Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
He leaves the room, closing the door, not slamming it, not that much emotion. I sit back as my heart races and my mind clashes. Mom screams in my head, and the tattoo starts to burn against my skin. I want to rub it away. What was I thinking? I shouldn’t have let him mark my skin.
“Sin upon sin upon sin,” Mom taunts. “What sort of slut did I raise?”
I go to the mirror in the corner and look over my shoulder at the storm cloud, the bolt. I’m grinning like a loon. It isn’t exactly like my dream, where he marked me with his name, but this is almost better. It’s so unique to us. I’ll have to hide it and lie if Brad ever sees it. Nobody can ever know the truth.
A single tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it, turn away, and decide to stop fussing. It’s time to do what’s best for Brad and pretend this night never happened.
CHAPTER
NINE
RUST
THREE WEEKS LATER
“One-two, one-two,” Marquis yells from the edge of the cage, leaning against the interlocked metal with one hand twirling his outlandish, hipster mustache. His pale face glares at me when the round buzzer goes off. He walks over and raises his hand like he’s going to slap me, though he’s several inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter. “Are you sick, Rust? Has your health rusted as much as your name, hmm? Please answer. Use your words.”
I roll my shoulders, pacing up and down the cage. It’s late, a private session, just Marquis, me, and my training partner, the appropriately named Mitch Cage, a fellow fighter. Mitch removes the focus mitts—big pads for me to aim my punches at—and swigs a blue sports drink from a big bottle.
“Where’s the snap? Where’s the pop? These are simple boxing combinations. You’ve been boxing ever since you were a little worm in your father’s nuts, no?”
“Not quite that long.” I keep rolling my shoulders, thinking of the last night at the house, staying in my room, leaving in the morning, and not seeing Mary again since I inked her skin. I told Brad I had to start camp early. He understood. Of course, he did. He’s a good friend, unlike me. “I need to focus more.”
Marquis paces up and down with me, constantly trying to keep himself in my eyeline. “All you are is focus, Rust! You have nothing else. You are a focus machine. I’ve never had a fighter who can focus like you. Focus more, Rust Hadley? You? That has to be a joke. You’re spitting poison in my ears.”
I nod to Mitch. “Let’s go again.”
“No, no, no.” Marquis waves his finger. “You’re not going to overtrain because you failed to focus. You need to rest your body. Rest your mind. You’ll try harder tomorrow.”
“Lay off, coach. My wrist is hurting from holding those pads.”
“He’s right, though,” I tell Mitch. “I could’ve hit you harder, quicker, less distance, less telegraphed.”
“Thank you, yes, yes,” Marquis says. “You listen, Mr. Cage. This is how you get into the top fifteen and get a title shot. Not my wrist hurts.”
“Coach,” Mitch chuckles. “Some folks might call you a bully.”
“Never to my face!” he declares, leaving the cage as he twirls his mustache.
“He looks like a villain when he does that,” Mitch says, taking out his man bun and toweling down his blond hair. He’s a light heavyweight, one weight class down from me, but he’s big since he water-cuts twenty pounds every fight. “I meant it about my wrists, bro.”
“He’s an ass, but he’s right,” I say. “It’s the mind, Mitch. It’s what I’m always telling you. The mind has to be one hundred percent focused on the task. Completely consumed by it.”
“It’s the heavyweight championship,” Mitch says in a confused tone. “Cain’s got the only win on you. What else are you thinking about?”
I grind my teeth. Besides what happened to me as a kid, I’ve never had a secret. That wasn’t a secret, really, because it’s just not worth talking about. No drama. This is different.
“Nothing,” I grunt, leaving the cage.
“You seen this shit?” Brad says on speakerphone. We chat like this fairly often, but sometimes, we’ll do video, too. Lately, I’ve made an excuse every time, not wanting to look at him or have him look at me. Just speaking to him is enough to make me feel wrong. Feel. I’ll never be the cold bastard I was before.
My woman has changed me. Not my woman. Fuck.
“What is it?” I ask, watching the video recording of this morning’s grappling session, spotting several obvious and avoidable errors in positioning.
“Cain’s Instagram story.”
“I never watch that stuff.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
I swipe on my phone and open the app. I rarely even check it. I have a social media manager who shows up now and then demanding photos to post on a staggered timeline, but that’s it. Finding Cain’s page, I click on his story.