Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (82 page)

I leave the room, hope my boner isn’t showing too much.

One kiss is all it takes from Cassie.

I find my mother waiting for me in the hallway.

We’ve never had a good relationship. There is some part of me that regrets it, but I was a difficult son, and she was a difficult mother.

Strong and fiery in the workplace, she lacks a human touch, and often comes off as cold or aloof. She’s efficient and methodical, but her decisions often confused me.

Even as a young teenager, I found myself wondering at why she did certain things. The boyfriends were a big red flag. Almost none of them were good men, or at least, not good enough for her.

They weren’t
bad.
They didn’t beat her or anything like that – God help them if they did – but they just weren’t good for her.

She’s a type-A, but for some reason she always ended up with type-B men.

When I turned fifteen, she basically stopped trying to mother me. I was fighting every day, training with Coach, doing amateur tournaments.

I was considered a wrestling prodigy, and the media would have you believe the crown was waiting for me when I came of-age, when I entered the pros.

I was courted by agents for the United States Olympics Committee, asked if I would represent my country, Team USA, when the time came. I was asked if I would do my duty.

That was when the hype was getting big, and Mom just checked-out.

She always hated the fighting.

I left home at seventeen, toured South East Asia, won an amateur tournament, and brought home a car, and some money. Enough to rent my own place a little closer to the city.

And Mom and I just grew further apart. She left me alone, for the most part. She knew she couldn’t contain me, control me. She knew that I was going to do my thing no matter what.

But now she’s taking an interest. Now… now her instincts have kicked in again.

“I don’t want you to do this fight, Chance,” she says as soon as I shut the door. I expect an argument, but when I see the look in her eyes, I see there is going to be none.

“You are his
wife
,” I say, pointing toward their hotel room. “What possessed you to get married in fucking Vegas I’ll never understand, but I understand this: It means his debt will be passed on to you if they can’t get it from him. The loan sharks care about the money, not where it comes from.”

“I’ll get the marriage annulled.”

“Is that a risk you want to take? Hope that mobsters respect marriage law?”

“I don’t want to take the risk that you might get killed!” she hisses. “In that God-awful cage. You know I hate you fighting. I’ve hated it since you started. Every single day!”

Her voice is shaky, and her eyes red. “The wrestling was okay. I could take the wrestling. But when you started that terrible MMA—”

“It’s what I’m good at. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”

“No, it’s not, Chance,” she says. She lifts a shaking hand to my face, strokes my jaw. “You’re good at so much more. You are so much more intelligent and capable than you give yourself credit for. You just
choose
to fight.”

“I like to fight,” I say. “And it’s what I’m best at.”

“I can’t stop you, can I? My own son, and I never had any control over you. You get that from your father.”

“I’m nothing like that prick,” I growl at her. “I would
never
leave. I would
never
abandon—”

“I know,” she says, putting a hand on mine, silencing me. “I wish you didn’t carry that around with you.”

“How could I not? It gave me strength, anyway.”

“But you see the irony, don’t you, Chance? Your father always did his own thing. When he decided he didn’t want us anymore, he left, and I couldn’t stop him. Just like I can’t stop you now from fighting. You say you won’t abandon me, but I’m here asking you not to fight.”

I lick my lips. “It is the only way out! I have to do this. Kyle’s in for over a million. He’s not going to get that on his house and car. I have to protect you.” I pause, grit my teeth. “I have to protect Cassie. I’m not leaving you, I’m doing this
for
you.
For
her.”

Mom’s eyes grow hard, lock onto mine. “She’s not your responsibility.”

“You would just leave her, come what may?”

“If I’m being forced to pick between my own child, and—”

“You’re not being forced to pick anything. Do you have several million buried somewhere so we can take care of this debt? Do you? Do you want to run away from home, go into hiding, quit your job, start your life all over again? Huh?”

“There’s a chance they don’t come after us. There’s a chance Kyle finds some way to fix it.”

“You want to put your safety in the hands of a man like him?” I ask, pointing toward their hotel room door. “He’s a buffoon, an idiot. What is it with you and men, Mom?”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m serious. How is it you always pick those who can barely even take care of themselves, let alone you?”

“I don’t need taking care of.”

“Fine, I can respect that,” I say. “But let me ask you this: If you had known he was deep in a hole to loan sharks, would your relationship have progressed past a drink or whatever the hell it is you guys did when you first met?”

She presses her lips together. “Of course not. But it was, oh you wouldn’t understand. Everything just came together perfectly in Las Vegas.”

“Yeah, an impromptu Vegas marriage, that’s true love right there,” I say nastily.

I know it’s a bite, and I know she’ll flinch, but I say it anyway, and when she does recoil a little, it hurts me.

But fuck it, I’ll never censor myself. I’ll take the pain, and dish it out, if it means telling the truth.

“He withheld it from you, Mom. He
lied
. And now you want to risk that
he
, a
liar,
can make it better? He’s useless, a bad husband and worse father. What kind of man is that?”

“You don’t get it, do you, Chance?” she says, shaking her head. Her voice has gone soft, like she’s a breath away from giving up. “I don’t want you to fight not because I don’t want to be safe, not because I don’t want to be caught up in this. Of course I want to be safe. Of course I don’t want to be involved.”

She takes a shuddering breath, looks at me out of imploring eyes.

“I don’t want you to fight because I can’t bear to see you get hurt.”

I take her hands. “Mom, I can beat this guy. You’ve seen me fight before. You know how good I am.”

“I hated every second of it. I keep all your trophies in a box in the attic for a reason. Every time you came home with a lump on your head, a bruised cheek, a bloodied or broken nose… fractured ribs! Sprained wrists! Over and
over
again! Do you know what that is like? Can you even fathom it?”

“It made me stronger.”

“It made
me
weaker!” she cries, her voice echoing down the hallway.

I hold her shoulders, make her look at me. “I’m going to do it.”

She looks past me at the door behind us. “This is about her, isn’t it?”

“A big part, yes, but not the only part.”

“Why?”

I lick my lips. “Her father obviously can’t take care of her.”

“Tell me it’s not because you
want
to fight, want to
test
yourself against an ex-pro.”

“Not like this, Mom,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t wish it like this, with our safety in the balance.”

“But you always did like a challenge, a thrill.”

“I am who I am. You can’t change me.”

“Can she?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know. It’s too late, anyway. I already arranged the fight. It’s for next week, Wednesday. That’s six days.”

“Do you like her, Chance?”

I grind my teeth together. “Yes.”

“How long have you two been—”

“Not long, but long enough.”

“Are you falling in love with her?”

The question drops on me like an anvil.

“I could in a blink.”

Mom’s eyes dart down quickly, and I follow them. There’s a shadow beneath Cassie’s door.

It moves away after a moment.