Only, we looked to everybody as equals, including the women who earned their living by selling their bodies to the fighters.
I’d tried to do away with the fights. I won’t lie about that, but in the end, I knew to do so would be to take something from Callan he loved. Leaving that part of the business to him, I claimed control of another part.
“Stop fidgeting, Lisbeth. I need to set this strap right or the dress won’t fall properly.”
Rolling my eyes, I straightened my shoulders while Gretchen worked to ensure my costume was perfectly fitted before I was walked out as Callan’s prize.
“Whatever, Mom,” I teased, still unable to believe that this woman with her sensible, clicking shoes and perma-scowl had been the one to give birth to me.
After discovering the truth, I’d wrestled with what to do with it, but eventually I understood the lectures she’d given me, the quiet strength she’d provided in my darkest hours. She wasn’t doing so for her own reasons; she was trying to teach me in the only way she knew how.
Having been through a life much worse than I could ever imagine, Gretchen knew it was better to make me stand on my own while claiming my power than to coddle me and set me on the same pedestal as my other parents had done.
For that, I could forgive her the secret she’d kept from me because even though I didn’t know who she truly was, she’d managed to teach me more about myself than the people who raised me.
“You look gorgeous, Lis. Seriously, Callan’s going to blow his load the minute he sees you.”
My eyes shot to Haley where she sat on the bench watching us, her hands cradling her growing belly. Jacob and her first child was due within a couple months, and while he promised not to go in the ring again, he still sparred with the other fighters. Beside her, Holly watched Gretchen and I, a smile stretching her lips
Even now, I knew he was in the viewing box with Franklin, both of them watching Callan do what he loved.
“Ladies,” Gretchen snapped, “language.”
Haley laughed, Holly blushing beside her.
“Whatever. You know it’s true. I’m almost jealous you didn’t make this change before I was released from my contract. Getting laid by aggressive men and getting to do it looking like that? Seriously, that’s some hot shit right there.”
Beyond the doors, I heard the chanting that meant the fight had come to its bloody end, and while a knot of apprehension filled me, I knew there wasn’t a man out there who was more brutal than my husband.
I knew it would be Callan’s face I’d see when those large gates swung open, and this was the first time I would get to experience what it was like to have all that lethal strength walking toward me after a battle to the death.
My nerves were on edge, my legs weak, the flutter in my stomach making me dizzy as Gretchen pulled the last strap of the dress in place before stepping back to nod her head in approval.
Her eyes lifted to mine. “Are you ready?”
Nodding my head, I swallowed. “As ready as I can be.”
She gave me a look I would never associate with anybody but her.
Lightly gripping my chin, she tilted my head up, pride flashing behind her eyes.
“You walk out there and show those men who owns this place. Head high. Shoulders back. Your eyes meeting theirs as if daring them to do a damn thing about it.”
I smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Another nod as she motioned for Haley and Holly to follow behind me, my ladies that escorted me out to meet the only man who would ever have me.
Slowly, we stepped through the doors and waited in shadow, the cheering crowd growing louder as the large hinges of the gates creaked, the wooden partitions swinging open.
I stepped down the ramp with the girls at my back, my eyes seeking Callan where he stood in the middle of the ring.
Sweat dripped down a body that was a fantasy come to life, his shoulders and chest beating with breath, every muscle hard and taut.
Blood splashed his arms, a body lying at his feet, but those amber eyes held mine with the promise of another type of violence.
My feet tripped over themselves as I walked out, Haley gripping my arm to steady me.
Whispering at my back, she said, “Didn’t I tell you? That’s a fuck