I exhale before smiling.

Some people call their inner demons darkness, I call them myother suitand I just put it on.

I kick Mila's leg, knocking it off the floor for a split second, but that second is long enough to give me an opening to step closer. She throws a punch, but I block it easily. Since it's bare knuckles, it hurts like a motherfucker when it lands on my forearm. She continues throwing different punches while trying to guard her face but she doesn't keep her chin down. I duck sideways, feeling her fist skim the side of my face before I swing as hard as I can in an uppercut and hit her directly under her pointy chin. Her head flys back and takes her body with it.

Before she can recover, I have her up against the fence, landing punch after punch on her face and body even as she tries to land shots of her own.

“Fish it for the right!” Johnny yells out, giving me directions, though I don't need them.

The rage in me is taking me forward without a single hesitation. Blocking out the pain lancing through my fists, I do as Johnny said. Right hook to her temple knocking her down. I want to mount her so badly but I want her snake-of-a-father to see what his unwise actions caused.

“Get back up, Mila,” I tell her calmly but when she stays down trying to shake herself out of the fogginess a temple hit gives, I scream in her face, “Get the fuck back up!” I kick her on her side and she laughs.

“Fuck you Silver.” She rolls onto her back and stands, leaving herself open and vulnerable the whole time but I want to drag this beating out so I don’t take advantage of it.

Once she's on her feet I charge her again using my six hit combo. Jab with the right, hook with the left and right kick to the thigh which brought me out to her side, letting me land two punches and an uppercut again. Each and every hit lands as planned. Bare knuckles is not something this girl is used to so she's been dazed since the first punch.

Weak.

I'm done with this fight. I want to release my anger. I wrap my hand behind her neck, which she mirrors so obviously she doesn't realize or know the position I just put her in. Using my right forearm quickly I push her arm off my neck, opening her back to me. I wrap my right arm around her waist before she even realizes what I'm doing and then lift her and slam her down sideways.

A Clinch Takedown is one of the most common takedowns and normally I wouldn't use it because it's so known but Mila fell into position easily.

I climb on top of her and begin raining on her. She’s fighting back but it's futile, she doesn’t have the same motivation I do. Every punch I give she takes to her face and body. Even though she's bucking and trying to knock me off, I continue hitting.

A past conversation I had with my mother. Suddenly comes to my mind.

“You bottle up too much, Neviah. Sometimes it's good to let those tears flow instead of your anger.”

At the time she was talking about my heart's heaviness. You see, I had just given my virginity to a senior in my high school. I thought he was going to be my husband one day, a stupid boy I thought loved me. Typical right? Well instead of crying about the fact that he literally left me after taking what can never be returned, I grabbed my dead father's 9mm handgun and unloaded the clip into the asshole's prized Corvette.

My mother's advice was to allow myself to cry instead of letting my pain build up and it's that memory that has me screaming in Mila's bloody face. She's no longer moving but I hear her ragged breathing. My mother wouldn't have wanted me to kill this girl. Ruslan Popov won't survive the night though. I get off of Mila but grab her hair and sit her up, facing her father who is being held by enforcers.

“You did this!” I yell above the voices of the crowd. “You sentenced your daughter to a lifetime of disfigurement and shame! You won't live long enough to see the shunning your princess will forever receive but let me tell you!” The audience is silent as I give my prophecy. “No powerful man will have her. No man of standing will taint their name with this stain you put upon her. She'll never bear you grandchildren so no one will carry on your pathetic legacy.”

I roughly shove his unconscious daughter while he shakes and tries breaking free of the holds on him.

“Because of you, your daughter will live in a world where the Popov name is spit upon and laughed about. You Ruslan Popov, are a coward and your grave will be a lesson we teach our children for generations to come!”

Looking over at my guards I tell them, “Get these disgraceful people off of my property.”

Popov’s voice rings out though. “You will die for this, Silver. You will wish you had died with your weak mother and worthless father!”

I stand frozen. I can’t move even though I want to rip his head from his body and shove it down his throat. He spoke of my mother, called her weak! My brain finally starts firing on all pistons again but before I can do anything the Renzetti brothers are dragging Popov out of the arena.

Shaking with rage, I kick the gate open and climb out of the octagon, accepting the water bottle and towel that's handed to me. Looking from the inked hand to its owner, my eyes collide with Twitch's crazed gaze. Physically he looks controlled but just like earlier at Johnny's gym, his eyes look frenzied. Ignoring the tumbling of my stomach and the achy throb in my pussy, I rub the towel on my face. When I pull it away, I see it's covered in Mila’s blood. Must be why Twitch is looking at me like that, he has a blood kink.

Instead of climbing him like a tree and fucking the rage out of me, I push past him and walk towards the locker rooms, I need a shower immediately. Before I can enter the locker rooms though Gavriel the Cruel Renzetti stops me.

“Nice fight out there, Sil, though I'm surprised you let her live.” His voice is deep and husky like the bedroom voice you hear in a wet dream. Normally I'd be tongue tied because everything about the Cruel is laced with sex appeal; a defined body that shows his strength, cut jawline and brooding dark eyes, but I'm not interested in this prince. Handsome as he is, I've come to realize that he's too clean looking to handle me. I like my men covered in ink with a wild look in their eyes. I like my men to look exactly like Twitch.

Stop that train of thought, Neviah.

“My mother.” I say with a shrug. I don't think he knows what I mean by that but he nods nonetheless. “I'll let La Famiglia decide her fate. I've done what I needed to do, she's your problem now.Dì al capo che ho detto grazie.”Tell the boss I said thank you. I move past him and he let's me but keeps his dark gaze on me until I'm behind the doors.

I don't have any clothes or clean towels but I can't seem to find a fuck to give. I turn on the shower head and set the temp to as hot as I can take it. Stripping from my sweat and blood soaked clothes I step under the spray and sigh at the release in my muscles. I stand there for a while and try not to think about what that piece of shit Ruslan said. Who the fuck does he think he is? My mother was a tough woman, a woman who would put any mob wife to shame. She had class and independence. When my father dicked around and lost his life, my mother didn’t ball up and wait to die, she stepped up and became mommyanddaddy. Fuck Popov for trying to stain her name.

I shake my head and groan at my tumbling thoughts. I turn around and rinse my hair out, pulling it from the braid I had it in and let the water cleanse it along with my anger.