Player - A Deadliest Lies Novel - Michele Mannon Page 0,54

worse than the beating I’m taking. It brings out something in me foreign, unexpected.

I hate disappointing her.

Bollocks. I’m fecked. Tonight, I might be making her proud. But when she discovers what I’ve done to her files, the lies I’ve told, the hurt I’ll be causing her, disappointment is going to be right up there with hate.

Donovan’s fist nails me in the jaw. My teeth rattle and, for a heartbeat, my eyes glaze over. He charges and slams me down onto the mat. We grapple, he nearly gets me in a choke hold, but I slam a surprise elbow into his side and I’m released.

He comes at me again once we’re back on our feet. I brace myself as his fine skills take over. Fifteen minutes of fame. Isn’t that what everyone deserves? A pup like him, honest and hungry, should be fighting Seamus or that punk Eddie. In a fair fight. With someone not trained to kill.

The bell rings.

I hear the crowd chanting Donovan’s name.

Blood drips from my nose. My chin is the size, and likely the color, of an overripe eggplant. My arms, chest, and legs feel like someone took a two-by-four to them. I stagger over to my corner.

“Oh my God, Finn.”

She hands me a water bottle. I take it from her and pour it over my head.

“I’m going to stop the fight.”

“Don’t,” I grunt.

I wipe my face with a towel. It comes away red.

“Edward is going to stop the fight.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been spreading the rumor that if his next opponent doesn’t show up, he’ll be going up against Donovan next.”

“Hope he likes hospital food.”

She laughs.

I’d chuckle but my fat lip is tender.

Her laughter falters. “You still think you can win?”

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.

23

Clarissa

“The kiss is what did it,” is what he offers as a way of an explanation.

He won. A win by knockout.

I can’t believe it.

Men slap him on the back and congratulate him for a bleedin’ brilliant comeback. Eager to show their newfound respect. Everyone underestimated him.

And now his name will be the talk of the town.

Bleedin’ brilliant is right.

I soak him in. Thick biceps covered with bruises. Broad shoulders emphasized by his proud stance. Muscled chest gleaming with sweat. The way his hair falls across his forehead, the auburn-blond locks darkened from