Marianna swings her arms back and forth while jogging in place. With her shirt discarded, her tight muscles are on display along with the scar from where she was shot last year. “I need you to pretend you trust me. Kiss me and look a little less like you’re going to kill him, husband.”
She pulls my neck down until my lips fit over hers in a brief but searing kiss. It’s not enough to distract me, but it grounds me enough to get my expression in check.
“Better,” she says. She’s about to pull away from me, but I hold both hands on her shoulders before unclasping her necklace and letting it fall into my hand. She watches me stow it in my shirt pocket where she deposited her diamond ring, and nods. “Thank you.”
She takes the mouth guard from Sasha’s palm and fits it over her teeth. Safety first for at least her dental health, I suppose.
Sasha helps pull her gloves on and slaps her bare shoulder in encouragement. She grins as wide as she can with the flexible plastic beneath her lips.
Nikolai’s fighter has joined Santiago in the ring and the energy in the room ratchets up audibly as Marianna climbs up to meet them. Ivan laughs a theatrical belly laugh at the sight of her, but Nikolai’s eyes betray him once again. He’s seen her fight.
I don’t sit next to Garza and his people, instead keeping my place next to the ring with Sasha.
“Did you know about this plan?”
Sasha zips her bag. “I didn’t, but she scares the shit out of me. I trust her.”
I need you to pretend to trust me?
Do I?
Santiago roams around the ring introducing Ivan who holds his hands up like he loves and deserves the attention, both cheers and boos from the attendees. Bets are hurriedly being placed and I’m sick thinking of them hoping for Marianna’s failure.
“And fighting for our gracious host, for one night and one night only,Marianna Orlov!” Santiago shouts, and the room erupts, largely in cheers. “Who. Is. Your. Champion?”
Marianna looks back at me and winks. I can’t bring myself to return the gesture, so intense is the turning of my stomach. If Ivan hurts her, I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep myself in place.
All too soon, the bell rings, starting the fight, and Ivan underestimates Marianna so clearly, hardly taking a fighting stance, still smirking like this is going to be an easy fight. She shuffles her feet and lands a hit, but it doesn’t faze him. He laughs, like it’s cute, and takes a swing of his own. It lands to the already bruised side of her face, sending her head sideways.
The crowd cries their displeasure, but something is strange about the way Marianna is fighting.
I’ve seen her before, she is a flurry of speed and energy, but now she moves almost slow.
He lands one more hit, this one making her fall to the ground. I inhale sharply, but her eyes flash to mine, mischievous almost, and it gives me pause.
While she’s down, Ivan is a fool not to further his attack, instead taking the moment to gloat, circling the ring with his arms above his head like it was a two punch knockout.
It was not.
Marianna pushes up from the ground in a flash, her movement so graceful and sharp as she jumps onto Ivan’s back. He staggers, not dislodging her fast enough before she’s got him in a headlock, her legs squeezing tight around his sides.
It’s in this moment I feel I can exhale for the first time since she volunteered for this errand. In my distress, I had forgotten that Marianna is the single best fighter in every room she enters.
Ivan tries to shake her off of his back, and when he’s almost gotten her loose, she uses one of her legs to kick the back of his knee, dismounting before he can crush her in his fall.
Marianna doesn’t make the same mistake he had, instead kicking his side immediately and with a force I know from experience can break bones. Even in the roar of the din, I swear I hear a rib crack.
Ivan’s got red hot rage boiling in his eyes. He wants to murder her, and he rolls to his feet with a shout. She shuffles away from him, letting him get his bearings before they circle each other. She glides so easily on her feet, like she’s done this a thousand times before and her body moves on muscle memory.
Ivan lunges for her, but she’s faster, dodging him and planting a punch on his side. I’d guess it’s more embarrassing than it is painful, because when he rights himself, Ivan immediately charges for her again, faster this time and with a furious fist flying through the air.
It’s almost comedic how easily she dodges him, her speed making him look slow in comparison. When her back isn’t to me, I see mirth in her eyes. She’slaughing,enjoying this. This isfunfor her.
Marianna plays with him like he’s a mouse she’s just waiting to kill, albeit Ivan is a mouse that’s twice her size and could probably snap her bones if given the right opportunity.
Her body is muscular, thick legs and toned shoulders; she is small, but she is not the tiny thing Ivan believed he had nothing to worry about.
My pulse jumps in my neck when she lands a solid hit on his torso, the side she’d kicked before. The fear I’ve felt for her morphs into something warmer in my body, anger receding,giving way to the constant desire I’ve felt since laying eyes on Marianna Morelli in my club last year—the desire that’s only gotten worse since having her in my bed, in my home, since being able to call hermine. She’s not mine like I want her to be, but mine by name, at least. Here she is mine, she is Marianna Orlov, my bride, a beautiful anomaly. And I crave her desperately.
