Page 23 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Hugo

Strathlachlan, Scotland

“ H ands up,” Rose said, her red gloves in my line of sight. “Your goal is survival.”

I had another fight, this time against opponent Harrison Guile, some guy they called Superman. Captain America would have been better, but I think that moniker was taken by another fighter already.

She jabbed at me, and I dodged. I countered with my own punch, but despite her having whelped two children not that long ago, she moved with the swiftness of a kangaroo. She dodged. I tried to swing again, but hit nothing but air.

“You move faster than the She-Bear,” I commented with admiration.

Rose smiled, dancing a circle around me.

“That must be why you are a champion,” I almost laughed.

“Nah,” she said, as she tried to dip down to a knee to lunge at my waist. I dodged, and we came up and separated. “That was Ajax, actually.”

Ajax was her last coach, and now an indentured member of the Irish mob, having married one of its top soldiers. He still coached fighters, but not for the Underground.

“A coach does more than just train you to fight,” Rose said, as I punched and she dodged. “They help you choose your matches and opponents. They lay down a strategy. Then…”

I grunted as she landed a blow at my sternum.

“They just unleash you like a dog of war,” she finished her thought.

The bell rang, ending our five-minute bout.

I had never, in my life, felt as out of shape as when I fought Rose.

Where I lumbered like an ox, she moved like a whip.

Her fists landed small, powerful, precise hits.

Energy efficient from the pivot of her foot, the turn of her knee to the swing of her hips, all the way to the long extension of her arm.

She was a very efficient machine.

We exited the boxing ring, and I grabbed my water, chugging it down in loud gulps. Pomegranate water. It reminded me of the sweetness of summer.

I heard Rose take a seat on the bench beside me, huffing a slow breath.

“I can hear your irritation from here,” I said between sips. “What’s on your mind, Champion Rose?”

I lay down on the cold concrete ground, and shut my eyes, letting the coolness seep into my hot skin.

I waited for her to respond, not prodding or prying. She’d tell me what she wanted me to know.

“I don’t think Alastair remembers who I was,” she said.

It was a cryptic enough message, but I understood it.

“He knows who you are .”

It was a fact. Alastair adored her. She adored him, even if she was too tired to remember why.

They were love at first sight. I had a front row seat to it.

It wasn’t sweet like candy, but hot like fire.

All consuming obsession. But a fire like that can only go for so long. They needed a new equilibrium.

She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, looking utterly exhausted. Like a soldier fresh from combat.

“I don’t think so,” she placed a hand on her cheek, staring off into the distance. “Marriage isn’t what I thought it would be. I… I don’t feel like myself anymore, and I don’t feel like… I don’t know how to even say it… I…”

I hated when a woman was on the brink of tears. I hated it even more when I cared about the woman. Rose was a good one. Strong, smart. The person you wanted in your corner - literally.

“Did you know I was married?” I opened one eye, looking at her for a reaction.

She gave me nothing but confusion, then she made a forward sweeping gesture with her hand, as if telling me to go on.

“I married my high school crush,” I smiled to myself, remembering the idiocy of my youth.

“Talia. Beautiful, smart, and thoroughly obsessed with fashion and money. At the time, when we were in Marseille, I was doing okay for an eighteen-year-old man. I was a bouncer, and could splurge on a necklace or a pair of designer shoes.” I chuckled, remembering a much stupider version of myself that existed.

Back when I was Christian Saint-Martin. “A year into our marriage, after she realized that I could not support her in the life she intended to be accustomed to, she left me for a man called Gabriel Fournier. A man in a Prada suit and a gold chain around his neck.”

I brought my hand to my throat, as if tugging on that imaginary necklace.

I chuckled, holding no bitterness of that past.

“What happened to her?” Rose asked.

I leaned back on my haunches, exhaustion filling every cell of my body. I could not wait to get into an epsom salt bath and pass out. I’d miss the evening news, but I knew she would not be on. She was traveling with her boys to England.

“He killed her,” I finally said. “I did not know about it, because I was bitter about the divorce. In many ways, I did not love her. I found out much later.”

And this is where my tragedies began.

“Gabriel Fournier beat her. So, I did what any man would do.” I bit at my lower lip and shrugged. “I beat him to death with my fists, and threw his body into the Mediterranean, and he floated out to sea.”

Rose wasn’t the kind to judge me for killing. She had as many notches on her kill list as I did. Killing was a necessity in this world.

“He was a smuggler, it turns out. A drug dealer, and a purveyor of flesh,” I sighed. “She had fallen for his money, and wealth, and paid the price. And I… joined the Legion to escape the price of my own crimes.”

“You ran to the Legion so you wouldn't get arrested?”

“Bah!” I said swatting that theory away. “No one really wanted to arrest me. Everyone was happy Gabriel died. Even his mother didn’t show up to his funeral. He was a bastard.”

“But I assume there was an arrest warrant,” Rose smirked.

“Magically disappeared, now,” I chuckled.

I had disappeared that document myself, through Caledonia’s many digital methods.

I tried to summon up feelings for a woman who had been my wife. But nothing came. No fond memories, no visions of what could have been had things been different. I felt the same indifference that I felt to everything else.

“Joining the Legion was a good way out for everyone,” I finally said, smirking a little. “The police saved paperwork, and I got a new name.”

Rose played with her long black hair with her fingerless gloves.

“I love you, Hugo, but I have no idea what your point is.”

I chuckled, suddenly remembering that I had a point to make. Though laughing at these memories were probably a sign that I was not of sound mind. Bah, alors… c’est la vie.

“I am saying that marriage is what two people make of it.” I looked at my hands, and my ringless finger.

I had never considered marriage after that.

I didn’t need to. My feelings to Calissandra far surpassed what those vows had been.

“I did not love my wife, and she did not love me. When she left, I felt nothing. When she died, I felt slightly more than nothing. After I killed Gabriel Fournier, those feelings reset to nothing. Telling you about her now?” I shrugged. “Nothing.”

Rose’s brows knitted together, as if disapproving of my tale.

“You and Alastair fought for each other, and killed for each other. You defied an entire bratva for each other. And you both feel everything you should. You love each other.” I shrugged. “You should talk to him.”

“I’ve tried.” She sounded very whiny.

“I know your history,” I reminded her. “You have attachment problems–”

“Are you a shrink, now?”

“–But you can trust Alastair. He’s a twat but he’s a good man. And he adores you.”

Her jaw clenched, as though she was chewing up her words before she let them out.

“I’m just so tired, and … and when I struggle, all he does is tell me that it’s going to be fine, and that it’s not that bad and…”

“Because he’s happy, Rose,” I interrupt her in her spiraling misery. “You make him happy. The spawn make him happy. He is the happiest he has ever been, as exhausted as he is, he has never been more happy or grounded.”

I let out a long sigh.

“Don’t take it away from him without giving him a chance to fight.”

“What if he doesn’t believe me? What if he doesn’t care?”

“Then you come to your friend Hugo,” I pounded my chest. “And I’ll beat some sense into him.”