

“I’m good,” I
reassured him. I didn’t think I was lying to him, not really, but I have to
admit it was worrying to have him care.

I could remember
dozens of times when I’d been in far, far worse shape than I was now. Hell, I’d
boxed with a broken hand and a jaw fractured in two places, and fat Jessie
hadn’t even batted an eye.

But now, he was
sweating
way
more than usual.

“You gotta get
back in there,” he said, with a level of urgency I’d never seen from him. “It’s
important, you understand?”

I nodded. Of
course I understood.

There was a big
difference between understanding and making my body fight off the effects of
the last couple of rounds, though…

“I got this,” I
told him.

Nitro was ready,
and I knew if didn’t get over there and start the round that I’d forfeit the
match anyway, no matter how unsteady I was on my feet.

“Just stay with
it,” Jessie said, patting me on the back.

“Get the fuck out
of my way and let me, then,” I told him.

For the first time
in a long time, Jessie finally did as he was told, backing away and signaling
to the crowd that I was back in it.

There must have
been some doubt in the minds of the spectators, because when I stepped back
into range and Nitro launched a jab that made good contact with my chin, they
roared their approval.

That’s life in the Colosseum
, I told myself.
The gladiators don’t have to be happy. They
just have to make it through the day.

I did my best to
give as good as I was getting, but there was a sick little stitch in my side
that was starting to make me favor that side.

I turned a bit in
my stance, trying to protect what could well have been a cracked rib, and
caught a clean, sure shot across the cut over my eye I’d earned in the first
round.

Damn, this was
going downhill fast.

Any fighter will
tell you that they don’t know how to quit. They can take the punishment, they
can take the pain.

And it’s true.

But what they
won’t
admit, even though it’s just as
true, is that when they’re losing badly, they know it.

Their body tells
them, and it cuts right through the bullshit their mind’s been feeding them.
Training gets forgotten and you start to fight on heart and on instinct.

Sometimes it
works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

I was starting to
think that the end was near…

Nitro smashed me
with a right hook and followed it up with a rocket of a left cross that left me
feeling like the ocean had suddenly found its way into the parking garage and
swallowed me up.

My ears rang. My
eye was close to swelling shut, and punches that came from that side of my face
I couldn’t see enough to block.

It was now or
never. I gave all I had, throwing with all the strength I had left. Nitro was
starting to get his second wind, and I could see that even when I landed hits,
they weren’t shaking him.

Hopefully, Jessie
had at least found Sloane and gotten her out of here.

The last thing I
wanted her to see was me getting beat down as bad as I thought I was about to
be.

Sloane

Halfway through
the third round, I didn’t think I could watch any more of this.

How on earth Angel
was still on his feet I didn’t know, but even a novice like me could tell that
he was on his last legs.

I saw his manager
out of the corner of my eye talking to a couple of guys far too well-dressed
for this sort of thing and hurried over to him. I’d heard Angel call him
Jessie, so at least I knew his name.

“Jessie,” I said,
grabbing his arm and turning on the charm. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,
gentleman. Do you mind if I borrow this guy for a second?”

Both of the
fashionable dudes nodded their permission, and I guessed from the amount of
gold they were wearing on their fingers and around their necks that they were
rich and powerful enough to be running things here.

Once they’d said
okay, I dragged Jessie out of their earshot. They were polite enough to step
away completely and leave me with Angel’s manager.

“What they hell
are you doing talking to these guys?” I practically shouted at him, trying to
be heard over the clamor of the crowd. “Your fighter’s getting smashed in
there, and you’re rubbing shoulders with… What?”

Jessie gave me a
sly little grin that sent goosebumps up my spine. “Sloane, right?”

I nodded, furious.
What difference did it make what my name was?

“Listen, I know
how it must look, but you’ve got to trust me. Have a little faith, you know?
Your man will heal up just fine.”

The people
watching the crowd got even louder, and I looked over to see the big Russian
unleash a flurry of blows that rocked Angel, almost knocking him over.

“You’ve got to end
this,” I told his manager. “Now!”

“No way,” he told
me, shaking his head.

“But he’s in
trouble!” I turned to look at Angel just I time to see his stubborn
unwillingness to get out of the way earn him a heavy punch from Nitro that made
the crowd suck in its collective breath.

When I turned back
to Jessie, at least the guy looked worried. “It’s going to be okay,” he said,
more to himself than to me as he cast a nervous glance back at the guys he’d
been talking to when I dragged him off.

Both of them were
watching the match with great interest now, and from the looks of it they
weren’t very happy about the way things were going.

“Who are those
guys, anyway?” I asked Jessie, hoping to distract him.

“Leo and Vick
Carello,” he said absently.

The names didn’t
mean anything to me, but I hadn’t been asking to educate myself. On the other
side of the fat man sat a stack of towels, and I figured if there was
anything
that even this sort of fight
would understand, it was someone throwing in the towel.

I dodged past him
and snatched one up.

Jessie may have
been fat.

He may have been a
slime ball.

But one thing he
wasn’t was stupid. He knew instantly what I was planning, and the look of sheer
panic on his eyes gave me pause.

I don’t think I’d
ever seen anyone so afraid before in my life. He was jumping up and down in
front of me, waving his hands like I was a runaway train he was trying to stop
from hopping off the tracks.

Screw that.

I spun past him
without a problem. He didn’t stand a chance against all those years of ballet
training.

I watched Angel
lunge forward with a vicious jab. All of his strength was behind it, but
unfortunately for him it was too little too late. If it had been on target,
perhaps it would have made the difference, but he’d been beaten too badly to
aim it.

I watched as it
glanced off Nitro’s face, barely missing the chance to become a knockout blow.

Only…

Only the big
Russian went down like he’d been shot by an elephant gun. It happened so fast
that I doubted what I’d seen an instant before, especially when the crowd went
wild.

I looked at Jessie
and saw him flash me a big grin and a wink. Most of the crowd was at a
different angle to the action then us, and I realized to them Angel’s punch
would have looked perfect; a one in a million shot that felled the monster.

But I knew better.

The fight was
rigged. I shoved past Jessie and got to the edge of the crowd, trying
desperately to reach Angel. He was barely able to stand. Blood poured from
another cut, this one on his cheek, and the injured eye had swollen completely
shut.

“Sloane?” he
mouthed.

He looked
defeated, despite the fact that he’d just won what the crowd was treating like
the match of his life.

I went to him, the
blood and sweat forgotten.

Now that I was
closer, I could hear his voice in my ear over the din.

“I told Jessie to
get you out of here. I didn’t want you to see me get beat.”

“You won,” I told
him.

“How?”

I didn’t know how
to answer that, so I didn’t even try…

Angel

The bathroom
they’d let me use to clean up wasn’t much different to the locker rooms I was
used to, after a fight.

It had running
water and washcloths though, and that was really all that mattered to me right
then.

I shoved my hands
under the water and splashed as much of it could on my face and upper body. It
wasn’t time to look in the mirror yet. Not yet, but soon.

I probably looked
like hell. Judging by the way Sloane had been babying me, I must have scared
her. The cut man had said the gashes on my face wouldn’t need to be stitched,
so I just cleaned them out as best I could and plastered a couple of thick band
aids across the worst of it.

There. Job done, I
let myself look in the mirror. Just like always, it wasn’t as bad as it felt.
I’d hurt tomorrow, but in a couple days the bruises would reach their peak and
in a week or two I’d be as good as new.

None of the pain I
felt now mattered compared to the win I’d just had, though!

I closed my eyes,
letting myself dwell on the months of training, the hours of video assessment
of an opponent that the damn Carellos had ended up switching on me in a last
ditch effort to bring me down.

It hadn’t worked,
though. They’d trotted out a monster to defeat me, and I’d dug in and laid him
out cold.

That should show
them. If this victory didn’t earn me a shot at something
much
bigger, there wasn’t any justice in this world.

And Sloane had
come! I hadn’t been sure she would, but she hadn’t let me down. Seeing her
burst out from the crowd of rowdy spectators and run to my side at the end of
the fight had felt right.

I could get used
to this.

I gave myself the
once over in the mirror again. Jai and Jesse would be looking out for Sloane
now, but that didn’t mean I wanted to leave her out there any longer than I had
to.

The people who’d
attended the fight would be gone by now, but I found that more and more I was
missing her. Not just now, but in my life in general.

I threw my pants
on and a new shirt and went out into the parking garage. Sloane and Jai was
there, but Jessie had vanished.

I couldn’t take my
eyes off of Sloane, though. She’d worn a tight-fitting dress that hugged her
frame, and just looking at her made some of the hurt the Russian had dished out
turn to smoke and blow away.

“Thanks for
coming,” I said to her, suddenly self-conscious of my banged up face.

“I said I would,
didn’t I?”

I shrugged and
turned to Jai, eager to get rid of him and spend some time with Sloane. “Thanks
for staying back. Where’d Jessie wander off to?”

Jai shrugged.
“Don’t know. ‘Business’ was all he said.

I nodded and shook
his hand. “I owe you. I’ll talk to a couple of guys I know and set something up
for you, Jai. Call you in a week or so, yeah?”

He had a good
grip, and he gave me a thumbs up once he let go before turning around and
walking off.

And that left
Sloane and I on our own.

It was strange.
Part of me wanted to pick her up and have her against the concrete pillar
behind her and part of me wanted to fall into her arms.

I split the
difference and slid my arm around her waist. She didn’t flinch away from me,
even though I could tell that my injuries scared her a little.

“Are you okay?”
she asked.

“I’m good,” I told
her with a smile. “Cloud nine and all that.”

She looked like
she wanted to say something but then thought better of it.

It was just the
usual first date jitters, though. I tried to make it easier on both of us by
jumping in. “Are you hungry?”

“Sure,” she said.
“Are you?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Even after all of
that
?”

I shrugged.
“Especially after all of that. I worked up an appetite, and nothing makes me
feel more alive than winning a fight they told me I’d lose.”

She got that
strange look in her eye again. “Who told you you’d lose?”

“Everyone. The
odds were six to one against, maybe even higher by the time the race started.”

“Did you bet on
yourself?”

I shook my head.
“That’s not how it works. I get money for fighting, and I get even more for
winning. No bookie in the state would take my bet for or against myself, and
trying to do it through a third party is dangerous.”

Her eyes narrowed.
“Dangerous how?”

“I’ll tell you
about it over some food. Let’s get out of here, huh?”

She put her arm
around my hips and let me lead her out of the parking garage.