Page 87 of Player

Something in the incredulousness of her tone has me standing a wee bit straighter. “I’ve a job to see through. But there’s one thing you can do for me.”

She shakes her head. “No more whiskey.”

“Something sweeter. A kiss.”

Her eyes widen. Feck, my skills in the cage may not be lost but my way with my lady is falling short of expectation.

The bell rings.

I rise from my small bench only to feel her tug on my hand. She plants one on me, feather-light so as not to cause me pain. But it does, and in a way far deeper and far more troublesome than any wound from my lip. Because it’s a kiss that says she cares. It’s a kiss that confirms that her feelings are reciprocated.

Bugger me blind.

The referee ushers me forward.

I string Donovan along for exactly one and a half minutes. Waiting for his kill shot, that lethal uppercut the kid’s going to one day be notorious for. Positioning him where I need him to be over a section of mat slick with beer.

I dodge left, then right, drawing him in closer.

When his eyes darken, I know it’s coming.

He strikes with a beautifully executed upward thrust. This time, I turn my shoulder into it, pushing forward and forcing him back.

“Sorry, lad,” I shout into his ear before hitting him with a McDuff special, my own infamous uppercut, refined and perfected in Hayden’s Hell Camps. I read the surprise in his expression before his eyes roll back. That, combined with his feet slipping out from beneath him, sends him down to the mat with a thud.

He’s out cold.

The club erupts with shouts and the place goes mad. Sure, I did what I set out to do. But I don’t feel the same rush of excitement for ruining this kid’s dreams. The lad should learn a lesson from this. Getting your arse handed to you is the fastest way to learn a lesson about reading your opponent. Though no one, aside from Hayden, has ever come close.

No place in my world for regrets. Not within TORC or this underground scene.

Clarissa rushes over to me, eyes aglow with amazement, and I remind myself there’s also no room in this world for a hitman with a heart.