171 Chapter 171
Seraphina’s POV 1
Kade closed the distance in two steps. I tried to move, tried to circle away, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate fast enough. His fist
connected with my face again–harder this time.
Something in my nose crunched. Blood poured down my chin, hot and thick.
“YEAH! BREAK HER NOSE!”
“MAKE HER CRY!”
I tasted blood. Felt my lip split open like overripe fruit. Heard the crowd screaming for my destruction, and underneath it all, heard
Just like everyone always had.
Kade grabbed me by the shoulders and drove his knee into my stomach. I doubled over, gagging, trying not to vomit.
“Stay down,” he said, almost kindly. “Just stay down and this stops.”
But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
I threw a wild hook at his head. It connected–barely–but it was enough to make him step back in surprise.
“Oh, you’ve got some fight in you after all,” he said, grinning wider. “Good. I was worried this would be boring.”
The bell rang, ending the round.
I copsed onto the stool in my corner. Rico was in my face immediately, pressing an ice pack against my swelling eye. The cold burned
worse than the heat.
“You’re getting destroyed out there,” he said tly.
“Thanks for the fucking pep talk,” I gasped.
“I’m serious.” Rico grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him through my one good eye. “If you keep fighting like this–if you keep letting him back you up–he’s going to knock you out. Or worse.”
“Worse?” Myugh came out as a wet cough. “What’s worse?”
“Hospital. Permanent damage. Death.” His grip tightened. “You need to stop being scared and start being angry.”
“I AM angry!”
“No. You’re terrified. There’s a difference.” He pulled the ice pack away, and I saw his expression. Hard. Demanding. “You want to survive this? You want to win? Then you need to stop fighting like a victim and start fighting like a predator.”
The ten–second warning sounded. Too soon. Way too soon.
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“Remember,” Rico said as I forced myself to stand, “fast and dirty. No rules. No mercy, Fit him where it hurts and don’t stop hitting until
he goes down.”
Round two was worse.
So much worse.
Kade had figured out all my patterns. Every time I tried to circle away, he was there. Every time I threw a punch, he countered with
three. His fists were everywhere–my face, my body, my arms when I tried to block.
A punch to my temple made the world tilt violently sideways. Another to my ribs drove the air from my lungs in a sound that was half
scream, half sob. A knee to my stomach doubled me over, and I tasted bile mixing with blood.
I was drowning in pain. Drowning in the realization that I waspletely, utterly outmatched.
The crowd was loving every second of it. Cheering every time Kadended a hit. Laughing every time I stumbled. Some of them were
literally jumping up and down with excitement, spilling beer and screaming for more blood.
My blood.
“MAKE HER BLEED MORE!”
“BREAK SOMETHING! COME ON!”
“THIS IS PATHETIC! PUT HER OUT OF HER MISERY!”
Kade caught me with abination that sent me spinning into the ropes. I bounced off them like a rag doll, barely staying upright. My
legs were jelly. My vision was tunneling.
“Stay down!” someone shouted from the crowd. “Just stay down before he kills you!”
But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Because if I stayed down here, I’d stay down everywhere.
I raised my fists and charged.
Kade’sugh was loud enough to hear over the crowd–cruel and delighted. He stepped into my rush like he was swatting a fly and drove
his fist into my face with devastating precision.
My head snapped back. Blood sprayed in an arc across the canvas.
I went down hard. The impact knocked what little air I had left from my lungs. The canvas was rough against my cheek. Warm. Wet with
my own blood.
The referee started counting again.
*This is it. This is where it ends. This is where I die.*
“ONE!”
*You’re pathetic. Look at you.*
“TWO!”
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*Mia was right to steal from you. Gary was right to mock you.*
“THREE!”
*You abandoned your babies because you’re weak. You ran away because you’re a coward.*
“FOUR!”
But then I heard it. Through the roaring crowd. Through the ringing in my ears. Through everything.
Damien’s voice. From that night at the Morrison house.
*“Tell her Adrian and her baby girl needs her mother.“*
“FIVE!”
I pushed myself up.
The referee grabbed my face, checking my eyes. I could barely see him through the blood and swelling. “Are you sure? Are you
absolutely sure you want to continue?”
“I’m sure.”
“Last chance. I can stop this right now-”
“NO!” The word exploded out of me with more force than I’d thought I still had. “I’m not done yet.”
The referee stepped back reluctantly. “Fight!”
This time, when Kade came at me, something fundamental had shifted.
The fear was gone. Burned away by rage so pure and incandescent it felt like my blood was on fire.
I didn’t care about winning anymore. Didn’t care about the money or proving anything to anyone.
I just wanted to hurt him. Wanted to make him feel a fraction of what I’d been feeling.
He threw a punch. I slipped it–barely.
Another. I ducked under it, my body moving on pure instinct.
He was strong. But Rico was right–he’d gotten cocky. Comfortable. He thought I was finished.
I darted inside his guard and drove my fist into his throat.
Not hard enough to crush his windpipe. But hard enough to make him gag. Hard enough to make his eyes go wide with genuine shock.
The crowd gasped. Actually gasped.
While he was reeling, I stomped on his instep with all my weight. Felt something crunch under my heel.
Kade roared–actually roared–and swung wildly. His fist whistled past my ear close enough to feel the discement of air.
I dropped low and drove my shoulder into his knee. The same knee I’d just stomped on.
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He staggered. For the first time since the fight began, Kade actually staggered backward.
The crowd’s cheering faltered. Confused. Uncertain. Someone shouted “What the fuck?”
I didn’t give him time to recover. I threw everything I had left–punches, elbows, knees, anything that would hurt. Most of them were
sloppy. Most of them missed. But some connected.
The bell rang for the end of round two.
Back in my corner, Rico was grinning like a madman. “NOW that’s what I’m talking about! You hurt him!”
“I barely touched him,” I panted, spitting blood into a bucket. So much blood.
“You scared him. Look at his face. That’s even better.” Rico wiped my face with a cold towel, his movements quick and efficient. “One
more round. Just one more. Can you make it?”
Every part of my body screamed no. My face was so swollen I could barely open my left eye. My ribs might be cracked. I was pretty sure
I had a concussion. Blood wouldn’t stop pouring from my nose.
But I nodded anyway.
“Good girl.” Rico leaned closer, his voice dropping. “Now listen carefully. He’s going toe out aggressive. Angry. Ego’s bruised. Use
that. Make him chase you. Tire him out. Then–and only then–you go for the kill.”
“The kill?”
“Whatever it takes to put him down. You understand me? Whatever. It. Takes.”
Round three.
The bell rang like the start of an execution.
Kade came out like a man possessed. The confident smile waspletely gone. Now his face was twisted with rage and something that
might have been humiliation.
Good. Anger made people stupid.
He threw a haymaker that would have taken my head clean off if it connected. I ducked under it–felt it whistle over my hair–and drove
my fist into his kidney.
He grunted and spun faster than someone his size should be able to move, catching me with a backhand that sent me stumbling across
the ring.
Stars exploded across my vision again. But I kept my feet.
We circled each other, both breathing hard, both bleeding, both refusing to quit. The crowd was on their feet now, no longerughing.
Kade rushed me. I sidestepped at thest second and used his momentum against him, grabbing his arm and throwing him toward the
ropes.
He caught himself and turned, his face now a mask of pure fury.
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“You’re dead,” he snarled. “You hear me? DEAD!”
“Prove it.”
His fist caught my cheek. My fist caught his nose. Blood sprayed–1 couldn’t tell whose.
Another exchange. Another. Another.
The crowd was screaming so loud the walls were shaking. People were throwing money. Throwing drinks. Completely losing their
minds.
“KILL HER!”
“NO! FINISH HIM!”
“OH MY GOD THIS IS INSANE!”
Thirty seconds left. I could hear the timekeeper counting down, each second punctuated by the crowd’s roar.
Kade was slowing. His punches were getting wilder, sloppier. The damage I’d done to his knee was affecting his bnce. He was favoring
his left side.
Twenty seconds.
I was barely conscious. Running on pure adrenaline and spite. My vision was tunneling. My legs were about to give out.
Fifteen seconds.
Kade threw another haymaker. I saw iting this time. Saw it in slow motion.
I dropped low. Let it sail over my head.
Then I drove my knee straight up between his legs with every ounce of strength I had left.
The sound Kade made wasn’t human. It was high–pitched. Agonized. The sound of someone experiencing a pain so profound their brain
couldn’t process it.
His eyes went wider than I’d thought physically possible. His mouth opened in a silent scream that no sound came out of.
The entire crowd went silent. Absolutely silent. Hundreds of people holding their breath as one.
Kade dropped like a puppet with all its strings cut. His knees hit the canvas first, then he toppled sideways in a fetal position, both hands
between his legs, his face turning gray.
The referee jumped in immediately, checking him. Checking me. <fn8a50> This text is hosted at Find~Novel</fn8a50>
Ten seconds.
Nine.
Eight.
Kade was trying to get up. His body was trying. But nothing was working. He rolled onto his side, gasping like a fish, his eyes rolling back
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in his head.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
The bell rang.
For a long, suspended moment, no one moved. No one breathed. The entire warehouse was frozen.
Then the referee raised my arm.
“Winner!” His voice cracked with disbelief. “SERA!”
The sound was so loud it was painful. People were screaming, jumping, throwing money in the air like confetti. Someone set off what
might have been fireworks. Bills rained down around the ring–fives, tens, twenties, hundreds–as people lost bets and won fortunes.
“HOLY SHIT!”
“DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?”
“SHE ACTUALLY FUCKING WON!”
I’d won.
I’d actually fucking won.
My legs gave outpletely. Rico caught me before I hit the canvas, his arms wrapping around me as someone pressed five thousand
dors in cash into my bloody hands.
“You did it,” Rico was saying, over and over. His voice sounded choked with emotion. “Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, you actually did it.”
Everything went dark around the edges. I felt myself falling, felt Rico’s arms tighten around me, heard him shouting for a medic.
Myst thought before consciousness slipped away was simple and triumphant:
*I’m a fighter now. Again.* 1
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