Page 145 of Mila: The Godfather

Focusing on the ring, I watch closely as the match between my husband and a man who looks as scary as Riagan is about to start.

Oh, God.

Okay, don’t panic.

Looks can be deceiving.

Take your new husband as an example.

He looks like he could snap my neck with a twist of his fingers, yet he has never laid his hands on me in a cruel way.

His opponent looks like a death machine, but Riagan looks different right then, too. Shed of his usual neat dress shirts - another of his shields, I was convinced - dressed only in a tee that he strips off when he gets to the center of the room and a pair of bottoms just like his opponent, he seems almost like another man entirely. It was in the fierce set of his jaw, in the stubbornly raised chin, in the tension that seemed to be overtaking every inch of his body, culminating in tightly curled fists down at his sides.His body, too, was intimidating. It even glistened under the light of the cage, making him look like a warrior ready to tear his opponent limb from limb.

Looking at him now, standing there as a fighter in black basketball shorts, I can’t fathom the idea of someone betting against him and putting their money on his opponent. To begin with, Riagan is taller and wider. Even his hands look stronger than the other man’s hands. He looks brutal and violent.

Let’s not forget extremely confident, as if he already knows he has this in the bag.

For a man who’s been fighting since before he learned to ride a bike, I think he does really have this in the bag.

Putting all my faith in him, I watch the scene before me unfold.

Both men stand in the middle of the cage, sizing each other up as the crowd watches intently with giddy smiles on their faces, and another voice rises from the crowd, loud, like an announcer.

I don’t recognize him - tall, mostly gray-haired, dressed in a suit much like what expensive criminals always wore, looking way too snazzy for an underground cage fight. “Ladies and gentlemen, bets are now suspended,” he calls out.

“How do these matches work?” I ask no one specific while my eyes are glued to where Riagan is standing, cracking his knuckles.

“It’s pretty simple, really,” Callam answers, surprising me once again. He’s feeling chatty today, or perhaps I misjudged him? I feel his eyes on me when he speaks. “Here are the rules. There are no rules. No shots are off-limits. There are no breaks or rounds. Tap-out or knockout is the only end to a fight. There’s no leaving that cage without spilling a lot of blood,” he says, and both Riagan and his opponent move forward, closer to each other on the uneven ground. “Fuck him up, Joke!” He demands.

I watch as Riagan’s opponent cocks back, swoops low, and slams a fist into Riagans’ side, making him hiss and fall back a step, his ankle scraping against the jagged, uneven floor. I watch as blood starts trickling down, seemingly unnoticed by Riagan. I hadn’t been aware of it, but I must have gasp, because then Bain is turning to look my way. “Sunshine, we can go if this is too much.”

“Say the word, and I’ll take you out of here,” Cianne tells me while all their eyes are on me now.

“She’s fine,” Callam snorts without humor. “This is her world now, after all.”

I feel someone touch my hand lightly. “Ignore him.” Another says. “I can take you back home if you don’t want to be here, Mila.” My head is shaking even as I see Riagan take another hit before charging forward at the man.

“No. This is part of him,” I say, like it explains everything.

Then I watch him in his element, still worried for his safety but confident in his ability to, as Callam put it so eloquently, ’fuck his opponent up.’

Riagan lands a fist that sends the man literally spinning, but the force makes Riagan stagger back, his foot falling off the end of a particularly low break in the rocks, making him slam down on one knee just as his opponent gets his bearings, and comes charging forward. “You can breathe, milseán,” Cianne informs me, voice calm as could be. “I’ve seen him in hundreds of fights, and this one, he is not planning on losing. The captain just likes to play with his meat before he ends them.” Cianne laughs as if this entire thing is funny to him. I guess to him it would be since I’ve noticed the handsome and funny man loves chaos.

“What is so important about this fight?”

“You.”

“Me?” I momentarily meet his eyes, turning away from the fight.

“Does the piece of shit look familiar to you?”

Confused, I follow his gaze back to the cage, where Riagan is currently gripping the man’s hair and punching his face repeatedly as blood pours in all directions. The scene is gruesome and quite frankly disgusting. Focusing on the man that is not my husband, it takes me a moment to connect the dots. How I didn’t see it before, I don’t know.

Locke.

One of my father’s men is Riagan’s opponent.

A man who enjoyed watching me squirm and made me feel uncomfortable with his sleazy looks and hurtful insults.

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