Page 120 of The Wrecked One

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.

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