Mine (Real Book 2)

Fully aware that I’m accompanying the guys almost by force, I wisely stay quiet during our ride to the hospital. Everyone seems to be on the same channel. Not a word is exchanged. Barely even a look. We all seem to expect Remy to say something, but his attention is firmly fixed on the passing city scenery, his profile hard in determination. I don’t really think he’s seeing anything; he’s lost inside his head.

When we arrive, I feel the warmth of his body suddenly envelop me as he bends down and takes my lips briefly with his. His voice shivers through me as he tells me, “I’ll be out soon.”

“No! I want to go with you!” I call to his broad back as he disappears down the hall with a nurse while Pete goes to the desk to check him in. I begin suspecting it is, in fact, kind of a big deal when Riley starts talking to me like I’m a baby.

“It’s so much better if you stayed here, Brooke,” he practically croons.

I scowl. “Don’t treat me like a flower, Riley. I want to be there for him. I need to be there for him.”

Pete heads in the direction Remington disappeared, and I quickly jog to him. “Pete, can I go in with him?”

For a moment, there’s a man-to-man communication going on between the guys, then Pete finally nods at Riley and tells me, “I’ll come get you when he’s prepped.”

“Prepped?”

Pete disappears down the same hall Remington did.

“Riley?”

I’m completely confused here.

Riley sighs. “He’s having a procedure to induce a brain seizure.” And as he starts to explain, I listen as if I’ve just slid to the other side of a tunnel, and am getting farther and farther away by the second. A fire burns in my eyes and all I know now is that the hospital walls are white. So blank, and plain, and white. “. . . while his brain will receive an electric current . . .”

The heart is a hollow muscle, and it will beat billions of times during our life.

I’ve learned, in my short life, that you can’t run if you tear a ligament, but your heart can be broken into a million pieces and you can still love with your whole being.

Your whole, miserable, insanely vulnerable fucking being . . .

I can feel my heart thumping hard as ever in my chest, thump thump thump. Even though I’m trying to act like it’s NO BIG DEAL, my brain reels as I try to grasp what Riley has just explained to me. That Remington is about to commit himself to electroshocks. A fucking electric current is going to be sent through his scalp to his brain to give him a fucking brain seizure.

Now he’s telling me that there could be some short-term memory loss, that he will be given short-acting anesthesia, that his blood oxygen levels and heart rate will be monitored, that other than the possible short- or long-term memory loss, there is no other known side effect. I swear that when I replay in my head the scene of Remington disappearing down the hall with the hospital staff, I hear a low, dull sound echoing in the cold, white walls—a low, dull sound coming from me.

“Oh, Riley.” His name comes out in a low, wretched moan, and I cover my face as panic and fear rise in me like a tide, drowning me.

My pulse falters when Pete appears and signals to me. I run over and follow him, half dying and half as alive as I’ve ever been from sheer panic, into a room. I see machines, become hyperaware of the unsurpassable coldness of the hospital, and in the middle of the room, I see him. He’s being strapped down with Velcro bands around his thick wrists.

His beautiful body spread out on the flat surface, he’s covered in a hospital robe as he faces the ceiling.

Remy.

My beautiful, cocky, playful, blue-eyed boy and my serious, somber man who loves me like nobody in my life has ever loved me.

The urge to protect him from whatever is coming is so overpowering, I approach with slow but determined steps, one hand curled under my cantaloupe-size tummy where our baby is. My whole arm is shaking uncontrollably as I reach out for the large, tanned hand that is strapped down to the table. Strapped. To the table. And my voice cracks like glass as I lightly rub my fingers through his, trying to sound calm and rational while I really feel crazy enough to scream. “Remy, don’t do this. Don’t hurt yourself, please don’t hurt yourself anymore.”

He squeezes my fingers and flicks his eyes away from me. “Pete . . .”

Pete seizes my elbow and tugs me away, and I freak out when I realize Remington really doesn’t want to see me here. He hasn’t looked into my eyes. Why won’t he look into my freaking eyes? I turn to Pete as he pulls me out of the room, my voice a degree below hysterical, “Pete, please don’t let him do this!”

Pete grabs my shoulders and hisses, low, so that we don’t draw attention, “Brooke, this is a common procedure used on people with BP—this is how they pull people from suicide watch! Not everyone finds the right dose of medicine, and the doctors are aware of that. He’ll be sedated through it.”

“But it’s just a fight, Pete,” I argue miserably, pointing into the room. “It’s just a stupid fight and this is him!”

“He’ll pull through. He’s done it before!”

“When?” I cry.

“When you were gone and we had to keep him from slitting his fucking wrists because of you!”

Ohmigod. My heart shatters so hard, I think I hear it, and it’s not just my heart, but my entire body is breaking down on the inside, cracking under the grief of what Pete has just told me. The hurt is so great, I curve myself protectively around my stomach and I frantically try to remember to breathe, if not for me, for this baby. His baby.

“Brooke, this is the shit he’s lived with his whole life. He’s up, he’s down, he’s all over the place. His decisions might hurt but making them gets him through it. This is how he was formed—this is why he’s who he is. He is strong because of this bullshit! You can be pitiful or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both. He is powerful. You have got to be strong with him—he’ll break if he knows this breaks you.”

Even though my fears have completely gnawed away all my confidence and my stomach is about to turn over, I somehow manage to pull myself into some semblance of a person. I manage to straighten my spine and lift my head, and take a small, ragged breath, because I will do this for him. I will do it with him and I will prove to myself, and to him, that I am going to be strong enough to love the hell out of him.

I suck in another breath and wipe the corners of my eyes. “I want to be there.”

Pete signals at the door and gives me an approving nod. “Be my guest.”

My steps are quiet and almost hesitant as I go into the room. He’s big and massive and strong, I know, even if my heart is a rag in my chest and all my blood seems to feel like ice inside me, I am going to prove to him that I am worthy of being his mate and the one who will stand when he can’t. I don’t know how I will prove this, because I am toppling, like a crushed building, as I walk inside. I look all right, but inside of me, in my very soul, I’m disintegrating, nerve by nerve, organ by organ.

He looks at me now—straight into my eyes, and I can see the worry in his dark eyes. Of course he’s afraid I’ll topple. He doesn’t want to see that in my eyes. “Okay?” he asks me in a husky whisper.

I nod and reach for his hand. My reply should be, “More than okay.” Right? But I just can’t get any more words past my closed throat. So I rub his fingers with mine, and when he squeezes me, I remember our flight out of Seattle, this hand, the one I will not let go of, and I squeeze back as hard as I can and smile shakily down at him.

“That’s my girl,” he rasps, brushing his thumb over mine.

He’s strapped and about to receive electroshocks and he asks me about me. Oh god, I love him so much, if he dies I want to die with him and this is no fucking joke. I blink back the tears and squeeze him harder.

“Can I hold his hand?” I ask one of the nurses.

“Sorry, you can’t during the procedure,” she tells me.

Remington cautiously watches me as I force myself to step back and they attach some electrodes to his forehead. A ball of fire is in my throat, in my heart, and in my stomach. I am not even breathing when a nurse asks him, “Are you ready?”

“Hit me,” he answers, his eyes briefly flicking over me to check my reaction before he faces the ceiling again.

They start the IV flow to sedate him.

They begin asking him questions. “Full name?”

“Remington Tate.”

My eyes well up.

“Date of birth?”

“April ten, nineteen eighty-eight.”

“Place of birth?”

“Austin, Texas.”

“Names of your parents.”

“Dora Finlay and Garrison Tate.”

I can barely take the fact that he is strapped, talking about his fucking parents, who made him black like this, his voice deep and strong, answering whatever they ask him.

Then she tells him, “Count from one to a hundred.” And they put a mouthpiece on him.

He starts to count, and I count in my head with him. His eyes shut. Beautiful dark lashes against his strong cheekbones.

My protective instincts rage so loud I want to scream at them to stop, now that he can’t see me and he can’t keep me from stopping this. But I stand here, because he wants to do this. Because he is strong. Stronger than me. He will whip himself into shape just like life has beaten him to it.

Then the shock goes.

His big body seizes and tightens on the table.

My body tightens and begins to implode.

The machine makes a beeping noise.

His toes curl.

I didn’t know if he’d be flailing, breaking things because he’s so strong, but his body remains relatively still as he takes the shock in his brain. Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my fucking god.

I am in love with Remington Tate and he has Bipolar 1, and it crashes down on me like an avalanche.

I don’t think I’ve ever cried this way. Despite putting all my effort into not crying, the tears are literally exploding out of my eyes and my arms are shaking and my body so weak with grief, I edge back to lean against the wall and unsuccessfully try to suck back all my tears.

“Hey, Brooke, hey,” says Pete, kneeling at my side, hugging me.

“It’s so hard,” I say, covering my face and trying to pull away from him because Remy wouldn’t want it. Remy wouldn’t like it. “Don’t touch me, Pete, oh god, this is so fucking hard. So fucking hard!” He grabs me and shakes me a little, his voice comforting, his eyes showing pain.

“He’s not suffering, Brooke. He just wants to get better. Brooke, he is NOT a victim. He makes his choices based on his circumstances. He’ll worry about you. You need to condition yourself like he has—please, I beg you to be strong.”

I nod, while all I can think of is Remy’s beautiful brain, his beautiful body, my church, my sanctuary, enduring this.

“Brooke, it hurts me too. All right? It hurts me too. You can’t let him see that. He’s strong because as far as he’s concerned, this is his reality; he deals with it—he’s never had any different. He doesn’t lament it. Don’t let him see this breaks you or you’re going to break him. You don’t have to save him; just be with him while he saves himself.”

Getting a grip on myself, I nod and wipe my tears as I try to piece myself together. I squeeze the tears out of my eyes as I try to stand and the nurses and doctor say it’s all done.

Remy is still sedated, on the table, and they’ve removed his mouthpiece and somehow cleaned his air ducts. I grab his hand when they unstrap him, bring it to my lips, and kiss each of his knuckles, then wipe them dry of my tears with my lips.

The way Remy is taken care of . . .

Pete is such a good man, it breaks my heart that my sister must not have seen it.

“Pete, my sister really liked you—I don’t know what happened,” I whisper.

His eyebrows fly up to his hairline. “What? Brooke, I like her too—I still do. But I won’t leave my brother for just anyone.”

Nodding in silence, I study Remington’s large hand. Every callus, every line in this palm . . . the rise of his knuckles, the length and shape of his beautiful fingers, the short stubs of his clean, square nails.

Quietly, I stroke the lines in Remy’s palm and then lift my head and smile into Pete’s kind brown eyes. “One day you’ll find someone who makes you want to do anything for her. Pete, I’m going to take care of him. You’re going to teach me to take perfect care of him.”

He smiles and pats my shoulder. “Until then, neither of you is going to have to do this on your own.” He puts a hand on Remington’s shoulder, and I swear in heart and mind, even if not in blood, he truly is Remington’s brother, and at this moment, how I wish my sister and I were as close, and as loyal, as this.

“Brooke, I did something I’m very ashamed of, and I think I owe you an apology,” Pete blurts out. Seeing the despair in his eyes plants a cold little ice cube in the center of my belly.

“When you were gone, he got so bad. He was on suicide watch at the hospital, and they kept sedating him when he woke up, because he destroyed things and tried to go after you. They gave him antidepressants, and they didn’t work, and with rapid cyclers like Rem it’s not a good idea anyway. So we had to start him up on this.” He signals to the table. “We did it for several weeks so he could be discharged. . . .”

He looks at me, and I don’t think I’m even breathing. I’m just staring, waiting for more, confused and partly numb from the roller coaster of the day.

“After the first three treatments he got a little better, so he was discharged, and we came three times a week for ECT for a couple weeks. During that time, he was still black. We brought him fourteen women.”

My heart cracks at the mention of them, and I feel myself erecting several mental blocks as I grip my stomach and my brain screams, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know!

“I make all these women sign paperwork that they won’t talk, no pictures, that they’ll use double protection. . . . They all came out half an hour later with the condom packets intact, confirming they couldn’t get him to turn over or even raise his head from the bed. He told them all to leave. All of them.”

I keep staring, and Pete rubs his face with his hands, and adds, “He didn’t sleep with any of them, Brooke, no matter how hard we tried for him to. He was obsessed with your fucking letter, reading and reading it every moment he was awake. When he finally pushed through that depression and came into his blue eyes, he had no recollection of anything. Maybe because he was black, or maybe because of the electroshock’s side effects. He had about twelve treatments. But we’d almost lost him, Brooke, you know? Riley and I were . . . we were pissed as hell with you too! So we told him he’d been having fun with all these women.”

“Pete!” I gasp in complete and utter horror.

“I’m sorry! But we wanted him to remember how it used to be, before you. So that he would remember that there are hundreds of women out there, not just you.” He shrugs and looks at me almost pleadingly. “But even when we tried to make him think he was doing fine without you, I guess his head is not what rules a man like him. He heard all about the women, didn’t comment on it, then started packing and said we were flying to Seattle, and that we had to arrange to get your sister back to take to you. So yeah. I—Riley and I—lied to him,” he says. “It’s been killing me. Now, once he knows the truth . . . he’ll never trust us again!”

His voice breaks, and he turns away as Riley comes into the room. Riley looks back and forth between us, sensing something’s up. Finally, Pete says, in a dreary, tired tone, “I told her, man.”

Riley meets my disbelieving stare, his face crestfallen. “B,” he says.

That’s all he says. A letter. The one letter that’s tattooed to Remy’s right bicep.

“You have to tell him,” I say and I glance at one, and then the other of them, not even able to bear the hurt I feel for Remington right now. “You can’t ever, ever, lie to him again. It’s not fair to him! I did that once too, and I understand you wanted to protect him as well . . . but it’s confusing to him. It’s confusing to forget some of the things you do. You can’t—none of us, can ever—lie to him again. Do you both hear me?”

Riley strokes a hand down his face and his voice wavers too. “He’s going to fire our fucking asses.”

I look at them both, their expressions torn, and I shake my head. “If you really believe that, then you don’t know him at all.”

♥  ♥  ♥

HE WAKES UP on the bed soon after the guys leave. His eyes are lazy, but they settle on me and sharpen. They’re not yet blue, but I see a little life in those black pools, and I feel a little tingle inside me that becomes a huge knot of emotion.

“Look at you.” He speaks in a drug-thickened voice. I can hear the obvious praise in his words, as if I look pretty fantastic, and when I see a dimple peek out, the force of my emotions almost cripples me. He doesn’t know he was a mess without me, but now I do. He doesn’t know he was brought women to pleasure him and that he didn’t want them. He doesn’t know he is magnificent, perfect, beautiful, noble, good, and everything, everything, I have ever wanted.

And right now, it hurts like a bitch to know that his brothers, whom he takes care of and loves, also didn’t know what to do and ended up lying to him.

“Look at you,” I tenderly counter, immediately kneeling on the floor next to his bed and setting my cheek on his knuckles. I kiss every bruise on his hand once more.

“Hey, I’ve got this, I don’t want you to worry,” he says, stroking his free hand along the back of my head.

“I know.” Ducking my head, I rub my face against the sheet so he maybe won’t see the stray tears leaking from my eyes. I kiss his knuckles lovingly again. “I know you do.”

Even with the anesthesia’s thickening effect, his voice still has the same effect on me it always has. “Get up here. What are you doing down there?” he murmurs gruffly as he tugs me up. I know they gave him muscle relaxants, but even so, before I know it, he pulls me over him and stretches me like we sleep at night when he’s in my bed. My round stomach gets in the way, but it’s not enormous, so I tilt to the side and smell his neck and bury my face in his chest as we adjust.

“Your nurses will kick me out if they see this,” I say.

He grabs my ass and adjusts me a little better. “I won’t let them. You’re my medicine.”

I close my eyes and he smells like him. His arms are his. Everything is normal, except I’m wearing clothes and he’s in a hospital robe, and we’re not in a hotel room. He is still him, wearing my heart on his sleeve. Everything I want, right here, in my arms.

I slide my hand to his jaw and kiss any part of his face I can as I clutch him a little desperately. “Remy, you’re my king.” I hug him hard. “There’s no chess game for me without you.”

He shifts and works the control under the bed so that we sit up slightly. He adjusts me on his lap, his lips on my ear. “You’re the queen who will protect me,” he says in amusement, and when I nod because I can’t speak, he strokes my hair as he looks into my face, and I know—even if he doesn’t tell me—that my eyes are swollen and that he can tell I’ve been crying. I feel his lips press into my eyelids, first one, then the other, as he fists a hand in my hair and roughly pleads, “Stay strong, my little firecracker. Stay strong with me.”

I nod. “I’ll try, because you inspire me.”

“We got you what you wanted, Rem,” Riley says from the door. I’m so comfortable in his arms I don’t even turn to greet him. And then I feel something smooth against my cheek. I open my eyes and see Remy holding out a rose to me. Him. In the hospital. Giving me a rose with those dark but twinkling eyes with the blue flecks.

“Remy,” I say, a confused, puzzled laugh leaving me.

“I’d give you a whole fucking garden if I could.” He tips my chin back and holds me in that stare. “For being here, right now, with me.”

“Oh, god.” I duck my head into his chest because I can’t take it, my fingers curling into his hospital robe. “I will be here every time you need to do this. I will be here, I promise you.”

As we’re checking out of the hospital, I get a text from Melanie.

How are things in Happily Ever After? Other than happy?

I smile as we get back into our rented Escalade as if this were just another Monday, and Remington climbs into the car with me and puts his arm on the back of my seat, like he always does. I’ve been through hell, and I’m back in heaven, and suddenly I know that’s the way my life will be: after the dark, I will always, always find my light—which is him.

I type back, Perfect

“The last time the shocks helped us pull him out of suicidal thoughts, but we had to do three a week, and we just don’t have time for that now. We can’t give him any more muscle relaxants, so we’ll have to hope this was enough of a reset,” Pete tells us all.

“I’m fucking fine,” Remington growls. We all seem to search his gaze, and it’s Riley who gathers up his courage to speak.

“Rem, Pete and I would like to have words with you about something,” he says, looking briefly at me and using a voice that practically begs me to coax Remy into reason. “Pete’s got an update on Brooke’s sister, and we just want to tell you something. Tomorrow morning before you hit the gym?”

“I heard,” he says simply, surprising everyone in the car. “I’m still thinking about what to do with you bozos.”

“Shit, Rem,” Riley says, aghast. “I’m about to go change my fucking pants, just be reasonable.”

Pete looks really upset. “Rem, I swear to god I wouldn’t ever have lied about anything else—it seemed harmless; it seemed it would only help your state of mind.”

“My state of mind isn’t helped knowing I can’t trust you dipshits,” he growls, and they both go quiet and continue looking sick as he adds, “You’re my brothers, but SHE IS MINE. If she’d left me because of your lie, I’d kill you right now. I’d goddamn kill you both.”

“We’d bring her back to you, Remington,” Pete promises. “I swear, if we’d known the level of your . . . I swear we’d bring her back to you.”

“Rem, we were trying to help you survive. Like we always do. We thought it was over, dude. We thought we were helping. But then Brooke came back and we realized how wrong—shit, how wrong we were. We don’t even know how to correct the record without looking like idiots to you.”

Remy is thoughtful for a long time, and the three of them exchange strange, brother-like bonding gazes. Then Remington nods and slides his arm around my waist, pulling me to him, and when he nuzzles my pulse point with a soft growl and curves his hand over the roundness of my stomach, all the tension eases from my shoulders. I melt into his arms.

A thousand fuzzy things flutter inside me when I hear him inhale again, longer and deeper this time, like he needs my scent to calm down and find his center. I duck and kiss the top of his dark head, running my hands through his hair. I swear I can’t stop kissing him. I kiss his jaw, his temple, reach for his hand, kiss the backs of his fingers.

When we get back to the suite, Diane serves dinner, her face all aglow at seeing him at the table, and when Remy looks at me across the table and pats his lap, I almost run to it. When he lifts his fork to me, I feel like a stupid starved bird that’s being fed for the first time in a century.

When he asks me, “More?” quietly, intently watching my mouth as he lifts his fork, I nod and bite it all off and then, before I even munch, I press my lips to his, because I can’t express the relief I feel after this procedure, seeing that he’s all right. And actually a little better.

He lazily hits the bed, his body still relaxed with the remains of the anesthesia and the muscle relaxants they gave him, the mattress squeaking as he falls on it, all muscular and loose. “Come here,” he calls without even lifting his head or looking to see where I am.

We just brushed our teeth and I’m picking up the clothes that he left littered around, then I add mine to a neat pile in the corner chair and slide naked under the covers with him. Our skins touch. Every sensation is heightened to me. I am grateful for his touch. For hearing his voice. For every single moment I have right now with him. I now see how precious it is. Every song he plays me, when that brilliant mind is all right and blazing with light and thoughts. Precious, even, when he’s in the dark, quietly fighting it and clinging to me.

His arm curls around my waist, and his fingers curl at my hip bone as he drags me over to spoon me. My anxiety over having watched him go through what he just did still rushes through me, and I can’t help but press extra hard to his body. I hear him rumble out a chuckle in amusement.

To hear his soft, sexy laugh . . .

Oh god.

“It’s not funny,” I say tearfully as I face him. “It’s not fucking funny.”

“Yes, it is,” he whispers with one adorable dimple, his voice deep and textured as he rubs the pad of his thumb down my nose. “Nobody’s ever worried about me before.”

“Yes, they do, Remy. Everyone who you love, loves you too. Pete, Riley, Coach, and Diane. They’re just better at hiding it from you.”

He looks at me thoughtfully, then he spreads his hand on my stomach as his lips scrape, soft and tender, over mine. “I’ve done this before. I’ve got this, little firecracker.” Those dark eyes watching me, he rubs his thumb over my forehead now. “Don’t get that little face for me, all right?” He crushes me to him and squeezes his eyes shut, groaning as if it feels good to him to hold me. “I want to make you happy. I want to make you fucking happy, I never want to make you sad.”

“Okay,” I say, still a little emotional, pressing my lips to his jaw.

“Okay?” he says, turning his head and pressing his lips to mine.

Sliding my arm around my stomach, I lace my fingers through his as I nod. “More than okay.”

Running my free hand over his hair, I curl one of my legs around his hips and rain a thousand and one kisses on his face, making him chuckle. I laugh softly with him, a smile curling my lips with every kiss I continue to press on him, but I don’t stop.

Now I know that he is really mine. These fingers have been mine from the moment they touched me. This face. These lips. His huge, kind, protective, possessive, and forgiving heart. He’s been mine since I’ve been his, and knowing this makes me feel like I’m being pieced apart, then put back together new and whole and happy.

“I want to sleep with you in me,” I plead, dragging my open mouth along his jaw, my fingers suddenly almost clawing the skin of his shoulder as I breathe in his warm skin and try to get closer with my swollen tummy in between.

He slips his hand between us and starts preparing me with his fingers as he turns his head to slowly, leisurely take my mouth, his tongue slowing me down, licking into me with lazy pleasure. “Are you ready?” he murmurs heatedly.

“Fill me . . .” is all I can say, and a breathless sound bubbles up my throat as he grabs me by the waist and sinks me down on his length, filling me up so I am so full and so penetrated by him, I can hardly talk, or breathe, or think of anything but that Remy is inside me, pulsing and hot, his mouth taking me, slowly, quietly, reassuring me he’s got this. And he’s got me.

♥  ♥  ♥

HE’S STILL BLACK the day of the fight, and the atmosphere in the presidential suite is thick with tension as we wait for him to get ready.

Pete, Riley, and Coach hover by the master bedroom door, while I’m being eaten alive by my own sick worry, because I seriously don’t know if he should fight like this.

“Mention that motherfucker’s name!” Coach hisses to Pete. I think he wants to provoke Remington’s turbulent energy into action, but Pete shakes his head.

“We won’t use anger. He’s full of self-hatred when he’s low,” Pete whispers.

But what I’ve personally most felt is his inner struggle. He’s been inside himself, fighting. He doesn’t release a word of self-loathing, but I sense that he thinks the words, he feels them in his soul. The electroshock helped, but he’s still low. It breaks me that he needs to fight like this.

“Try warming up those muscles, Brooke,” Pete suggests.

Coming over to where Remy is tying up his boots in silence, I slip my hands up and down his back and loosen up any muscle that I can, awakening them with slow, deliberate hard presses of my fingers.

“All right, Rem, let’s get pumped up. I know you like this one,” Pete says as he sets Remy’s iPod on my speakers.

“Uprising” by Muse bursts through the room at high volume. The rebellious beat of the music seems to reach Remington’s ears, and his muscles start engaging under my fingers, like he can’t help but respond.

My heart quivers a little. Is he coming into himself?

He’s been so busy fighting inside himself, I just wonder if he has enough fight left for Scorpion.

He jerks on his other boot while I rub his hard muscles and try to transmit every ounce of good and healing energy I have to him. I warm each muscle, one by one, moving up his back, paying extra attention to his rotator cuffs. When I can’t stop myself from bending down to his dark head to ask him how he feels, he swings around and grabs the back of my head, holding it as he locks his mouth to mine and plunders me.

When he pulls back, my mouth burns from the wet heat of his, and his eyes simmer with a dark and fierce desperation. He stares at me like I’m the only hope in the world, the look in his eyes so wild and fierce, he lights the hope inside me that maybe he’ll fight. Maybe he wants it bad enough to push through this. I know how badly he wants this win, and I know how completely he loathes it when his black side fucks with him.

“Remington, dude, this is what you’ve been waiting for.” Pete seizes his shoulders and draws his attention to him with a reassuring squeeze. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is within reach. Everything. You have plans after the championship, I know you do. Winning will make them happen. Brooke, the baby . . .”

At those words, I see him pinch his eyes shut for a quiet moment, then he drags in a long, slow breath. Pete bends to whisper something in his ear, and Remington nods and gruffly tells him, “Thanks.” When he opens his eyes again, he gets up, and the synapses in my brain seem to fire up in excitement.

Draped in his fighting gear already, his ripped, tan body looks every inch the prime-time fighting machine he has built himself to be. When he says, “Come here, Brooke,” I’m so insanely nervous about this fight, I almost stumble forward as I go. He takes me in his arms and hugs me tight, placing a warm kiss on the back of my ear. “I need you in my peripherals, at the very least. At all times. At all times.”

Suddenly, my insides shudder with the knowledge that he will be fighting, and come hell or heaven, I will be watching him. “I won’t move from my seat!” I promise.

He zeroes his attention on me for a second longer, then he kisses the back of my ear once more and pats my bum. That’s all he does. Then he starts jumping in place, twisting his arms up and around himself, and the entire atmosphere shifts dramatically as the team starts breathing again.

“Where’s Jo?” he gruffly asks Pete.

A tingle begins in my middle as I realize he truly is coming back.

“She’s already scouting the area,” Pete says, and there’s a quiver of excitement in his voice as he probably realizes the same.

“Neither you or Jo is to take your eyes off Brooke, do you hear me?” he commands as he cracks his neck to one side, then the other.

“We got you, buddy!” Pete assures him.

“All right, are we ready here?” Coach swings the duffel containing Remy’s clean clothes, Gatorades, and extra headphones over his shoulder.

“Ready,” Remington answers as he retrieves his iPod from the speakers. The music dies instantly, and we all watch him grab his headphones from the nightstand and latch them onto the silver iPod.

“Hell yeah, that’s my boy!” Coach yells out.

Riley woots. “That’s the MAN!”

“Who’s kicking ass?” Coach pounds Remy’s back as they head for the door.

“I am.” I hear Remington’s low growl.

Coach pounds his back with an even harder thud. “What name will they all be screaming tonight?”

“Mine.”

“Say it!”

“Riptide.”

“That’s not how the motherfuckers say it!”

Remington slams a fist to his chest and yells, “RIPTIDE!!”

“THAT’S RIGHT!” Coach yells back.

They knock knuckles, and then Coach leads him out of the room and to the elevators, the rest of us following behind. “Do you have enough for this fight, boy?”

“I got it.”

Coach nods, then prods, “What will we do if he doesn’t submit, boy? You already know what to do?”

“I know what to do.”

As I listen to that last calm statement, my blood pools in my feet, and it feels like every other part of me trembles as I break out in a million goose bumps and then some. A part of me wants to be brave and watch this fight, but I don’t remember ever feeling so lacking in courage in my life.

With a sudden frown, Remington shoves a thick finger into Coach’s chest. “Whatever happens, you don’t throw in the towel. Do you hear me? We NEVER, EVER submit.”

The tension in the air rises dramatically, and a couple of gazes are exchanged. When there’s no immediate reply from Coach, Remington pushes him back a step. “Coach. You do not throw in the towel. We don’t submit. Period.”

Coach’s eyes flick briefly in my direction—briefly, yes, but not briefly enough for me to miss the hesitation in his gaze before he nods. Exhaling beside me, Pete takes my hand when we hear a ting.

“Let’s go,” he murmurs.

We board the elevator, but I’m so freaking nervous, my fiercely pounding heart is going to break a couple of my ribs by the time we get to the Underground. Remington quietly fiddles with his iPod, his black headphones in one hand. He’s trying to get into the zone. With all the love I have for him in my heart, I watch him duck his head, place his headphones on, and play his music.

“Why’d you promise?” Riley confronts Coach while Remy listens to his music, his tone accusatory. “If things get butt ugly, we’re not letting him die out there today!”

“His eyes are coming blue! If someone’s going to die tonight, it isn’t our boy!” Coach contests.

All right, this is all crazy talk! My stomach is coiled like a poised venomous rattlesnake, and I just can’t take standing here like a mute for a second longer. “Pete, what are they talking about? I’m starting to freak the hell out here.”

“There have been rumors about this being the match of the decade,” he answers under his breath. “They’re both stubborn as heck, and one needs to submit for the win, Brooke. It could get bad. Like you said . . . more than shit happening.”

A little flash of last season’s final plays in my head, unbidden and unwanted. I remember Remy’s fallen body on the bloodied canvas floor. The crowd screaming his name. And then the silence when they realized their Riptide—fierce, passionate, beautiful Riptide—was down.

While all my insides twist and tangle like pretzels at the memory, we start shuffling out of the elevator, but Remington grabs my hand and holds me back. He whispers in my ear, “In my peripherals.”

His eyes bore into me, and I pray, pray, pray that he doesn’t see the fear in my eyes, but he pulls his headphones down to his neck, and I hear the music streaming between us. Crazy and fast.

“In your seat at all times, Brooke,” he tells me, and he slides his hands into my hair and slams his mouth to mine, stealing a taste of me while giving me a taste of him that leaves me drugged and dazed. He sets his forehead on mine, his gaze incandescent as he looks at me. “I adore you with every breath I take—in every ounce of me, I adore you.” With another fast and hard kiss, he slaps my ass. “Watch me break him!”

As we ride to the Underground, he keeps an arm stretched on the back of my seat while he listens to his music. The rest of the car is dead quiet. I can taste the violence in the air as he walks away into the locker rooms, and I want to shout a thousand “I love yous,” but he’s with his iPod now, getting into his zone.

“Pete, is he really ready for this?” I whisper uncertainly.

“I sure hope so, Brooke. I’d hate for this episode to take another one of his dreams. Come on,” he says as we jostle through the crowd toward our seats.

At least two thousand people fill the arena tonight. The Underground has been teasing its public the entire season, and now they’re bloodthirsty to watch Scorpion versus Riptide. Faces are streaked with red, simulating blood. Bright red Rs adorn women’s cheeks and the top rises of some of their breasts.

I see red, Riptide’s red, streaked across the seats and way in the back, with the standing crowd, where there’s also a little bit of black too. Scorpion black.

Settling down in my seat next to Pete, I notice that Remington has once again secured two more empty seats to our sides, and it seems like we wait for a lifetime. Staring at the emptiness of the center ring only seems to makes the crowd scream louder as they wait for Remington and Scorpion to fill the 23 x 23’ square space they see.

“Riiiptiiiiide!” a group of friends scream in unison across the ring from me.

Behind me, a chant begins: “Bring them out! OUT! OUT! OUT!”

The speakers crackle as if the microphone has been turned on, and an announcer appears up onstage. I almost leap out of my skin.

“Ladies and gentlemen, hello!” People roar their greeting before the announcer continues. “Well, here we are this evening with you all! Are you people ready? Are you all READY for a fight unlike any other? Unlike ANY OTHER, people! Ringmaster?”

The ringmaster by the corner of the ring turns all his attention to the announcer.

“Sir, we won’t need your services tonight,” the announcer gallantly says, adding a dramatic bow that causes a thundering roar to blast around the arena as the crowd stands and screams its approval.

“That’s right!” the announcer yells in a booming voice back at the crowd. “Tonight, there are NO rules, NO ringmaster. Anything goes. ANYTHING GOES, PEOPLE! No knockouts—this is a fight of submission. Submit!”

“Or die!!” people excitedly yell.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Yes! It’s a submission fight here tonight in the Underground! Now, let’s call your worst nightmare into the ring! The man your daughters cry about. The man you want to run from. The man you certainly don’t want to be up in the ring with. Our defending champion, Benny, the Blaaaack, Scorpionnnnnn!”

I’m hyperventilating. I don’t know how I thought I would cope sitting here, watching this match of the fucking decade, because every organ inside me is shivering from nerves and I think I’m going to vomit my heart out. Anything goes. No referee. Just like they thought it would happen, it will, and I don’t even know for sure what state of mind Remington is fighting in.

“Pete, I’m going to puke,” I choke out, sucking in deep breaths as my stomach tightens in a hard, sudden contraction.

In the distance, a figure with a black robe flapping behind him approaches the ring, and the nausea rises full force as I see him.

Scorpion.

With his giant middle finger sticking in the air, I decide he’s even worse than my Voldemort, because this guy is actually alive.

“Such an asshole,” Pete says in disgust.

The last time I had the displeasure of watching Scorpion come out to fight, Remington threw the fight to rescue Nora from that disgusting specimen of a man. And Nora, where is she now? What is Scorpion doing to her? Remington told me to trust him, and I do, but my fear is so great as I look into the face of that disgusting nightmare, every ounce of reason in me has fled. It’s impossible to silence the frantic screaming in my mind, telling me that Remington is going to get hurt tonight. He’s going to get hurt and once again, you can’t stop it! You can’t do anything about it!

Suddenly, I spot Nora across the stands, and an awful anger and hurt sweep through me as she carefully avoids my gaze.

Scorpion jumps up to the ring, and as his team removes his robe, the extra-large black scorpion he seems to have recently tattooed all across his back greets the crowd as he turns around to let everyone see it. The guy is still uglier than someone’s asshole, and I feel a perverse pleasure seeing that scar on his terrible face courtesy of Remy.

“The good news is, he’s still disgusting,” Pete says.

“Pete, I can’t believe my sister would be clear and free of him and then go back to that. It makes me sick.” I steal another glance at Nora across the ring, and her betrayal cuts me like a knife.

“It’s not what you think, Brooke,” Pete tells me, then nods at the ring. “Your guy’s got it. Just wait and see.”

“What do you mean?” I ask in bewilderment, but if Pete answers, I don’t hear.

Scorpion just turned in Nora’s direction, and she looks up at him with a somber expression that doesn’t really strike me as the look of a love-struck young woman. Then he jerks around to look at me, only to lift his middle finger in the air. Straight at me.

“Oh boy, Brooke, for the love of—”

I lift both my middle fingers in reply, and the beast smiles his yellow smile at me.

Pete gasps and groans as if in digestive pain. “All right, if Remington knows he just flipped you off and you just flipped him . . .”

“Booooo!” people instantly yell, and he shows them the bird too, along with his yellow smile, and as if that isn’t gross enough, he also grabs his groin and squeezes. “BOOOOO!!” the crowd yells.

God, I can’t understand why my sister would be with such a specimen! She used to be so romantic. She used to want a prince. And she goes with Scorpion?

“And challenging our champion tonight, we all know his name! We are all waiting to see if he’s gonna bring it to this ring tonight. So . . . is he? Get rrrready to welcome the one and only Remingtooooooon Tate, yourrr Riiiiiptide!!”

It’s impossible to quell the lightning bolt that runs through me on hearing his name. It had been noisy when Scorpion came out. But the way people start yelling for Remington makes my throat close with emotion and my heart jerk inside my chest.

“Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!”

The chant tears through the crowd. The color red takes over the entire arena. Then I see the one spot of red that I’m dying to see as his shouted name surrounds me as completely as his color does. “Remyyyyy, kill him, Remyyyy!” “Go, Rrrrrriptide!”

My body functions heighten in every way. My lungs, my heart, my adrenals, my eyes, every part of me strains for him. The instant he comes trotting into the arena, I’m spun in a whirlwind of nervousness, fear, and excitement. I’m torn between the urge to usher him to safety and the want to cheer him on like the rest of his fans do, to let him know that I know if anyone owns that ring, it’s him.

With one easy leap, he takes the ring and immediately lets Riley pull his robe from his shoulders. I swear I hear a collective sigh from the women close to me.

“Remyyyyyyy! Kill him, Remy!!” one shouts.

And then, the amazing happens.

He starts with his signature cocky turn. All his muscles are glorious, tan, and hard, and I hear a woman scream nearby that his body should be immortalized, it is so masculine and perfect. Then he looks at me. Blue eyes shining. The bluest of the blue. His dimples flash, and I realize with a shuddering in my heart that this is what Coach meant about his blue coming back. His eyes are blue. Clear, beautiful, brilliant blue. Those eyes and dimples talk directly to the butterflies in my stomach, and I explode with them.

A frenzy of emotion shoots through me, and suddenly I know, with every fiber in my being, he’s got this. He does. He is Remington Tate. He’s a man who falls and gets up again and again. He pushes, plows, plunders, goes on. He’s. Got. This. I remember who he is. Where his drive comes from, some unnamable source that nobody in this world possesses. He is unconquerable and unbeatable—and he is going to crush Scorpion, just like he’s wanted to.

The bell rings, and my guy doesn’t waste time. He goes straight out to center ring, and while Scorpion seems to think they will jump around a bit, Remington jabs him three times, quickly enough to make the ugly animal stumble back.

Bubbles of excitement pop inside me. I cup my mouth and my screams instantly join the others. “Remy!!”

“Brooke?” Pete forces me down to my seat, but I’m so excited, I can’t stay down long. I feel him, Remington, in the weight in my belly; I feel him alive inside me and his energy within me.

The fight begins full force.

Remy slams his knuckles into Scorpion’s jaw, the punch jolting him. My chest can barely contain all the emotions inside me as my lungs labor for air. God, I’ve been waiting to see this happen for what feels like a thousand years, and I can barely stand it. The crowd has been waiting just as long to see this, and they’re yelling at the tops of their lungs. And so am I!

“Go, REMY!!!”

“Kill him, Remy!”

“Remington, I fucking love you! Ohmigod, I love you!” I scream.

“Brooke!” Pete says direly, and signals to my stomach. “All that jumping can’t be good.”

“It’s good, Pete. It’s so good!” The baby is shifting, and I’m getting some tolerable contractions, but I’ve felt them occasionally—I read the body starts practicing up to three months before delivery. I think baby feels my adrenaline. Or he knows Daddy is fighting. He squirms every time after a contraction, and I think there’s just too much action for him to relax now. How can we relax watching this? Ohmigod!

“I don’t know what it is about Remington and that ring,” Pete says. “But he just gets in it and whatever he’s living, he performs. Riley says it’s muscle memory, but I’m not too sure.”

“It’s Remy, Pete,” I tell him excitedly, and I grab and hug him.

Remington slams perfectly again, guarding, bouncing, and hitting, while Scorpion hasn’t landed a single punch. Not a single one. A chant spreads through the crowd: “Kill him, RIP! Kill him, RIP! Kill him, RIP!”

Pete told me that all the coaching in the world can’t turn a fighter into a strong hitter; you’re either a fierce puncher or you aren’t. He’d said that speed, you might work on, but not on making your hand heavy, and now I can see the difference in punching power.

Now I can see why Scorpion had to cheat to win the championship last season.

Between rounds, Remy bounces with energy, while Scorpion sits on his stool with his head lowered to the ground, his team working on smearing Vaseline or something on his cuts.

The bell dings again.

Remington comes off the ropes and jabs, but this time Scorpion jabs back, fast and accurately, disrupting his rhythm.

They go into a clinch. Remington jerks free and hooks with his right. Scorpion covers and comes back with a powerful punch that lands square in Remington’s rib cage.

The breath is knocked out of him, but Remy isn’t rocked. No. My tree isn’t rocked. Instead he starts punching those punches in bunches, his face concentrated and fierce, and Scorpion’s head starts swinging, blood pouring out of both his nostrils and from a cut near one of his eyes.

Scorpion hits back, his fist connecting with Remington’s jaw, causing blood to spill out of his mouth. Another contraction seizes me, and this time I’m having trouble remembering to breathe. The fight is intense, both thrilling and excruciatingly painful to watch.

The whirlwind of punching continues. Bouncing, chasing, they keep hitting each other. The difference in punching power is apparent. Remington is faster and stronger, and Scorpion seems to be the punching bag of choice today. He’s rocked, and he’s almost flattened out, but he won’t fall and keeps swinging out and landing punches right back at Remy. He grabs Remington by the neck and tries to throw him to the ground, and when he can’t, he lifts his knee and jams it into his stomach.

“Whaaat! That’s not fair!” I cry.

“Remington is a boxer; he never uses his legs except to stand, but anything goes here, Brooke. If Scorpion wants to bite . . .”

Fear peeks back inside me, and another contraction grips me, hard enough to make me bite back a moan of pain and sit down for a moment.

With an angry growl, Remington shoves Scorpion back and starts bulldozing him. Punch after punch. Wham! Wham! Wham!

I’ve seen him kill his speed bag, and his heavy bag, but I have never, ever seen him kill another man like this. Scorpion covers his head and ducks, and Remington charges, ramming into his gut, one, two, three times. Scorpion bounces back on the ropes and falls to his knees.

He spits on the ground and gets up with an effort, while Remington eases back as he catches his breath, his eyebrows low over his eyes, his eyes glimmering like a predator’s.

Scorpion charges forward and gets a lucky straight punch to Remy’s jaw, then he lands another hard punch to his right rib cage. Remy rocks backward.

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.

My stomach knots as the fight gets even more vicious and Remy corners Scorpion on the pole and slams his head from side to side, attacking him like he would his speed ball. Scorpion struggles and rams a knee into Remy’s gut.

“Brooke,” Nora sniffles, “they’re going to kill each other!”

A burning ball of fear gathers in my throat as we both watch the fight in mounting dread. They’re still hard at it. Scorpion has thrown out a couple of kicks, and they’re back at center. Remy is caked with blood, both Scorpion’s and his own, and although Scorpion can barely stand straight, he angrily charges with his shoulders, trying to butt Remington with his head.

“One of them has to stop now!” Nora whispers under her breath.

“It has to be Scorpion,” I say.

And then, Remington delivers a rapid, strong one-two punch that instantly drops Scorpion to his knees. A bellow of excitement erupts among the crowd, and Remy wipes the back of his arm across his brow and seeks me out among the spectators.

When he finds me, he doesn’t take his eyes off mine as he grabs Scorpion by the hair and yanks him up to his feet as he shows him Nora next to me.

He whispers something to Scorpion, and in answer, Scorpion spits red blood on the ground.

Remy shoves him away and takes position again, raising up his guard in a way that clearly says, All right, asshole, then we’ll just keep fighting and see who wears out first.

So they fight again. Remington swings out and punches with that same unnatural force that his crowd loves, and they immediately scream in approval as we watch all his muscles tighten and clench as he works them. Scorpion lasts two jabs and a hook—then he falls splat on his face.

The public is roused and excited, and a familiar chant rises up in a crescendo: “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”

“Rip! Seal the deal, Rip!!!!!!!!” a young man shouts from a corner of the first row.

Silence descends as Remington approaches Scorpion’s motionless body, and I don’t think I’m even breathing. My heart is doing all sorts of movements in my chest while I hear Nora start sobbing quietly next to me.

Scorpion crawls on the ground. Remington’s gaze is trained fixedly on me, his broad, glistening chest expanding on each haggard breath, and I know my forehead is scrunched in pain, but please, please, I don’t want him to realize anything is wrong.

“Go, Remy!!!!!” I scream, but I can’t stand, so I have to scream it from my seat. He turns and slams Scorpion back down when he tries to get up.

The people howl their approval.

Remy grabs Scorpion’s healthy arm and cracks all the fingers of his hand in one move; then he breaks his wrist.

Scorpion’s eyes bug out. He starts squirming as Remington slides his hands up to his unbroken elbow. Remington starts twisting it at an awkward angle, and a painful contraction rips across my body, making me swallow back a pained moan.

Scorpion thrashes beneath him and starts sputtering. Suddenly, there’s a loud yell, and a black towel falls into the ring, right next to Scorpion’s writhing body.

Remington clamps his jaw when he spots it, and the public boos when they realize Scorpion’s team has submitted for him. Disappointment flashes across Remy’s face, and it takes him a couple of seconds before he finally, finally, releases his opponent. Scorpion spits a ton of blood from his mouth and looks up at him, panting.

Remington starts to walk away but, hearing Scorpion mutter something under his breath, he turns and slams down his fist and knocks the miserable insect unconscious.

“RIPTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!” I hear the announcer scream.

Remy looks at me, his expression as fierce as the pain inside me. A storm of testosterone whirls around him, and I can see his emotions seething in his blue, angry eyes, silently screaming, “Do not fuck with me or what’s mine ever again!”

He comes to the edge of the ring and I shake my head no, not to come. I want to see him up there with his arm raised, taking his damn title, hearing his name on the announcer’s lips, hearing that same name tearing through the speakers.

The announcer grabs his arm and yanks it up in the air before Remington can reach the ropes, and happiness swamps me and mingles with my pain as I hear . . .

As I hear what I was supposed to hear that final fight a season before . . .

“The winner of this season’s Underground championship, I give you, REMINGTON TATE, RIIIPTIDE!!! Riiiiiiiiptide!! Riptide . . . where are you going?”

My eyes sting and he becomes a beautiful blur.

I’m sobbing because I know he’s just jumped down from the ring and is coming to get me. I know he knows something is wrong—he always knows. I don’t need to tell him. Pete sits by my side, oblivious to it. But my sister knew. And Remy, he knows. I feel his arms, sweaty and bloodied, as he kneels before me.

“Brooke, oh, baby, she’s coming, isn’t she?” When I nod, he says, panting and with blazing blue eyes as he wipes my tears, “I got you, all right? You got me, baby; now I got you. Come here.” He scoops me up, and I cry into his damp throat and wind my arms around him as he starts carrying me to the exit.

“He’s not . . . supposed . . . to come yet. . . . It’s too soon. . . . What if he won’t make it . . . ?”

All my emotions had been corked up and bottled, and now they’re flooding me. We were supposed to do this after, after this fight. After we had the room ready. After we went to Seattle.

The crowd mobs us and the fans reach out to stroke his damp, tan, muscular chest as he makes a path for us, ignoring every yell, every call, everything but me.

“RIPTIDE, YOU ROCK! RRIIIIPPPPTIIIDE!”

A song begins blaring—absolutely blaring—through the speakers, and I don’t recognize the singer or the tone, when a voice joins in.

“At the request of our victor, who has a very special question to ask . . .” I hear the announcer say as Remington bulldozes us through the crowd, with my head pressed to his chest. I hear his heart beating. His breath. Every part of him, I feel it.

He keeps going through the throng of people, and even through my pain, I notice fans have white roses in their hands as we walk past them, and some are tossing them at us from the stands. Then I hear the song’s lyrics go on, until two words hit me like a shot of adrenaline racing through my bloodstream: Marry me. . . .

“Wh-what?” I gasp.

He doesn’t answer.

He’s snapping instructions to Pete to pull the car around as we finally exit the Underground, and when we get into the car, Nora climbs up in front with Pete.

Remington takes my face in his hands and looks at me, his voice thick with emotion and dehydration, his face swollen and bloodied and killing me because I can’t do anything about it.

“The song was supposed to ask you to marry me, but you’ll have to settle on me doing the asking,” he whispers, his eyes glowing blue and powerful in the dark. “Mind. Body. Soul. All of you for me. All of you mine.”

He squeezes my face between hands that are damp and callused and bleeding.

“Marry me, Brooke Dumas.”