Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“I'd like to see you try.”
No ref. This is old rules. First blood means nothing now. This ends when one of us can't get up.
Crowning charges, and his first punch catches me in the jaw—a solid, trained hit that snaps my head back. I taste copper and spit blood on the canvas.
He's faster than I expected, trained. His combinations are clean and professional. He drives his fist into my ribs—once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Something cracks.
I swing back and catch him in the temple. He staggers but recovers quick, then dances back, light on his feet.
“Getting slow in your old age?” He circles me, his hands up, stance perfect. “Or did you spend so much time fucking my fiancée, you forgot how to actually fight?”
Rage whites out my vision for a second. I charge, but he sidesteps and drives his knee into my thigh. My leg nearly buckles.
Tiernan's voice cuts through the roar in my ears. “Stay smart, lad. Don't fight angry. He's trying to bait you.”
Crowning lands another combination on my ribs. The same spot. I feel something give, and blood fills my mouth.
“She screamed for me, you know,” Crowning says, low enough only I can hear. “When I'd visit. Begged me not to hurt her. But she was so fucking innocent—”
I roar and swing wild. He ducks under it easy, then drives his fist into my kidney. Pain explodes through my side.
“That's it,” he taunts. “Get angry. Get sloppy.”
Then I hear commotion at the door. Shouting.
“Let me through! I said, let me fucking through!”
Bianca.
My head snaps toward the sound, and Crowning takes advantage, driving his fist into my jaw. My vision blurs.
“Eyes on me, McCarthy,” he hisses.
But I can see her now. They're dragging her toward the ring. Not McCarthy men—two of Crowning's that we fucking missed. They must have been outside, waiting. They've got her arms, and she's fighting them, kicking and screaming. My blood boils.
“Ashland!”
Everything in me goes cold. Then white-hot.
Tiernan's shouting something behind me. Seamus is moving. But they're too far away.
Crowning sees my distraction and drives his fist into my solar plexus. The air leaves my lungs. I double over, gasping.
“Told you,” Crowning says. “I'd destroy you.”
He grabs me by the chin, forces my head up, and makes me watch as his men drag Bianca closer to the ring. She's sobbing now, her eyes locked on mine.
“Please,” she screams. “Marcus, don't hurt him!”
Crowning laughs. “Hear that? She's begging for you. Pathetic.”
He drives his knee into my face, and blood explodes from my nose. I hit the canvas hard.
“Ashland!” Bianca screams again.
Through the blood and the pain, I see Crowning move toward her. His men shove her forward, and she stumbles, barely catching herself on the ring post.
Crowning reaches through the ropes and grabs a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back.
“Marcus, don't—” She gasps.
“You lying, cheating little whore.” He slaps her.
The sound echoes through the warehouse. Her head snaps to the side, and a red mark blooms on her pale cheek.
Everything… stops.
The roar in my ears goes silent. The pain disappears. The world narrows to a single point: his hand on her.
He hit her.
He hit. My. Woman.
Something shatters inside me.
I'm on my feet before I realize I'm moving. The pain in my ribs, my face, my leg—gone. There's nothing but rage. Pure, primal, unstoppable rage.
Crowning turns back to me, still smiling. “Oh, there you—”
I hit him so hard my knuckles crack.
His head snaps back, and blood sprays from his mouth. He staggers, but I'm already moving. I grab him by the throat, lift him off his feet, and slam him into the canvas.
“You fucking hit her!”
The ring shakes.
I straddle his chest, and I hit him. Again. And again. And again.
His nose breaks. His cheekbone splits. His jaw cracks.
“Ashland!” Tiernan shouts. “Lad—”
I don't stop.
Blood covers my fists, the canvas, everything. Crowning tries to protect his face, but it doesn't matter. I grab his wrists, pin them down, and keep hitting.
Somewhere, distantly, I hear my family shouting—McCarthy voices, violent words of encouragement.
“Finish him!”
“That's it, Ash!”
“Make him pay!”
And Crowning's remaining men, the ones still conscious, shouting back:
“Get up, boss!”
“Kill the McCarthy bastard!”
But I don't hear them. I don't hear anything except the sound of my fists breaking him apart.
“You. Don't. Touch. Her.”
Each word is punctuated by another hit.
Everything in the background blurs. Nothing exists beyond the need to cause pain and the need to destroy, in equal measure.
His face is almost unrecognizable now. Just blood and broken bone.
I raise my fist one more time, ready to end it—
Something cracks against my temple.
Pain explodes through my skull. My vision goes white, then black at the edges. I'm knocked sideways, hitting the canvas hard.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bianca
I scream when some fucking eejit tosses a glass bottle at Ashland’s head. My face aches from where Marcus slapped me, the skin stinging, but I forget my own pain when I see Ashland fall to the ground.