“It’s your game now, Dirk. I’m just happy to watch Philippe go down in flames. Watch that you don’t go down with him. It’s good to know that you have something to live for these days.”
I finished strapping the vest of death to my body and attached the helmet. There was a new uncertainty as I buckled it down. I had to live, not be reckless with my life because Daniela needed me. My purpose in life was to give her everything she needed. Forever.
After a dizzying flight, I came down on the roof of the MGM, and there was Nix, waiting for me, eying my equipment like a tiger while he helped me take it off, then wrapped my wrists, taking more time than usual while he studied me.
“This is the one who roughed up your princess.”
“He’s a psychopath. He deserves whatever pain I give him.”
He nodded, but his eyes narrowed. “The Three-Hundred is over, and every year I expect you to leave the team anddo something more lucrative with your skills, but I still have feelings of concern about you. You know the team is my family, which is why I’d never have a member who is vulnerable, because I’d want to crush the vulnerability out of them so they’d be strong. But you’ve always had that sensitive streak, the one you dulled with alcohol, the one that vengeance can’t help.”
I raised a brow at him. “Daddy Nix, are you trying to give me personal advice? I’m touched.”
His lips twitched with the repressed instinct to smile or snarl, but I wasn’t sure which. He kept his actual feelings more guarded than anyone else I’d ever met. “The Three-Hundred was out of control. The way you look at your princess is out of control. Control is the only thing that keeps us human. If you go in there and beat this pretty piece of filth to death, you’ll go to jail. This fight isn’t legally sanctioned, so I have to trust you to have control, whatever he’s done to your sweetheart.”
I studied him for a long time. The anger that had kept me running for so long was still there, but it was tempered by other feelings, the desperate need I had to protect Daniela above all else. That’s why I was fighting Philippe tonight, to keep his gaze here instead of on her. She needed a head start if she was going to succeed in taking him down. Not that I wouldn’t appreciate the opportunity to make Philippe bleed, but it was doubtful that he could really feel the pain I wanted to give him. Some people weren’t right, and he was one of them.
I gripped his arm and smiled at him. “Thanks for wrapping my hands. You’re the best. I’m not going to kill him.”
“That’s what you say, but just wait until you’re in there and he has that unapologetic smirk on his face. I want to kill him, and I’m not personally invested.”
“Good thing I’m fighting him instead of you, then.”
He scowled at me. “Also, if he kills you, do you have any requests? I’ll protect Daniela, and I’ll use Jezebel, so he’ddefinitely die if he tried to touch her, but where do you want all your tech to go?”
I stared at him, startled more than usual. “I’m not going to die. I need to do more than protect her; I need to give her the love she deserves.”
He winced. “Don’t start talking about love or you’ll lose your focus. Control.” He shook his head and pushed me towards the elevator. “It’s hopeless. I guess we’ll leave it to fate. One thing, watch out for his left hook.”
“You’ve seen him fight?” I asked, turning to glance at him over my shoulder.
“I’ve seen him walk through a crowded room. Left hook.” He mimed it, his muscles bunching while he frowned, like he didn’t understand why he wasn’t the one going into the ring against the biggest threat.
The ring was fairly subdued, only a few gamblers from a certain class, including Horse, Nix, Trevor, and Roger, while the rest weren’t known to me personally, although I did recognize a few faces. International playboys of Phillippe’s circle had come to witness this fight, to bet on it, to enjoy the flow of blood. Were they all psychopaths?
Philippe was already in the ring, his tan skin interrupted here and there by a scar.
He saw me looking at his shoulder and touched his finger to it. “The first time she stabbed me. We were seven. I made her show me her glass knives, tried to steal them, and got to taste them instead.” He crouched down, blue eyes glittering with anticipation.
I followed more slowly, trying not to lose it to the instincts and rage. He wouldn’t ever taste anything of Daniela’s again. “She’d rather do other things with me than stabbing.”
He flashed his teeth. “And that’s why you aren’t in bed with her. If I had her in my bed, I would not let her leave, and Icertainly wouldn’t find anything more interesting to do, but I suppose you must avenge your sister. If you can’t make her your priority, you don’t deserve her.” His accent made his soft voice even more disarming. He’d used all of that charm on my sister.
My heart raced, and I clenched my fists and raised them. “I will give my wife what she wants, what she needs, like she needed and wanted me to kiss her the first time we met. She gives me what you have to steal from her. But never again. You aren’t touching her. You aren’t looking at her. You aren’t ever going to hurt her again.”
He snarled, and the fight was on. He was so fast, so precise, so perfectly trained, all his reflexes working to take everything I knew and beat me with it. It hurt, not going to lie, but this was the fight for my sister, for Daniela, and I was in it to win, and not die. I tried to give as good as I got, but it was hard to tell until a bell rang somewhere and Nix was in the ring, shoving us apart hard enough to bruise my breastbone.
“Keep it cleaner for round two,” he snarled at both of us before he let us go.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. There was a definite buzzing in my ears, but it wouldn’t affect me in a fight, and that’s what was important. Once the bell went off, I ran at him, meeting his own charge with an impact that sent us rolling on the mat. It wasn’t clean, and by the time the next bell rang, my arm was hanging awkwardly from my shoulder, dislocated probably. Nix pulled us apart again and took a minute to fix my shoulder in an agonizing moment of clarity before turning and doing the same for Philippe’s elbow.
He said something to me, but the words were garbled, and everything was fuzzy. Not everything. Philippe’s red and smashed face was in focus, as was the smile. He didn’t feel the pain, only the pleasure in destroying what his cousin caredabout. Was he destroying me? The parts of my body that I could feel hurt.
I crouched and waited for the bell. This time, when it went off, I stepped to the side, dodging his left uppercut and slamming his kidneys, a shot that would hurt him much more than it would hurt me. We weren’t trading pain for pain. I was going to walk out of here. That was what I needed to win, so I had to minimize the worst contact.
He whirled around, a feral smile on his not-so-pretty face before he realigned his sights. He leapt towards me, a kick aimed at my head, but I dodged under him, rolling out of reach and again hit his kidneys.
“Yes!” Nix roared.
