Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (101 page)

Chance and I haven’t talked in hours. Well, we’ve spoken to each other, but not
talked
.

The days flew by. We spent every waking minute together, made love a dozen times, went out together for food. Ignored our parents together.

Chance’s mother seemed to recede, almost check-out of the situation. Dad knew not to bug us. I don’t know if he suspects that Chance and I are having a relationship, but I really couldn’t care less.

Chance is his usual self, apparently uncaring, unburdened by nerves or fear. The fight is tomorrow, and we haven’t talked about
that
.

He’s made jokes, tried to rile me up, told me he could fuck me six ways from Sunday, but he hasn’t spoken about the fight.

I figure it’s just a way of preparing himself. No need to psyche yourself up – or possibly out – beforehand.

We’re staying in our hotel room tonight. I couldn’t muster up the energy or enthusiasm to go out for dinner, so he went out and bought me fish and chips from a nearby famous chip shop.

I’m still angry at Dad, perhaps even more than I was before. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize that he was so stupid to borrow that money. We are a middle-class family with some assets – a house, a car – and there he was, risking all of that.

And he wasn’t just risking our livelihoods… he was risking our lives. He still is. This bet on Chance, this last gasp, is a longshot at best. Even I know that.

Oh, sure, Chance can fight. I’ve seen him fight, and I know how fast he is, how methodical he is when he’s on the mat.

I’ve seen his training videos uploaded onto the internet by his coach, instructional tutorials for wannabe stay-at-home fighters.

I know he’s got a body well more mature than it should be at his age. I know he’s got unusual strength, endless stamina.

I know he’s smart, too, even if he tries to deny it, even if he acts like he’s not smart, even if he tries to goad me into calling him some dumb jock.

But he’s going up against an ex-pro, and I don’t want him to get hurt, to get seriously injured. Sometimes, I find myself thinking I’d rather take my chances on the run.

It sounds foolish, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. We’re still young…
we
can still start new lives.

Could they really track us out here in Europe? I doubt it.

But then I remember Chance’s mother… then I think about my cousins on Dad’s side.

He’s put so many people in danger, and they don’t even know it. These loan sharks have no limits when money is owed. They’ll go to any length.

A bit like a fighter in the cage. No losing, no revealing weaknesses. You go to the very end, until that last morsel of willpower is finally extinguished. At least, you go that far if you have to. You want the win before you get to that stage.

At first I thought fighting was just like any other sport. You play the game, cheat the rules where you can, come away with the win and then forget about it.

But it’s not like that. It’s not some basketball game where, in the end, the consequences of you winning or losing mean nothing in the long run, mean nothing past your professional pride.

Oh, sure, fans are either pleased or disappointed in spades, but that feeling fades, is ephemeral, and ultimately inconsequential.

So what else is there to play the game and win for? An athlete’s pride? An athlete’s way to appease the years and years of dedication to one singular thing?

But fighting is different. It’s more personal, and the entire
aim
of the game is to injure your opponent enough that they submit.

Whether the injury is lasting or temporary is neither here nor there. The goal is to hurt somebody faster than they can hurt you back.

The lasting consequence of a fight, if you lose, is injury. If it’s serious, that means months of rehab. If it’s permanent, that means a life changed forever…

I’ve been watching loads of videos of Chance’s opponent, Kaminski, on the internet. He’s this huge, burly guy, very strong, very powerful.

I saw him kick a guy’s shin, snap it in two. It looked like a rubber sword flopping about.

It was mortifying, not just in a body-horror sort of way, but in just how much people who fight for a living try to actually hurt each other.

Chance was quick to correct me on that point. He says nobody truly wants to injure an opponent, at least not permanently. Just, in order to secure the win, it is often a likely byproduct.

Byproduct!
What an odd way to put it.

“Chance,” I say, leaning up, stroking his head in bed.

“Yeah?” he grunts. “What is it?”

I sigh. “Nothing. I just can’t sleep.”

We’re in bed, the lights are out, but my mind is just racing.

“Me neither,” he says, rolling over. We’ve pushed our twin beds together, but even so there is still a gap. Chance is normally the one who bridges it, but tonight it’s me. I’m on his side of the bed.

I take his wrist and feel his pulse. It’s slow, eerily slow.

“What are you doing?”

“Counting your heartbeats.”

“Why?”

“To see if you’re nervous.”

“I’m not.”

“Shush,” I tell him. I count to thirty in my head, count only twenty-five beats. “Your resting heart rate is fifty?”

“That’s pretty typical of an athlete at my age,” he tells me.

I count my own pulse. It’s seventy. “Wow, I’m like almost half more of yours.”

“Women tend to have higher pulses, anyway. Seventy is good. Means you’re quite fit.”

I suck in a deep breath of air. “I’m so sorry my Dad got you and your mother into this.”

“
You
don’t need to apologize to me or her.”

“But still,” I say. “I am.”

“Don’t guilt yourself, Cass. That’s self-indulgence.”

“I know,” I say. “But… I guess I just want to be miserable right now. Even if you’re not nervous, I am.”

“It won’t help.”

“How do you not focus on it?”

“I’ve trained to be a fighter my whole life. Wrestling, especially, is about mental focus… patience.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m lucky, maybe all those times I spent in painful locks, or when practicing boxing taking hard hooks on my chin… maybe it…”

“Immunized you?”

“Something like that. I see where I want to be. The end.”

“The destination,” I say.

“Yeah. I know I’m going to win.”

“Do you only ever see the destination?”

“If you want to win, you have to know you’re going to win.”

“But what about the journey?”

He looks at me. “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to? Be straight with me.”

“What about our journey?”

He pauses. “We’re here, together, now.”

“And our destination?”

“You’ll get your coveted master’s degree, and any job in the field you want. Me, I’ll be a champion fighter that women the world over will be crazy for. But I’ll still only want you. Every woman out there will wonder what it must be like to be you, to be mine… to have me as yours. We’ll be together, I’ll put a baby inside you, maybe by accident.”

“Is that right?” I ask, grinning. “Then what?”

“Then what do you want?”

“What if I don’t want a baby?”

“Then we must always keep a supply of condoms nearby.”

“Got it all figured out, do you?”

“What about you? What’s your plan?”

“For the first time, Chance, I haven’t got one.”

“Let’s say I win. What then?”

“Well… then I’ll be free to do whatever I want.”

“Yes,” he tells me. “You’ll also have your share of the winnings. It’ll be more than enough to get you through the summer here.”

“I could go traveling,” I say. “Go all around Europe.”

“You could.”

“Do you like the idea of traveling?” I ask him. “Would you want to travel with me?”

“You, and nobody else.”

I feel a surge of warmth, and cuddle up closer to him.

“I have faith in you. I know you’ll win tomorrow.”

“You just figured that out now? I’ve known it all along.”