“Yet, you’re not in a position to make that call. I need this, Franklin. More than you know.”
He grinned.
“I would think dragging a woman around the mansion would have been enough.”
No. Not nearly enough. If anything, it had only driven the violence inside me to a point of boiling over.
“I’m fighting. That’s all there is to it.”
Discussion ended, I moved to leave the room, but he called my name.
“We should talk about Lisbeth.”
“No,” I growled, my shoulders rolling back as if that could toss the bitch from my thoughts, “we shouldn’t. Not now.”
Not when I was fighting every instinct I had to storm to her room. And do what?
That was the fucking question and not one I was willing to explore today. That woman’s name was practically tattooed on every inch of my skin, and I couldn’t trust myself around her.
“Fine, but we will talk at some point. Go blow off steam or whatever it is you need to do. If you’re dead set on fighting in the next few days, then you’ll need to prepare. We can’t afford to lose you in that ring.”
Images of the three idiots Moritze had walked into the arena flashed in my head. There was no chance in hell I would lose to one of them.
I stormed off without answering him. I knew damn well what I needed to do. Not that it was necessary.
With the rage boiling inside me now, I could step into that ring and end the fight before it even got started, but what fun would that be for the audience? A quick two second kill would only leave them disappointed. It would take restraint to toy with whatever poor bastard stepped in there with me, to give the audience the illusion it had been a fair fight.
I spent the next few hours in the gym, but the punching bags and weight training were doing little to dilute my temper, the hour I’d spent on the treadmill giving me far too much time to think.
It didn’t matter what distraction I could find to keep from thinking of Lisbeth, she was always there, glaring up at me with angry blue eyes, her full lips a sharp line. There was violence in her, too, but I already knew that from the way she’d been as a kid.
I’d closed my eyes and remembered every insult she’d used, every tease, every laugh...every moment she’d forced me to bow down so that she could fix her shoe. The bitch had a habit of intentionally spilling shit on the floor just so she could laugh while I crawled to clean it up for her.
It was far past time for me to watch her crawl as well.
“I hear you’re planning on fighting in a few days. What the fuck, Callan? Are you insane?”
Setting the barbell on the uprights with a loud clang, I sat up on the bench and eyed Isabelle as she stormed toward me.
“What makes you think I give a shit about your opinion? This has nothing to do with you.”
She stopped in place, her long brown hair falling in waves over her shoulders, the green dress she wore doing nothing to disguise the generous curves of her body. Isabelle was a beauty that had appeased the foul tempers of many of the arena champions, but she’d forgotten her place if she thought that meant she had the right to question me.
Still, even with her almond shaped eyes and a set of lips that would drive any man fucking crazy, she didn’t hold a candle to Lisbeth. Maybe it was because Isabelle had grown up on the streets, her childhood much worse than mine because her parents didn’t give much of a shit what happened to her.
It’s how she ended up here eventually. She was one of the first new slaves we’d offered to the fighters after I’d taken over.
Having been here so long, she now assisted Colton in the dungeon and was one of the only women I allowed in my suite of rooms. But still, that didn’t mean she was anywhere near the level of having a say in my life.
“I’m sorry, Callan. I misspoke. It’s just worrying that you’ll risk yourself like that when we all know this entire household would fall apart if something happened to you. Haven’t you fought enough?”
There was no such thing as enough.
If it weren’t for the other men wanting their chance in that ring as well, I would be in it every time. Fighting was a