Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
But I couldn’t tell Cort that. He believed. And belief is so powerful. It’s what got him across that finish line every time he stood on the platform with a crazed, insane death-fighter looking back at him under the blacklights and dark skies.
He needed the hope. So I let him hope.
We had to kill them all in the end. Udulf, Lazar, all the other owners who came to watch the end of us. Came to watch us kill each other. That was their plan. Cort had won them lots of money over the last dozen years, but he was old to them. Over. He needed to die and he needed to take me out with him.
Of course, that’s not how it ended.
I mean, what kind of dumbass walks into Cort van Breda’s camp, stands there drinking champagne and laughing it up with their sick, rich friends, and expects Cort and I to kill one another?
It was never going to happen.
As far as how they all died that day? Well. It was the kids who did it. Even the little ones joined in.
Seriously. How stupid do you have to be to walk into Cort van Breda’s death-fight training camp filled with two dozen MMA death-fighting children and think you’re gonna get out of there alive?
I had ten-year-olds who could take down those bodyguards. Lazar, and Udulf, and the other owners—well, those assholes were just too easy. Even Anya could’ve killed them.
Irina was the one who took out Udulf in the end. Lazar fell off a cliff or something. I wasn’t there for that because Lazar ran into the jungle like a little pussy and I was too busy trying to get my kids out of the way and onto our ship.
We did lose some. But they lost everyone. Not a single fuckin’ owner who came into our camp to watch Cort and I fight that day got out alive. A few of the bodyguards got away, but it’s nothing to brag about. They were going up against children who only had their fists, and feet, and minds as weapons.
This is the world I come from. And it makes sense to me.
What doesn’t make sense is Copacabana.
What doesn’t make sense is how much food I now have.
What doesn’t make sense is how much money I now have.
What doesn’t make sense… is how safe I feel.
And Irina. She doesn’t make sense, either.
“OK.” Mackenzie sighs. “I guess we’re really done here. Give me a call when—”
I reach over the table and place my hand on hers to stop her from getting up. “You’re right. It’s Irina.”
Just saying her name out loud hurts.
Mackenzie doesn’t say anything. But she does relax.
“I saw the billboard in Ipanema.”
Mackenzie nods. “Everyone has seen that billboard. It’s kind of hard to miss.”
“Yeah.” I have to swallow here to get more words out. “So. She’s in America, I guess.”
“And you would like to see her again.”
“I would.”
Mackenzie takes her phone out of her pocket, flips open the cover, and starts writing on the screen with a stylus. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“God.” I pause here, but this time Mackenzie doesn’t look annoyed. In fact, she’s letting me relive that day, letting me get a good picture of it in my mind. And I’m not ready for that. “Four years.”
“That would make her… how old now?”
“Um, well, twenty, I guess. She was sixteen, I think. When she took off.”
“You think?”
I’m instantly irritated. “You know how it is, Mackenzie. I don’t really know how old she is. She doesn’t even know how old she is. There is no legitimate birth certificate for the girl we called Irina. Assuming she was sixteen when she took off, we can assume she is twenty now.”
Mackenzie gets a little lost in thought here, and I have to wonder how many kids she’s known from the fights. Did she know them young? Or did she only ever report on the high-level Ring of Fire events? Did she come up in the business like the rest of us? Or was she placed there at the top?
What’s her story?
“How old are you, Maart?”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
She scoffs. “No, you don’t.”
“You’re thinking I’m too old for her. Well, that’s not what I want with Irina.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking. I just want to know how old you are.”
I shrug. “Thirty… four? Maybe.”
“OK. So why do you want to see her?”
And here it is. I either tell Mackenzie so she can help me. Or I don’t and I let it all go.
I don’t think I can live with myself if I let Irina go. “She was mad at me that day.”
“What day? The day she left?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I… did something. Made a mistake. And… I guess it was unforgivable in her mind.”
“What did you do?”
I ignore that question and point over my shoulder to the window behind me. “I saw her out there. She was standing out on the street under that tree.”