Read Online Ringside by Elodie Chase - Free Book Online Page B

somewhere. I heard her say
something about how much of a man you are for taking a beating like that.
You’ve got her wet, Angel. She’s yours, after the fight.”
    Angel’s back was
to me, so I couldn’t see his reaction to the man’s words.
    The air horn
sounded again, and Angel and Nitro got back to the dirty, sweaty, bloody
business of beating each other to a pulp.
    Again, all Angel
seemed intent on doing was panting his feet and swinging away, trading bombs
with the bigger man.
    Was it a pride
thing? Was there some unwritten, macho rule that said getting out of the way of
the punch that was going to knock your head off was unmanly? Even the comment
section of the videos I’d watched the night before had made mention of his
appalling footwork, though some of his fans had said that Angel’s style was
exactly what they liked to see.
    Of course they
liked it. They weren’t the ones getting smashed to pieces in the ring.
    The second round
went a lot like the first, and when the air horn stopped them from killing each
other momentarily, my heart was in my throat.
    I couldn’t watch
this. Not anymore. Angel had wanted me to be here, and I’d come just like I’d
promised. I didn’t know who he was to me, but the feelings I had for him were
certainly growing.
    Why then did he
want me to see him like this?
    His fat manager
brought him back to the stool. I could see in Angel’s clouded eyes that he
wouldn’t have been able to find it on his own, and when the guy turned him
around and made him sit, the same shit started coming out of his manager’s
mouth.
    “They love you,
Angel. Listen to ‘em!”
    The crowd was most
definitely hitting a fever pitch. They may have been savvy, seasoned viewers of
this sort of carnage, but even I could sense that this wouldn’t last much
longer. One of these men was going to go down, and the other was going to
either be a murderer or just short of one.

Angel

 
 
 
    Third round. Those
words echoed at me from somewhere, and it took me way longer than it should to
know where I’d heard them so recently.
    Jessie. He’d told
me the smart money was on Nitro putting me to bed in the third. Well, here we are. Just try it.
    I tried to look
around at the faces in the crowd for Sloane. She wasn’t in the seat I’d gotten
Jai to save for here, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t here.
    The faces were all
blurry though, and I found that trying to focus on any of them for too long
gave me a jolt of pain behind my eyes.
    “Don’t break
focus,” Jessie barked, grabbing my head and yanking my attention back to Nitro
on his stool across the way. “That guy thinks he ends it here. Get yourself
ready to prove him wrong.”
    Jessie was
probably right. The way I was feeling, if I didn’t catch a break or really
steel myself for the next few minutes, I was liable to get my head taken off.
    That damn air horn
screamed again, and I got to my feet.
    At least, I tried
to. One second I was on my feet, trying to get my head together, and the next I
had Jessie’s greasy hands on my hips as he steadied me.
    “You okay?” he
asked, peering up at me.
    It was the first
time in all of my time with him that I’d ever seen him show so much as a hint
of compassion.
    He was genuinely
worried.
    “I’m good,” I
reassured him. I didn’t think I was lying to him, not really, but I have to
admit it was worrying to have him care.
    I could remember
dozens of times when I’d been in far, far worse shape than I was now. Hell, I’d
boxed with a broken hand and a jaw fractured in two places, and fat Jessie
hadn’t even batted an eye.
    But now, he was
sweating way more than usual.
    “You gotta get
back in there,” he said, with a level of urgency I’d never seen from him. “It’s
important, you understand?”
    I nodded. Of
course I understood.
    There was a big
difference between understanding and making my body fight off the effects of
the last couple of rounds, though…
    “I got this,” I
told