“The Underground?” I asked with a squeak. She wanted me to dive headfirst into a den full of criminals and violent cage fighters to proclaim my feelings for Mark? I felt like shitting my pants.
“Make or break, Callie.” She tilted her head to the side and gestured at the door.
Was I now in the same position Mark was when he was offered that spot in the UFC? I didn’t have a crystal ball, but I did know I didn’t want to play in the big leagues.
In a way, I suppose Mark had taken a leap of faith when he’d turned up to explain the story about the ring girl. I could have thrown him out again, but he’d bared the most painful and humiliating experience he’d ever been through in hopes I would give him another chance. He didn’t have anything else, and he’d chosen the hope of what we could be. I had no idea what he saw in me, but if I chickened out now, I would never know at all.
I glanced at Lori. “Who would have thought a pair of sad, chocolate-colored eyes could have started all of this.”
“Love sucks, right?” she asked with a wink.
“Big-time.”
Lori gaveme a ride to The Underground and practically held my hand as we walked into the warehouse in Abbotsford, just north of the city center.
The sky was darkening as we approached, which seemed to signal the starting time for the debauchery within. People were streaming into the building, and I was shocked at the scale. A couple of hundred bodies were crammed inside along with the very professional looking bar, betting area, and digital noticeboard that listed all the fights happening that night.
Shit, even women fought in the cage! My eyeballs were practically popping out of my head.
“Mark fights here?” I asked, tugging on Lori’s arm. “How does this place even stay open? Don’t the cops try to shut it down?”
“Nah,” she replied. “With the amount of money being thrown around here, some of it conveniently gets tossed into a couple of choice bank accounts.”
“You’re talking about bribes, right?”
She winked. “Bingo.”
Staring at the cage, which was being cleared for the next fight, I stared at the splatter stains on the concrete and swallowed a pile of vomit. That had to be old blood. The entire structure was made out of plain old chain link, and there was no padding in sight.
“I don’t like it,” I said, wrapping my arms around my waist. “This whole place…”
“It’s pretty confronting,” Lori said in agreement. “I worked the bar here for about three years. That’s how I met Storm…and Hamish. I got out almost two years ago now.”
“Why?”
“A variety of reasons. The bar manager tried to rape me for one.”
My mouth fell open, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze was raking the crowd, searching for Mark, aka Storm.
A voice boomed over the speakers as a fight was announced between two guys with weird names—Sabre and Boom. As the fight got underway, I stared in shock as the two men brawled. Fists smacked into faces, they wrestled on the ground, and they collided with the chain link, all while the crowd on the surrounding bleachers screamed for blood.
This was what Mark did here? Remembering the black eye and more recently, his broken arm, I felt vomit percolating in my gut. This is what he believed was his last resort. This horrible violence. Watching those two fighters go at it made my heart break in two.
“Can you see him?” I asked Lori.
“There!” She pointed to the bleachers where halfway up, sitting on the edge, I spotted his familiar head of messy overgrown hair.
I made a move, but Lori grasped my arm. “You’ve got my number if you need anything,” she said. “Just in case.”
I nodded and turned back to the bleachers just as the fight was being called in Boom’s favor. I didn’t care who won or what condition they were in, my only concern was the defeated man sitting alone in the crowd.
He didn’t see me at first. Not until I climbed the stairs and sat beside him.
“Callie?” He straightened, up his expression filled with horror. “What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t realize,” I said, breathlessly. “I didn’t realize this was what you did…”
“Why are you here?” he asked again.