Page 55 of If You Fight

She shook her head. “No. I’ll go home when you do. I want to stay and be here for you.”

In her dark eyes, I saw a look of defiance. I knew Robert saw it too because he said nothing else before turning on his heels and walking away.

I touched her cheek and smiled at how strong she could be when she had to. “You know he’s going to be furious you didn’t go home with him.”

Serena leaned in and gently kissed me. “He can be as furious as he wants. I’m pretty damn pissed off that my father brought in that animal to fight you.”

“I’ll be okay. I just wonder what he’s going to throw at us next.”

Cradling my face, she stared into my eyes. “I don’t care what he does. Let’s get you home and into that bathtub.”

Floyd tapped me on the leg, and I looked down to see him smiling. “Maybe I was wrong, son. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last, I’m guessing.”

He was wrong. Whatever I had to do to be with Serena was worth it. No matter how bad the beating I had to endure, I’d take it if it meant being with her.

Not many people in the world had shown me they were worth the effort, but she had. I’d sworn I’d protect her that night when I found her bleeding out in that bathtub, and I intended to live up to that promise. Whatever Robert or the world threw at us, I’d handle it to be with her.

***

I eased myselfback against the pillows and let the air out of my lungs slowly, all the while conscious of every ache and pain in my body. I may have won, barely it seemed now as I replayed the fight in my mind hours later, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like I’d gotten the best of anyone.

Robert’s handpicked opponent for me had been just what I anticipated. Big and out for blood.

And I’d suffered from the very deficiencies I knew I’d had since the moment he announced I’d be fighting in three weeks. Two years away from fighting had nearly crippled me at the beginning of training, and twenty-one days hadn’t been enough to overcome that.

So I wasn’t surprised when he came at me and I moved like my feet were encased in concrete. What I hadn’t expected was how easily my mind slipped into that place it had always gone to when I faced another fighter in the ring. All the noises of the crowd faded away when that moment finally came a few minutes in after he’d hit me hard with a few shots, and after that, I was in the zone.

Unfortunately, the zone didn’t trump my lack of training for all those months, and I was slower than I’d been a couple of years ago. Too much whisky and good food and not enough time in the gym made for a very different fighter. I overcame my slowness, though, so by the time he got me down onto the ground, I was that unbeaten champion I used to be.

I sighed, but it came out as a low groan that made me sound like I was some broken old man. Floyd had warned me when he first met me all those years ago that fighting would make me old before my time. A cocky sixteen-year-old, I thought he was full of shit, but now I wondered if he might have something there.

“Are you okay? You made a noise,” Serena said.

Nodding, I forced myself to smile. “Yeah. I’m fine. Come here.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and gingerly touched my shoulder. “Did he get you bad in this one?”

I looked down at where her fingers touched my skin. “No. Your father must have forgotten about my bum shoulder. Good for me, huh?”

Her hand slid down my arm, and she gently traced the outline of one of my skull tattoos. “You know, a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have believed he would ever do something like that. It sounds naïve, but I didn’t think he was that kind of person. I mean, I knew he wasn’t an angel, but things like this? Things like setting you up to get beaten? I wouldn’t have thought he was capable of that.”

The sadness in her eyes told me she still had a hard time accepting who Robert Erickson was. “It’s okay. I told you. I’m tough. I can handle it.”

She frowned and shook her head. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay. I promise you when I finally find out where my mother is, we’ll leave here and you’ll never have to do anything like this again.”

Her voice trailed off, and she looked away. “I don’t ever want to see you fight like that again.”

Even though lifting my arm felt like someone was pushing on it with all their weight, I turned her head toward me and forced away the pain to say, “I’m sorry you saw that. I never wanted you to see me in that place.”

Serena’s face twisted into an expression of sadness. “It was so brutal, Ryder. And all those people screaming for you and that animal to hurt each other like it meant the world to them. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

I lowered my arm to my side and nodded at her description of the crowd. “I used to wonder who was worse—me for fighting or them for wanting to see us crush one another.”

Her brown eyes grew wide with concern. “Don’t ever think there’s something wrong with you or anyone who does that. I didn’t mean it that way. But to hear those people yelling for you to hurt another human being made me sick to my stomach.”

Thinking back on all those nights I spent in The Pit, I couldn’t understand how used to that life I became back then, but it was all I knew. I dreamed of better, but that’s all it was. Dreams.

“That’s not a world you belong in, Serena.”

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