Page 12 of The Slayer
“Do it, asshole.” Clay pointed to the cage in the middle of the rec center, one of the only things in the room. “Let’s see you take him.”
“Okay.” Wyatt gestured to the changing room. “Did you bring fighting supplies? Gloves? Shorts?”
“I got shorts.” Chuito tilted his head toward the door. “In my truck. No gloves. They’re somewhere at home in Miami. I don’t usually fight with gloves.”
“Okay, we got some gloves for you,” the sheriff said. “We’ll get changed, and then we’ll see if you’re really as badass as my buddy seems to think you are. Clay, call Jules. Have her come over. This involves her too.”
“You just fight me. Not for money,” Chuito said. “You just do it because you’re bored.”
“It is about money,” Wyatt assured him. “It’s about the money I have invested in this gym. Clay cannot be the only fighter we have if we want to make this profitable. I can’t fight anymore now that I’m sheriff. That leaves a Light-Heavyweight spot open, and you are not my first choice, boy. Not by a long shot. You have gang tattoos and a chip on your shoulder—”
Chuito laughed. “You think this is a chip on my shoulder? I’ve been on good behavior.”
“Look, here are the facts. I don’t want you in my gym. I don’t want you in my town either.” Wyatt shrugged. “But maybe,just maybe, if you can prove to me that you’re worth the risk, I might agree to sponsoring you because I would like to get my investment back. So I guess that means you’re fighting for your life, doesn’t it? Unless you’d like to go back to Miami and do whatever you were doing before.”
“I’ll fight you,” Chuito said as he stood and looked at the sheriff, who had at least three inches on him. “But I’m not doing it for the fighter spot. I’m doing it because any pendejo who thinks he can beat me when I’m fighting to survive deserves to have his ass handed to him on principle. You haveno ideawhat it means to fight for your life.”
Wyatt snorted. “And you’re gonna show me?”
Chuito nodded. “Sí, cabrón, I am.”
Chapter Five
The rest of the building might be in shambles, but the fighting cage they had was state of the art. A metal octagon just like the ones he’d seen in the UFC fights on pay-per-view.
Chuito studied the high walls, feeling trapped like an animal. There was something truly barbaric about this cage, blocking the outside world, leaving the two opponents in there until one either quit or was too beaten to defend himself anymore.
In the fights Chuito participated in at home, there was always a place for someone to run. If they got too scared, they could jump past the ropes and get out, but there was no escaping this.
It was like a fight to the death.
Muscle and anger pitted against each other.
Until the meanest motherfucker won.
Chuito ran a hand against the cage, looking past it, thinking just how much he loved it. The finality of it. That once he got in, he couldn’t get out. He would have to fight to survive.
It was a language he understood…the onlylanguage he understood.
Steal or starve.
Beat or be beaten.
Kill or be killed.
This wasn’t like the streets. He probably wasn’t going to die in this cage, but he could appreciate the possibility of it. The harsh symbolism of only the strongest surviving.
And he was stuck in this cage with a cop.
Not just a cop.
A sheriff.
Like this cage, Wyatt Conner symbolized so much to Chuito. This sheriff was all his enemies wrapped into one very large, very blond-haired and blue-eyed package.
The men who judged him before he deserved to be judged.
The ones who hounded him after he turned into what they made him just by expecting it of him.
