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)
I know all those things, but… ever since I saw that billboard, that black eye… I just can’t get the image out of my mind. “Are the boys there with you?”
“Yep. Budi and Evard are swimming and Maeko is hittin’ on a girl two umbrellas over.” Maeko protests in the background. “Come join us.”
“Nah. I’ve got a… an appointment.”
“An appointment, huh?”
“With Beth.”
“Beth? Who’s Beth?”
“I mean Mackenzie.”
This makes Paulo laugh. “God, you’re stupid. Anything else, then? We’re trying to have a good time here.”
“Nah, that’s all. I just didn’t know where everyone had gone off to.”
“We’re all fine, Maart. You don’t need to mother us like a hovering auntie.”
I know this. Hell, Paulo is the reigning UFC Middleweight Champion. If he can’t keep a group of killer boys safe, no one can. “All right. I’ll see ya tonight. Don’t keep Evard out too late. I don’t want Cort to call the house phone and Evard not be here.”
Paulo just huffs and hangs up on me.
None of the kids really had any trouble slipping into a normal life once our time on the supply ship was over. The younger ones went into the jungle with Cort and Anya for school and… well, to give them a chance to have a bit of a childhood. Everyone older than fifteen came with me to start the gym. Irina was about fourteen—maybe she was fifteen, but I wasn’t convinced—so I made her stay with Cort.
She was pissed about that. Paulo and Maeko were both here and the three of them came up together since they were small. They did everything together.
And then I cut her out.
“Shit, Maart,” I chastise myself. “Ya did a little more than cut her out.”
Right. I understand it hurt her feelings. I understand it’s not fair. I understand the only reason I did all this is because she’s a girl.
I get it.
But I don’t care. She’s five foot five and a hundred and twelve pounds sopping wet. She couldn’t see what I was seeing. She couldn’t see that the differences between her and the boys were multiplying exponentially by the day.
And I do realize that she doesn’t have to fight boys anymore. It’s against the rules in UFC, so that’s never gonna happen. But that’s not the point. The point is, it was time to stop.
So I made her stop. And I stand by that decision no matter what.
We’ve been here in the penthouse for almost five years. All our oldest fighters have moved on. They’re all gone now. Even Rainer is gone.
I don’t understand where all the time went. It bothers me how fast it goes.
But the really disturbing part is that I feel like I’m stuck in the mud. Unable to move on.
It’s Irina. I can’t seem to get over how she left.
She’s got a piece of my heart, that girl.
I need to see her again. I need to have one more conversation.
Macks. Mackenzie. Beth. She’s how I do that.
Beth is a rich fuck, apparently, because she lives two beach neighborhoods down in Leblon. She opens the door for me with a showy wave of her arm, like she’s presenting the view straight in front of me. An entire ocean through the frame of floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Fucking hell, Beth. You never told me you were a goddamned billionaire.”
She chuckles as I walk forward, drawn like a puppet on strings to the outside just past her terrace. “My father died last year and I’m the last one left. So…” I look at her over my shoulder and find her shrugging. “It allll went to me.”
“You say that like it wasn’t supposed to.”
She almost snorts. “Trust me. It wasn’t.”
“What?”
“Never mind. A story for another time.” She closes the door and that’s when I realize the whole place is empty.
“Are you moving in or moving out?”
“I never lived here. I’ve never been here, actually. Not until I came here to see you. It’s on the market. Well, it will be in another week or so. I’m just squatting at the moment.”
I smile at her. She’s very pretty. And not wearing training clothes this time. Not those too-tight, too-revealing dresses from the Ring fights, either. A dress, but not a fancy one. Plain white cotton with thin straps and tiny, barely visible flowers sprinkled all over it. Something very summery and young. She’s barefoot too, so when she breezes past me—leaving the scent of roses trailing behind her—I catch the patter of those feet on the incredible hardwood floors.
The place is massive. The front room is just a foyer. But from here I can see the living room, the dining room, and the terrace.
“Follow me, Maart. The food is outside.”
It’s why I came, so… I follow.
The terrace is longer than it is wide, but the width is not insignificant. There’s an outdoor kitchen and that’s where I find Beth, efficiently removing takeaway cartons from paper bags and placing them in front of a small stack of paper plates.