I see the yellow grin on Scorpion’s face when he aims a third punch straight into Remy’s temple and Remington bounces back on the ropes with a sound that is so distressing to hear, I jerk in my seat with a raw cry of pain.
He straightens with a shuddering breath that expands his broad chest, and my heart feels butchered. The pain I feel every time he takes a punch makes my contractions feel breezy! I inwardly wince as he approaches Scorpion again, now bleeding as freely as his opponent.
They go back at it once more, and I hear all those noises of their punches, pow pow pow!
My nerves abrade on the inside as the rounds drag on. One after the other. Neither submits. Neither falls. Squirming anxiously in my seat, I feel a pop, and then a slick sound reaches me—and I look down in horror to see that there’s water trickling under my skirt, down my bare legs. “No,” I say.
Feeling myself go white in sheer panic, I glance up at Remington and then at Pete, and he’s so engrossed in the fight, I mentally close my eyes and tell baby—please, please, not until your dad is ready.
I’m only six and a half months. Seven, at most. I can’t go into labor now!
Remington charges with one fist flying out, his arm swinging repeatedly. He’s so fast, I can barely see his movements, can mostly only hear the sounds of repeated bone crushing bone.
There’s no question. My labor has started. Contractions. Everything I read in the book is happening. My water just broke. Thank god it’s not flooding, but it’s trickling down my leg, leaking out of me. I drag in a deep breath as the pain takes hold. The contractions before my water broke were nothing compared to the pain I feel now as my abdomen seizes and squeezes. But Remington is fighting up there, and I’m not going anywhere until he’s ready to leave.
Ohmigod, I hadn’t even had time to be scared of the labor until now!
I’m so busy trying to remember how to take the slow, relaxing breaths that I read about that I don’t notice Nora has left her seat and has charged over to me.
“Are you all right, Brooke?” she asks worriedly.
Shit. She noticed. “Fine,” I gasp, as my contraction eases.
“Brooke, Benny won’t submit. He’d rather die,” she adds in a shaky voice, tears shining in her eyes. “You don’t want Remy to kill him, Brooke—the things it will do to his mind! And Benny is not all monster, he’s not.”
“Nora.” Pete reaches out for her hand and draws her over to him. “It’s taken care of, Nora. Scorpion won’t be hurting you again.” Looking into her eyes, he lifts his hand and touches her face, and Nora’s breath catches at the touch. A palpable sizzle stretches between them, and Pete gentles his voice as he continues, “We’ve negotiated. We’re getting it.”
“What?” I ask in puzzlement. “What’s going on?”
Pete stands to give Nora his seat and then takes the empty seat to my other side. “Pete, what’s going on?” I demand.
“Pete!” Nora cries. She shakes her head wildly, and Pete hesitates.
“PETE!” I demand furiously. “I swear I can’t take this bullshit right now!”
Pete pulls on his tie for a moment then ducks his head to my ear and rushes out, “Scorpion is out for Remington’s blood. He doesn’t think Remington can make him submit or that he has it in him to kill him—he made Remington agree that any championship match would be by submission. If our guy wins, he gets the championship but, most important to him, the . . . video of Nora.”
Nora makes a pained little noise and buries her face in her hands, and I’m just so stunned, my brain almost squeals as it tries to process. Nora was being blackmailed with a video of her? And Remy . . . agreed to this?
“He wanted to do it,” Pete tells me immediately.
“God, Nora,” I say. The thought of that madman using my sister to make Remington have to make the soul-killing choice to, what, kill the Scorpion made me fear for us all. If the bastard couldn’t beat Remy, he was determined to turn him into a killer?
And make him go black forever . . .
I focus all my attention on my sister when another contraction takes hold, and Nora slowly slides her hand over my stomach. “Is it the baby?”
Sucking in a breath and leaning over to her so Pete doesn’t hear, I nod. “Yes.”
“What do I do, Brooke?”
“Just hold my hand while I watch my guy take this.”
As if he’s listening to me, Remington continues terminating Scorpion up there. My nerves are in shreds. Scorpion’s nearly black blood is splattered across the canvas floor, and although he’s stumbling, he refuses to fall.
Panting for breath but unstoppable, Remington grabs him by the neck and jerks him around to face the empty space where Nora’s chair sits empty. His lips move as he mumbles something into Scorpion’s ear, and right when Scorpion lets out a sneering laugh, a loud crack fills the arena.
“AAAAAA!” the public gasps as Scorpion’s elbow breaks and his arm dangles limply from the middle down.