Read Online Pride (Bareknuckle Boxing Brotherhood Book 3) by Cara Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t search for Camila’s face when he knew she’d be in the kitchen. She wouldn’t even want to look at him. Any other girl would’ve been climbing him like a tree if he’d grabbed her for a victory kiss. He shook his head to clear it and glared at Joey Carney, waiting for the bell.
    As soon as it sounded, Bronny was on him. None of the slow predatory circling that usually opened a bareknuckle bout. He wanted to win, to destroy this guy as fast and as publicly as possible. To regain his pride and the Dolan name after his near knock-out, and to prove that he was still the best. Bronny ordinarily started with body blows, but this Carney had a pretty face. He slammed his fist right into the man’s mouth, taking him by surprise. Carney put his hand to his mouth and left his midsection unguarded so Bronny punched him in the stomach, the side, letting loose on him with a shower of blows. Steadily, Carney backed up, backed away, wiping the blood from his mouth, shaking his head. He spat blood onto the mat and came at Bronny with a surge of punches to his torso, but Bronny never backed up. The hush fell across the room as Bronny Dolan delivered a clip to Carney’s jaw that knocked him out cold.
    He looked at the man on the ground with a mix of contempt and pity. It wasn’t Joey Carney’s fault that he was the kind of son a Dolan wished for. It was Bronny’s fault for never being good enough for his family.
    Bronny bent down as the man blinked at him. He extended a hand to Carney, a gesture of brotherhood in a way. He didn’t expect the knife.
    Bronny saw the flash of the blade and put his hand up to protect his face. He felt the blade go in and the cry he couldn’t stop.
    His hand, his right hand—the pain was a flash behind his eyes, it was the roar of a crowd who had seen Carney fight dirty and pull a weapon when the match was over, it was Camila’s scream piercing the fog of pain and rage he felt. He knocked the blade from Carney’s hand, taking him by the throat with his uninjured left hand.
    “That’s the only way you could beat a Dolan, eh, Carney?” He demanded, shoving the man away from him in disgust. “You goddammed coward.”
    People had rushed the ring, got between the ropes to break them up, to help him if he needed it. His own dad was at his side, checking his hand and swearing.
    “You’ll have to go to fucking hospital with that. Smarmy little son of a bitch could’ve ruined your hand if he’d had better aim.” His dad patted his shoulder awkwardly.
    Bronny wrapped his bleeding hand in a towel someone passed him. The hand throbbed enough that he wanted something to bite down on but he settled for a pull of a whiskey bottle that his uncle handed him. He welcomed the sting and heat of the alcohol, giving him a more comfortable detachment.
    He didn’t look for Camila. He didn’t have to. She was right there, tugging at his elbow, wanting to see his wound, demanding that someone call the police and emergency services. He wouldn’t talk to her. It took all he could do to stay standing with the blood soaking the towel he clutched in his injured fist, with the sharp blade of pain in his hand and the distant ache in his head.
    Cold fear knotted in his belly. He wondered—he was afraid to even think it—that he might never fight again. This could be bad, as bad as it felt. By his dad’s grip on his shoulder, Bronny knew the older man feared the same conclusion. A Dolan with the fight gone out of him was shameful. A Dolan hurt so bad he’d never fight again—that was damnation itself.
    Bronny could only see a future that was grey, dull, a stretch of smooth road with nothing to recommend it—no surge of adrenaline when he climbed through the ropes, no glow of warmth in his chest when his dad clapped him on the back after a good fight.
    Who would he even be as a man without his fists to prove himself? Half a man, at best, he knew grimly. When his dad ushered him up the stairs and out to the