Page 4 of Steel Rain

I remember Rose, my last fighter. After her first victory, she had climbed over the fence and wrapped her arms around me. I picked her up on my shoulder as she lifted her fist in victory. If the bratva hadn’t gotten in the way, she and I would have swept the underground until she wasthereigning champion. She had the skill, the heart, and the fucking audacity to do it. Plus, she had the looks, too. The girl could draw a crowd.

But even those memories were starting to fade. The feel of victory slipping from my hands as I fell deeper into the despair of my current state.

"I'm the CEO of Four Green Field Enterprises," Eoghan said, pointing an agitated finger in front of my nose. "We offer farming and construction equipment in the tri-state area. We are a legitimate business and have never heard of any of these mafia things you speak of."

Shit, what had we been talking about? I had drifted and now I had to find the traces of the conversation again. Oh, yes. I had said he was the head of the Irish Mafia, and he was giving me his PR blurb about how Four Green Fields Enterprises wasn’t just a front for his illegal activity. The very idea that Eoghan wasjusta CEO was as ludicrous as thinking that the F-22 Raptor was just a plane.

But that was his line. You could pull out his fingernails one by one, and he'd stick to the story. He’d swear he knew nothing about the mafia. He’d never evenheardthe word before in his life.

The announcer called out the reigning underground lightweight champion.

"Welcome to the arena," the man's theatricality was a little grating as he waved his arms and sang out the next name, "Harrison ‘Superman’ Guile!"

Out stepped a boy with sandy hair and a crooked nose. Like Takahashi, he had a reserved elegance in his movements. He was like a robot - raising his arms, holding still, then putting them down in a fast movement.

That was his rhythm - move, hold. Then moving again like he was operated by remote control. I wouldn't be surprised if we peeled off his skin and found tubes and gears in place of veins and guts.

"Yeah, I'm thinking your next Irishman's going to get crushed as well," I said with a chuckle.

"Hush your mouth!" Eoghan said with a grumble, knowing that I could usually smell a winner from a mile away.

"And Challenger..." the announcer said in that weird, loud, drawn-out singing speech, "Sin ‘The She-Wolf’ Grady!"

Rose Legaspi, my last fighter, had hated being straddled with the nickname "The Vixen". If she knew that someone was called “The She-Wolf”, maybe she’d like her moniker better. That name was awful.

Who came up with these nicknames? Photographers. Influencers. Social Media types. They just threw spaghetti at the wall to figure out what stuck, and then they went with it. Truthfully, Mixed Martial Arts would probably do better if we just dispensed with the stupid monikers and just called people by their given names. The Vixen, The She-Wolf, Superman, Shogun, The Iceman, El Guapo … Jesus, just give it a rest already.

I turned my eyes when a figure walked out in a robe, the hood covering her face. The woman marched like she was walking the plank. There was no coach or entourage at her side as she came.

I smelled a wild card. That was something to get excited about. That little flame that was my soul was flickering back to life.

When the hood came down, and short black hair glinted in the light, I almost forgot to breathe. My Snow White, the woman I had just been thinking of, slipped the large robe off her shoulders, her small blue gloves barely covering her knuckles. Just in case I thought I was dreaming, I looked at the back of her neck. Sure enough, a small blue circle of my teeth marks were still there.

Had I conjured her?

And where the hell were her people? No coach, no team … She was all alone. That didn’t bode well and put her at a distinct disadvantage.

I was seeing more of her skin now than when I was balls deep inside her, and I was very pleased with what I saw. Her face was pleasant enough. Under the fluorescents, and not the dim lighting of a bar sign, she looked a little different.

Those muscled shoulders were, indeed, as strong and taut as I remembered. But those legs …

They were fucking magical. Strong, defined, with every sinew flexed and moving with the slightest step or shift in weight. And that ass was something so rare that I wanted to grab it in my hands and lay a bite down right on its meatiest part.

So, she wasn’t just a weightlifter … she was a fighter. There was a definite function to that physique of hers. How interesting. What a beautiful new development in our little game of predator and prey.

I was starting to like my Snow White. I could almost taste her on my tongue again. Clean, and cold like a forest rain.

“I may have spoken too soon,” I said, turning my head to Eoghan. “She’s a killer.”

“Maybe,” Eoghan said, thoughtfully. “But she’s not much of a looker.”

I looked at the woman, surprised by his appraisal.

Her face was an inverted triangle, the nose was a little too sharp. She had thin lips that disappeared with the protrusion of her blue mouthguard. Her raven black hair was short, her eyes a strange, silver-grey, made even paler by the surrounding black lashes.

Maybe she wasn’t a looker. Not in the classical sense. Not like Rose had been. But she had a great wingspan, long arms that were lean, with every tendon flared to perfect definition. Whatever she lacked in her visage, she made up for in the perfect structure of her physicality.

I could appreciate the work she had put into that body. That would always grab my attention far more than anycuteface.

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