“I don’t need fucking rounds! This motherfucker is going down and then I’m gonna go get my woman, drag her back here by her hair, and make sure she never fucking leaves again!”
Lincoln stepped in, his features dark. “You fight till the other man can’t stand up.”
“We fight till one of us is dead and gone,” Ripped snarled.
I nodded in agreement. Ripped was right—we didn’t need rounds. I had no plans on letting Ripped leave that place alive.
“The beef stays between us,” I said, drawing Lincoln’s attention to me. “Whatever happens, it ain’t between our clubs. The Highwaymen won’t hold shit against the Burning Eights once this is done. No matter what happens.”
Ripped laughed darkly. “That’s good with me. Least our club can dance over your grave when we come to do business with the Highwaymen.”
Lincoln didn’t look happy but he nodded and stepped out of the circle. Cap took one last look at Ripped and me and stepped out too, and then it was just me and Ripped, our hate for one another, and our love for Quinn.
Ripped charged toward me immediately, his footsteps clumsy enough that I stepped around him as he threw a fist toward my face. I twisted on one foot and came up behind him, throwing a punch into his ribs. The man was a wall of muscle, though, and right then he was long past drunk and wasn’t feeling a thing.
He turned, his hate-filled gaze finding mine, and he charged at me again. We came together in a clash of limbs, arms swinging, fists flying as we pounded on each other, beating each other into submission. But neither of us would give up. It wasn’t even just about Quinn anymore; it was about us—men. Defending our own masculinity. Like a cockfight. We were fighting for the woman we wanted, despite her already having made her choice. We were fighting to prove who deserved her the most. Fighting for our lives, and for hers. We were fighting for our clubs, for our brothers, and we were fighting to stem the tide of love that we both felt for a woman.
Neither of us ever expected to fall in love.
And if you would have told me a year before that I would be in a fight to the death with the president of the Burning Eights because of my love for a woman, I would have laughed in your face. Yet there we were.
Blood dribbled down the side of my face as Ripped threw a fist at my temple. It connected, and I swear to God my brain rattled around inside my head. I shook it off quickly and ducked as he threw another punch. It narrowly missed and he stumbled forward, passing me close enough for me to grab him around the waist. He tried to break out of my hold, thrashing in my tight grip, and I threw him to the ground. Ripped landed on his knees and sprawled forward, and before he could flip over and get back up I threw a heavy boot into his ribs. He roared in pain and I reared back and kicked again before dropping down and landing a knee in the center of his back.
I reached down and grabbed his head. My entire body was leaning on him and keeping him from getting back up, but that didn’t stop him from trying. The men around us had fallen to a hush. It was now or never, I quickly realized. I could easily snap his neck with my bare hands, ending his life and the fight. And it would all be over. Quinn would be mine and I could go home with my woman.
“Do it then,” Ripped growled under me. “Go on.”
I stared out at the crowd, seeing the looks of disappointment on all of their faces. A disappointment I felt deep in my gut. I hated Ripped, but I hadn’t always. Once he’d been a friend, a brother and not an enemy.
“We can walk away from this,” I gritted out. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Just let her go.”
He barked out a laugh and, catching me by surprise, he flipped his body, shrugging me off of him. He rolled to one side and staggered to his knees. He was leaning heavily to one side and I guessed I had broken a couple of his ribs. Blood was trailing down the side of my face and I swiped it away.
“Brother, just let her go,” I tried again. I would kill for her, but it didn’t need to be like that. I got his obsession, understood it. Fuck, I was living and breathing it myself. Quinn was everything. She was my air, my blood, my skin and my bones. Without her I was nothing, and I fucking pitied any man that had to walk away from her because I knew I sure as hell couldn’t have. But I still hoped he’d come to his damn senses. I glanced over at Lincoln and Cap, hoping they’d say something that might talk some sense into him.
“She won’t ever be yours, not really,” Ripped said in a low voice, and I turned back to him. “She’ll always be mine. Fucking branded her with my cock these past months. Bitch won’t ever forget the feel of me inside that tight body of hers.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to temper the rage that surged inside me at his words, the images flashing in my head of him and her together. The anger made me feel dizzy, sick to my stomach with the urge to destroy him. I pulled out my brass knuckles and slid them onto both of my hands, my stare never leaving him as a red mist dropped over me.
“Filled every hole that bitch has. Made her cry out my name over and over until she was limp in my arms and I still motherfucking fucked her. Passed out, tied up, blinded by the fucking pleasure that I gave her.” He laughed loudly and smacked his fists against his chest, glaring at me, goading me. “Quinn will never belong to you after the things I’ve done with her. So you take that dried-up bitch and every time you fuck her you remember that I was there first, brother. That that pussy is mine, that ass is mine, and that mouth is mine.”
I charged forward with a roar and he met me halfway. His fists connected with my stomach, but I felt nothing. His fists connected with my ribs, but I felt nothing. I gripped him by his throat, my large hands wrapping around his muscled neck and squeezing as he hit me over and over.
I glared at him, burning holes full of hate in his face as I reared my arm back and slammed it into his face as hard as I could.
The lights went out, his body going limp in my arms, but I was far from done. I dropped him to the ground and straddled his body before hitting him over and over. I couldn’t stop. My muscles itched with the need to tear him apart.
I hit him continuously until his face was mere blood and gore and my hands and arms were red with his blood. I hit Ripped, destroying him with my bare hands until my own skin split with the force of my vengeance.
He was right—Quinn would always be imprinted by him, but I would wipe him from the face of the earth and then spend the rest of my life showing her that she was mine and mine alone.
~ 26 ~
Battle
Fighter was grabbing me, pulling me away from Ripped’s dead body even as my arms continued to swing and beat on him. I roared and shrugged out from under his grip, scrambling forward to tear into him some more. My jeans were drenched in blood, my face and body splattered with gore and death, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I felt possessed by something. I felt unclean and angry, like a demon was living inside of me, eating my insides and changing me into a monster.
