Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
This wasn’t my idea.
I wasn’t gonna get involved.
But this girl, she’s a straight line right back to Sick Heart.
And I’ve got something to say to that man.
She doesn’t show.
We wait almost two hours.
Dog texts her, but only once. “I can’t be over-eager. This is a pretty exclusive group, and anyway, if she really is a Ring camp girl, she’s gonna get suspicious if I’m over-eager. But listen, I think she goes out to those rocks a lot. I thought about it for a while, the way she was floating like that, and I think she might do it often. She said, ‘This sea cannot kill me.’ I swear to God, that’s what she said. And then I remembered about that Sick Heart guy.”
When Dog says that name, my heart thumps.
“I heard—and this is just a rumor, so I dunno—but I heard his camp was on some old oil rig in the middle of the ocean. If that’s true”—this is when he starts putting two and two together—“is she one of Sick Heart’s?”
Sick Heart doesn’t fight anymore. He’s not the face of his camp. Maart is the face of his camp. So I’m kind of impressed that Dog here knows more than most.
Also not happy about it.
“Well, we should call it a night.” This is Davis saving us.
“Yeah.” I try my best to look uninterested. “Text me her number. And if you see her again, Dog? Text me immediately.”
His fingers are already tapping out a text and my phone buzzes in my pocket just as he looks up. “Should I invite her to the next fight?”
“No. We’ll take it from here.”
I turn to leave, but once again, there’s Snake Eyes, questioning my motives. “You’re not gonna hurt her, are you?”
I look back at him, annoyed. “Why would I hurt her?”
“Because you’re acting like a man who wants to hurt her.”
I look over at Dog and he snaps at the kid. “Get the fuck out of the way, Miguel.”
Miguel moves out of my way, but he looks me in the eyes as I pass. “Come by the gym, Dead Eyes. Any time you want. Sixteenth and Lenox. Let’s see what you got.”
Dog shoots me a look that says, Sorry about that, and Davis and I leave.
Dog’s gym is only about ten blocks from our place, so we walked over. It’s such a bitch to drive around South Beach that only tourists do it. It’s hot, but there’s a wind blowing off the sea tonight, so it’s not too bad. When we get to my building, Davis opens the door for me, but I don’t walk through. I take my t-shirt off and tuck it into the waistband of my shorts. “I’m gonna run. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
Davis nods. “Don’t worry. This isn’t over yet.”
I’m not worried, but I don’t tell him that because it doesn’t matter.
I just fall into a lope and head for the beach.
CHAPTER 5
I can’t believe I fell for this shit and I’m seriously disappointed in myself.
I almost walked into that. I’m not really sure what ‘that’ was, but I’m a hundred-percent positive that it wasn’t a fight.
There was a gym and there were fighters, but this meet-up tonight was about something else.
You, Irina. The meeting was about you.
They found me. And again, I’m not sure who ‘they’ are, but I am sure who they’re not.
It’s not Maart.
That hurts. It really does. Because for a moment I allowed myself to sink into that fantasy.
He came for you. He hunted you down and came for you.
But he didn’t. He never will. If Maart cared at all about where I was and what I was doing, he would’ve showed up years ago.
He’s on the pay-per-view two or three times a year. They interview him. Do spotlights on him. All he had to say was, Irina, call me. Come home. Get in touch. He could’ve had Paulo say, This one is for Irina, the last time he won.
Because I’ve watched every single fight. Of course I have. And Maart would know that because he knows me better than anyone in this whole world.
I’m breathing hard and my heart is heavy as I stalk the two men home from the gym. At least I had the good sense to show up two hours early and stake that shit out from a rooftop café across the street.
I’m not sure that they’re the ones looking for me, but they showed up an hour early and they were inside until eleven. The gym was closed, at least that’s what the sign said on the door. These guys went in the back. Unless this gym has some kind of basement bunker where the fights take place—and unless the circuit here in Miami is miniscule, because they were the only two I saw—there was no fight in that gym tonight.