Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (116 page)

“Take down!” Cassie screams at me.

She’s right, he’s going to try and slam me, and he’s going to be ready for my counter.

My left counter.

I position my left to hit him, to use his body as leverage to pivot out of his charge, and throw his weight into the chain link fence of the cage.

His eyes go to my left. He’s bought it.

Come on, you fucker
.

He’s gassed, huffing, heaving, and this is as good a chance as I’m ever going to get.

Kaminski plays my left, and when he’s just a foot away from me, I feint with it.

He buys it completely, goes to counter, and that’s when I grab ahold of his neck with my right arm, swing my body around his, use my momentum to throw him to the mat hard.

His face grates across the cage fencing, sending a spray of blood into the audience.

I clamber on top of him, but he’s still playing my left, and so I sell it again, pretend to hook his neck with my left, and he twists to block it, giving me free access with my right.

I shove my right arm beneath his chin, wrap my legs around him, and pull as hard as I fucking can.

He throws an elbow backward, catches me in the forehead, splits skin, and crimson pours.

But as the ref approaches me I shoot him a stare that stops him cold in his tracks.

“I keep getting you in submission holds,” I growl into Kaminski’s ears as he slaps away uselessly at the mat. “Huh.”

But one thing I didn’t anticipate was our proximity to the edge of the cage. He kicks off it, rolls me backward, and his weight crushes into my gut, and I
feel
my lowest rib on my right side snap.

I wince, groan, but continue the roll, throw him over me and then grab onto his wrist. We’re lying on the mat, him ‘below’ me, and I’ve got his arm stretched out above his head, draped against my torso.

I’ve got a hold of his wrist, I wrap one leg around his shoulder, the other around his neck, and force him flat onto the mat.

I pull. I motherfucking pull and twist like I have never before.

The veins in my head and neck feel like they’re about to pop. I can barely see from all the blood in my eyes, and my fucking abdomen is killing me, but God damn it I ain’t letting go.

I see Kaminski get his left knee up, try to get the sole of his foot against the mat.

Cassie sees it too, and I hear her voice: “His foot!”

I turn Kaminski, use his own body weight against him. It pinches the nerve in his hip, and his whole leg jolts out, a reflexive reaction, and he loses leverage.

He’s not getting out of this hold.

“Tap out!” I tell him, glaring down into his eyes. He’s looking up at me with a mixture of anger and surprise.

He thinks he has a chance of losing!

I fucking have him now.

I throw my heel down onto his chest again and again, twist his arm even harder.

The tension in his shoulder is insane, I don’t know how it hasn’t popped out yet. His anterior deltoid head is straining – I can see it clearly, the muscle striations getting all messed up, misaligned – and still he’s not tapping out.

“You won’t beat me, kid,” he spits at me, his voice hoarse from my choke hold. Blood dribbles from his lips, and sweat drips off his chin.

So I twist harder, pull harder, but still, this fucking beast won’t tap out!

“Tap out, you bastard!” I growl, wrenching his arm even farther.

Kaminski slams a fist against the ground in frustration, and he whips his head across his shoulder to look up into my eyes.

I twist my legs, hold them tighter around him, exert every ounce of fucking strength I have to keep him stapled to the mat, to stop him from gaining leverage to get out of this hold.

“I’m not losing to a fucking boy!” he shouts, and he tries to roll his body, tries to get purchase. But he can’t; I understand the angles better than him. He’s got no place to push from.

One arm is trapped in my vice grip, the other beneath the weight of his own body, and even if he bends his knees, gets his soles on the mat, he can’t push up because I have his torso pinned with my legs.

Dull pulses thread through my nervous system telling me I’m hurt in numerous places, but the adrenaline drowns them out.

“Come on!” I shout, sending a spray of spit at Kaminski.

“I’m going to kill you,” he snarls, nothing but venom in his voice. He starts trying to lift himself, and his sheer brute strength is hard to contain.

I grab onto his arm tighter, scream out a primal roar as I twist, and I feel the strain, the tightness, the elasticity of his tendons stretched to their limit.

I wrench, and I feel his anterior labrum tear. His shoulder pops out of its socket; I actually
hear
the pop. His arm bends unnaturally, twists in ways I don’t anticipate.

He howls, his body losing strength. I roll off him, pivot on the small of my back and swing a kick at his jaw.

Lights out.

Kaminski’s head hits the mat, and crimson pools beneath his drooling mouth.

I push back from him, climb to my feet. Kaminski’s arm is definitely out. It’s draped backward across his own back, facing the wrong way around.

“Fuck!” I shout at him, still filled with adrenaline, still tight, still in fight-or-flight mode. “Fuck!”

But then I start to hear the silence. The whole place, every face, is looking at me. The bald ref jumps into the cage, lifts my arm, pronounces me the winner.