Page 104 of Broken Blood Ties

I choke on the surrounding air, struggling to breathe. Is my mind just replacing the woman with Summer? Or has Summer been the one I’ve been thinking of the whole time?

This magnetic pull to see the woman during my fights has been a thrill for twelve months, but seeing Summer there—it’s always been her.

Damn it, Kieran.I curse myself for being here in the ring, chasing I don’t even know what anymore, instead of being home.

I roar, my limbs pulling and pushing. Bright lights break through the dark of my blinded vision and the pumping fists of the crowd gather back in. Oscar has me pinned, and my limbs are close to giving out. I’m starved for oxygen.

I rake over the spectators, snagging on none other than Riku surrounded by four guards and scowling. The tattoos under his eyes bunch as he squints in the ring. Though, his look seems to be directed above me, grazing the top of my head. He holds two fingers, rubbing them together—the sign for money.

The secure clamp on my neck loosens. Air floods my lungs and I gasp, turning quickly and using the momentum to carry me into an uppercut. When his head snaps back, I follow up with a front kick to his midsection. Oscar drops to his knees too easily, and I pay him back for the chokehold with one of my own.

Too easy, my brain whispers.

His body slackens while the pent-up fight leaves him.

No.

I lean down, my mouth to his ear. “What the hell is this?”

He drops farther to the floor, arm lifting and tapping on my squeezing biceps.

“Tap out!” the referee yells, hooking an arm with mine and doing his job to pull me off of him.

Cheers rival that of a packed football stadium, and a high-pitched buzz fills my ears as Joe enters the ring and lifts my arm in the air. He says something I don’t catch; I’m too busy narrowing my gaze at Oscar.

Head hung low, he avoids me, while he rolls his shoulders and wipes a gloved fist across his nose. Oscar is the best. Not once have I beat him. Odds were I’d lose, because that’s what was supposed to happen.

Riku’s seat is now empty, and I growl in frustration. Ripping my hand away from Joe, I clamber out of the ring, hunting for an explanation. Yet, the harder I push through the crowd, the more I search, the more it settles in and mimics the punch of unease I felt earlier.

Oscar threw that fight. And hell if I know why.

Chapter32

Summer

For the cool April night air outside, it sure is hot in here. I flip off the covers twisted around my legs, untangling myself from their death grip, and sit up.

“Ugh.” I sigh, reaching for the glass of empty water by my bed. Well, not completely empty. It still has three drops in there and I allow them to trickle down the glass and onto my tongue in a dramatic fashion.

Pushing to stand, I glance at my clock. Just after midnight.

I drag a hand down my face, unable to ignore Kieran’s tantalizing words. They hover there. Like a sick joke, they feed into my desires, churning the thoughts in my head until I’m deliriously entertaining them.

I don’t care what yer first name is as long as O’Donnell is yer last.

They haunt me.

I haven’t seen much of Kieran which makes the hollow pit in my stomach ever more gruesome. If I could just have some normal interaction with him, I’d feel better.

Aoife’s been helping. After she’s out of school for the day, we’ve been taking trips to the nearby parks, building forts, and ruining the cobblestone driveway with goofy body outlines in chalk snickering when one of the guards does a double take at our creations.

She’s been such a breath of fresh air. Her mind works in such a methodical and logical way, but then there are these moments of whimsy when her creativity blossoms and she lets go of reason. What spills out of her is pure and joyful.

She told Allie the other day she wanted a motorcycle. Sat her Goldfish snack to the side while we were coloring mermaid pictures and said she wanted to go fast. While Allie looked like she’d seen a ghost, muttering about all the dangers of bikes, I told Aoife that maybe someday she’d have one and be the fastest bike in the streets of Boston. Why shouldn’t she?

I shake my empty cup before setting it down and grabbing my pink silk robe hanging over the footboard of my bed. I’m not normally a robe person. The sweatpants and oversized T-shirt I usually wear to bed don’t require a robe. But for some reason, while wandering around Target, I impulsively picked up a silky pajama short set—caught up in some delusion of strolling through that store with Kieran by my side, dressed sharply in a suit.

His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his veiny forearms with dark hair that reminded me of the way he used them to touch me inLuxe Atelier. And his proximity to me, soaking in my story about running to Boston, was electric.