He lunges once more, this time jumping for her, sloppy in his desperation to regain control he never had. He falls to the mat and before he can get up, Marianna’s foot makes contact with his jaw in an impressive strike. She is relentless and faster than him, on his feet, but especially on his back. She kicks and punches and one blow lands squarely to his nose. Blood erupts from his face.
The crowd is going completely ballistic, the parking structure seeming to shake from their noise alone.
The man acting as referee doesn’t stop her—this isn’t a regulation fight after all, but when Ivan groans and looks otherwise knocked out with Marianna’s knees pinning his mammoth biceps, Santiago counts down from ten into the microphone.
“She’s incredible,” Sasha yells as the number passes five. I can only breathe a disbelieving sound that’s muted by the shouting around me.
A loud buzzer rings out when Ivan doesn’t stand before Santi reaches the end of his countdown.
Mary climbs off of him and lets Santiago hold up her arm as every person in the room screams for her. They can’t even be mad that it was such a short fight, not more than one round, because the spectacle of it was too great.
She is their champion, Ivan’s blood on her gloves and arms to prove it. Garza is cheering as exuberantly as the people around him. Beside him, Nikolai claps reluctantly, starting at Mariannawith an icy loathing that makes me want to crackhisnose. Maybe I’ll have my wife do it.
Her eyes find mine and though visibly tired from the effort, her expression is nothing but mischief and determination. It’s an “I told you so” and a reminder not to underestimate her. She spits her mouth guard into her glove and yells, spurning the crowd on more.
I’m still upset that she orchestrated this, that she would willfully put herself in danger, but I can’t help the smile that takes over my face, especially as she climbs through the bands and jumps into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist.
She’s sweating from the fight and Ivan’s blood smears on my button-up, but I kiss her anyway, a show of a deliriously in love couple for the Garzas and my cousin alike. In the elation of the moment, her safe and victorious and in my grasp, I almost let myself believe this is a real celebration and not a piece of her elaborately sketched scheme.
“The fastest fortune I’ve ever made!” Garza exclaims as I set Marianna down in front of me.
She uses her teeth to pull one of the tabs of her gloves and I remove the other. Sasha takes them both to stow in her bag.
“People prefer a longer fight, but they gonutsfor a Mary Morelli fight, no matter how many rounds it goes,” Santi says, lightly punching Marianna on the shoulder twice in a mock combo.
“Like old days,” Garza says, and the image it invokes of Marianna getting battered at fights before winning makes me almost wince. To my surprise, I’d let myself forget why I was angry.
“Always a pleasure,” Marianna says. It feels urgent that I get her out of here immediately before she gets into more trouble, winning or not.
“Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get to our own celebrating,” I say. I shake the men’s hands, and Marianna does the same before walking with her fingers laced in mine through the crowd of people that cheer her on and wave their earnings at her as she walks by. She’s a celebrity here, the best thing any of them have ever seen.
We’re handed a black cloth bag by a Garza as we exit, and I eye it warily.
“It’s not drugs,” Marianna mutters as we enter the stairwell. She hands it back to Sasha, who puts the sack into her backpack. “Cash. My winnings.”
“Is that why you did this?” I ask, unable to keep the frustration from my voice. Marianna scoffs and presses a fingernail into the back of my hand, not enough to break the skin, but enough to warn me to drop it.
When we get to the car, I open the door for her, and she brushes past me without making eye contact. She’s icy now, the smiling, electric girl who was kissing me minutes ago nowhere to be seen.
She’s a brilliant actress for someone whose anger usually simmers so close to the surface.
“Marianna—”
“Later, Maxim,” she says, a demand. I meet Sasha’s eyes in the rearview mirror and then nod, driving us home without saying another word.
27
MAXIM
It was a silent drive home,followed by a silent elevator ride. She would’ve gone straight to the bedroom if I hadn’t called her name and pointed to the kitchen. Now she sits on the counter, a bag of ice against her cheekbone. The skin under her previously uninjured eye has already started to purple, and the sight makes my stomach roil.
I say nothing, only make two cups of tea, a squeeze of lemon in each, and lean back against the counter across from her, arms crossed over my chest. If I speak, I might yell at her, and if I yell at her, she will get defensive and yell back, and we’ve already fought once today. This marriage is a balancing act. It’s neither of our natures to default to empathetic patience, particularly me when it comes to her safety and particularly her when it comes to her autonomy. Winning combination.
“Loyalties in this city are shifting,” Marianna finally says by way of explanation.
I still want to shake her, to hold her, to fuck her, to yell at her for putting herself in Ivan’s murderous path in front of a bloodthirsty crowd, but we both know how poorly that will end the evening, so I stay quiet.
“Cillian’s betrayal showed the big heads of the city that they need to know who they can trust and who they can count on if that trust is broken.”
