And everything went wrong.
Just as I swung, she kicked both her legs out in the air, as if she was deliberately flopping onto her back on a trampoline. My punch, instead of making her stagger, sent her soaring through the air.
She landed hard on her back. And she didn’t get up.
The crowd fell silent.
I was on my knees beside her in a second. I didn’t know how hard she’d hit her head—the roar of the crowd had covered the sound of the impact. “Sylvie? Jesus,Sylvie?”
I checked for a pulse. I couldn’t find one. Her eyes stared up at me, fixed and unseeing.
I refused to believe it. “Sylvie?”
Then I saw how her beautiful angel’s hair was turning sticky with blood under her head. “Sylvie?!”
No response.
She was dead.
56
AEDAN
“Well,holy shit,”I heard Rick say. “I didn’t expectthat.”
I was on my feet and across the ring in a heartbeat. I didn’t care about the bodyguards anymore. I didn’t care about the guns anymore.
The crowd moved out of the way as they saw me coming and that started a general exodus. There was something about the way Sylvie’s body lay there on the floor, crumpled so awkwardly, legs stretched out but one hand to her hip. Suddenly, none of those bastards who’d thought they were so brave and edgy for sampling underground entertainment could bear to see it.
Rick’s bodyguards slammed into me just as I reached him. I very nearly managed to drag them along with me, but then Al had his shoulder against my chest and Carl was holding my arms behind my back and all I could do was yell and snarl. I was less than a foot away from Rick and I couldn’t touch him.
“I guess you get the winnings,” said Rick. He was staring at Sylvie’s body, genuinely disquieted. He shoved a bundle of bills into the pocket of my sweatpants. “Congratulations,” he said coldly. “That’s what you get for murdering your girlfriend. You really are a monster.”
I remembered how she’d kicked her legs out from under her, ensuring she’d go down hard. She’d wanted to do it.
She’d fooled me. She hadn’t gone along with my plan at all. She’d sacrificed herself for me.
The crowd was dispersing quickly. The bodyguards pushed me to the ground and hustled Rick outside. I no longer had the energy to go after them. All I wanted to do was hold the woman I loved.
I crawled over to her body and cradled her head, the blood sticky on my fingers. I closed her eyes. And then I wept and wept, my tears wetting her cheek as if she was crying, too.
57
AEDAN
When I finally looked up,Rick and his goons were standing over me. Everyone else had gone.
“Time to go,” said Rick. “We’ll take her from here.”
Al stepped forward to gather her up. He wasn’t as careful as he normally would have been. He probably thought I was beyond fighting back.
He was wrong.
As he put out his hand, I grabbed his wrist andpulled,putting all my strength behind it. Al flipped over my head and hit the floor with a crack of breaking bones.
“Don’t youfeckin’ touch her!”I screamed.
Rick and Carl took a step back. It had happened so fast they were caught off balance. Long enough for me to snatch Al’s gun from his holster. I pointed it right at Rick. Immediately, Carl pointed his own gun at me.
