Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
My identity is disclosed when Ophelia begs for him not to fight by disclosing our connection. “No, Isaac, please. He is my brother.”
In an endeavor to slow his strides, she claws her nails into his arm. It does little to weaken his strides. Even men not born in this industry understand the consequences of reneging on a deal. Isaac knows as well as I do that someone’s life will perish tonight, but what he doesn’t know is that for some reason, my father pinned the target on my back instead of the boyfriend he swore Ophelia would never have.
There’s no uncertainty to my claims forty minutes into our match. Isaac and I have fought a bear-knuckled and honest fight. We gave the thousands of spectators their money’s worth, but my father still wants more.
He always wants more.
With blood gushing from a cut above my eye and my right thigh corked from an earlier kick, I swoop down low to batter Isaac’s midsection with a quick left-right-left combination. The skillset the crowd of mostly mafia men raved about when I walked to the ring is proven without a doubt when Isaac deflects my onslaught after only two hits in with a brutal upper cut knock to my chin.
I sail back with a grunt, my landing distorting more than my ego. It also cracks my wrist. The weird way it hangs when I leap back onto my feet sends a collective hiss across the warehouse. The only one not sickened by its deformed hang is my father. He looks bored. Like forty minutes of blood, sweat, and anarchy is something he faces every day.
My hopes of getting out of this situation alive dampen even more when it dawns on me how accurate my comment is. If it’s gory and controversial, my father is first on the scene, and tonight’s event is as scandalous as it gets.
It is proven without a doubt when Isaac argues on my behalf. “Throw in the towel. He’s your fucking son!”
I have a broken wrist, fractured ribs, and a painful whistle in my good ear that won’t quit no matter how many times Isaac’s foot connects with it. I’m battered, bruised, and bleeding from multiple cuts and abrasions.
Isaac isn’t fairing much better, but no matter how many times the referee strays his eyes to my father to get permission to end the fight, he denies his numerous requests.
My father’s brief headshake to Isaac’s request adds fuel to the fire brewing in my gut. I knew tonight’s target was nailed to my back. I just can’t fathom why. I’m no good to my father dead. If I die, the millions of dollars I was awarded in what my family called a ‘botched FBI sting’ gets placed into a trust for Ophelia.
People assume I’m slow because I have a stutter, but I’m not so stupid to sit by and risk the chance of my father benefiting from my mother’s death more than he already has. I would burn every dollar before I’d ever let him have it.
My focus shifts from my father’s stoic face to Isaac when I notice he’s heading my way. His knuckles are busted and bruised, his body is covered with a range of contusions, and his dark hair looks black since it’s soaked with blood, but he too knows only one of us will leave this mat on their feet, and regretfully, that man won’t be me.
Isaac wants to protect my baby sister from a monster, and since I’ve craved the same the past decade, I’ll succumb to the pleas in his eyes. No man wants to lose, but it’s the least I can do given that Roberto and I left Ophelia’s safety in Dimitri’s hands the past four years. He’s only a year older than Ophelia, so we should have been sheltering him just as much as he protects Ophelia.
“I’m sorry,” Isaac mouths, his words only for my ears.
I nod, acknowledging the utmost empathy in his eyes before bracing my stance.
Isaac favors kicks over punches, so the roundhouse kick he does to my temple to end our fight isn’t shocking, but the horrendous screech it rips through my ear is. It’s more deafening than Ophelia’s screams when I lifelessly flop onto the mat, and almost on par with the bullet my father fired with no concern his six-year-old son’s head was almost resting on his gun.
Despite what my payout tells you, I’m not deaf in one ear because of a federal agent. My father is responsible for the loss of hearing in my right ear.
Just like he will be for my left ear as well.
Chapter Twenty-One
JR
I jerk my head to the side. My need to vomit is so strong, I’d rather it roll down the side of the bed I’m chained to than choke on it. There’s no one to fetch the regurgitated meal Jae and I shared in the hotel room when I stupidly agreed to her suggestion to lay low for a couple of days.