And make him go black forever . . .

I focus all my attention on my sister when another contraction takes hold, and Nora slowly slides her hand over my stomach. “Is it the baby?”

Sucking in a breath and leaning over to her so Pete doesn’t hear, I nod. “Yes.”

“What do I do, Brooke?”

“Just hold my hand while I watch my guy take this.”

As if he’s listening to me, Remington continues terminating Scorpion up there. My nerves are in shreds. Scorpion’s nearly black blood is splattered across the canvas floor, and although he’s stumbling, he refuses to fall.

Panting for breath but unstoppable, Remington grabs him by the neck and jerks him around to face the empty space where Nora’s chair sits empty. His lips move as he mumbles something into Scorpion’s ear, and right when Scorpion lets out a sneering laugh, a loud crack fills the arena.

“AAAAAA!” the public gasps as Scorpion’s elbow breaks and his arm dangles limply from the middle down.

My stomach knots as the fight gets even more vicious and Remy corners Scorpion on the pole and slams his head from side to side, attacking him like he would his speed ball. Scorpion struggles and rams a knee into Remy’s gut.

“Brooke,” Nora sniffles, “they’re going to kill each other!”

A burning ball of fear gathers in my throat as we both watch the fight in mounting dread. They’re still hard at it. Scorpion has thrown out a couple of kicks, and they’re back at center. Remy is caked with blood, both Scorpion’s and his own, and although Scorpion can barely stand straight, he angrily charges with his shoulders, trying to butt Remington with his head.

“One of them has to stop now!” Nora whispers under her breath.

“It has to be Scorpion,” I say.

And then, Remington delivers a rapid, strong one-two punch that instantly drops Scorpion to his knees. A bellow of excitement erupts among the crowd, and Remy wipes the back of his arm across his brow and seeks me out among the spectators.

When he finds me, he doesn’t take his eyes off mine as he grabs Scorpion by the hair and yanks him up to his feet as he shows him Nora next to me.

He whispers something to Scorpion, and in answer, Scorpion spits red blood on the ground.

Remy shoves him away and takes position again, raising up his guard in a way that clearly says, All right, asshole, then we’ll just keep fighting and see who wears out first.

So they fight again. Remington swings out and punches with that same unnatural force that his crowd loves, and they immediately scream in approval as we watch all his muscles tighten and clench as he works them. Scorpion lasts two jabs and a hook—then he falls splat on his face.

The public is roused and excited, and a familiar chant rises up in a crescendo: “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”

“Rip! Seal the deal, Rip!!!!!!!!” a young man shouts from a corner of the first row.

Silence descends as Remington approaches Scorpion’s motionless body, and I don’t think I’m even breathing. My heart is doing all sorts of movements in my chest while I hear Nora start sobbing quietly next to me.

Scorpion crawls on the ground. Remington’s gaze is trained fixedly on me, his broad, glistening chest expanding on each haggard breath, and I know my forehead is scrunched in pain, but please, please, I don’t want him to realize anything is wrong.

“Go, Remy!!!!!” I scream, but I can’t stand, so I have to scream it from my seat. He turns and slams Scorpion back down when he tries to get up.

The people howl their approval.

Remy grabs Scorpion’s healthy arm and cracks all the fingers of his hand in one move; then he breaks his wrist.

Scorpion’s eyes bug out. He starts squirming as Remington slides his hands up to his unbroken elbow. Remington starts twisting it at an awkward angle, and a painful contraction rips across my body, making me swallow back a pained moan.

Scorpion thrashes beneath him and starts sputtering. Suddenly, there’s a loud yell, and a black towel falls into the ring, right next to Scorpion’s writhing body.

Remington clamps his jaw when he spots it, and the public boos when they realize Scorpion’s team has submitted for him. Disappointment flashes across Remy’s face, and it takes him a couple of seconds before he finally, finally, releases his opponent. Scorpion spits a ton of blood from his mouth and looks up at him, panting.

Remington starts to walk away but, hearing Scorpion mutter something under his breath, he turns and slams down his fist and knocks the miserable insect unconscious.

“RIPTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!” I hear the announcer scream.

Remy looks at me, his expression as fierce as the pain inside me. A storm of testosterone whirls around him, and I can see his emotions seething in his blue, angry eyes, silently screaming, “Do not fuck with me or what’s mine ever again!”

He comes to the edge of the ring and I shake my head no, not to come. I want to see him up there with his arm raised, taking his damn title, hearing his name on the announcer’s lips, hearing that same name tearing through the speakers.

The announcer grabs his arm and yanks it up in the air before Remington can reach the ropes, and happiness swamps me and mingles with my pain as I hear . . .

As I hear what I was supposed to hear that final fight a season before . . .

“The winner of this season’s Underground championship, I give you, REMINGTON TATE, RIIIPTIDE!!! Riiiiiiiiptide!! Riptide . . . where are you going?”

My eyes sting and he becomes a beautiful blur.

I’m sobbing because I know he’s just jumped down from the ring and is coming to get me. I know he knows something is wrong—he always knows. I don’t need to tell him. Pete sits by my side, oblivious to it. But my sister knew. And Remy, he knows. I feel his arms, sweaty and bloodied, as he kneels before me.

“Brooke, oh, baby, she’s coming, isn’t she?” When I nod, he says, panting and with blazing blue eyes as he wipes my tears, “I got you, all right? You got me, baby; now I got you. Come here.” He scoops me up, and I cry into his damp throat and wind my arms around him as he starts carrying me to the exit.

“He’s not . . . supposed . . . to come yet. . . . It’s too soon. . . . What if he won’t make it . . . ?”

All my emotions had been corked up and bottled, and now they’re flooding me. We were supposed to do this after, after this fight. After we had the room ready. After we went to Seattle.

The crowd mobs us and the fans reach out to stroke his damp, tan, muscular chest as he makes a path for us, ignoring every yell, every call, everything but me.

“RIPTIDE, YOU ROCK! RRIIIIPPPPTIIIDE!”

A song begins blaring—absolutely blaring—through the speakers, and I don’t recognize the singer or the tone, when a voice joins in.

“At the request of our victor, who has a very special question to ask . . .” I hear the announcer say as Remington bulldozes us through the crowd, with my head pressed to his chest. I hear his heart beating. His breath. Every part of him, I feel it.

He keeps going through the throng of people, and even through my pain, I notice fans have white roses in their hands as we walk past them, and some are tossing them at us from the stands. Then I hear the song’s lyrics go on, until two words hit me like a shot of adrenaline racing through my bloodstream: Marry me. . . .

“Wh-what?” I gasp.

He doesn’t answer.

He’s snapping instructions to Pete to pull the car around as we finally exit the Underground, and when we get into the car, Nora climbs up in front with Pete.

Remington takes my face in his hands and looks at me, his voice thick with emotion and dehydration, his face swollen and bloodied and killing me because I can’t do anything about it.

“The song was supposed to ask you to marry me, but you’ll have to settle on me doing the asking,” he whispers, his eyes glowing blue and powerful in the dark. “Mind. Body. Soul. All of you for me. All of you mine.”

He squeezes my face between hands that are damp and callused and bleeding.

“Marry me, Brooke Dumas.”

TWENTY

WHEN THE TIME COMES

I said yes!

And I’ve been replaying his proposal in my head, over and over, while I stop thinking about these painful contractions. They’re getting closer and closer—less than a minute passes in between each. The urge to push is acute as I lie waiting in the hospital bed, but I’m not supposed to push yet.

Remy tucks a loose hair behind my ear with a pained expression. “Brooke . . .” is all he’s been able to say, almost like an apology as he looks down at me.

It hurts me to look at him. His face is streaked with blood and his jaw is slightly swollen. I want to touch and tend and mend it, but every time I try to reach out and do something about it, he stops me and sets a kiss on my palm instead.

“We need ice for your face,” I protest.

“Who cares about my fucking face,” he counters.

And then I moan when another contraction grips me and he growls like he feels it.

He clamps his jaw as he struggles to keep it together. When the nurse checks me at seven centimeters, she asks if I want to walk to get up to ten? I don’t want to, but I nod. Remington visibly shudders as he tries for control, and he helps me up from the bed. I clutch his forearm for support as we start walking out of the room, begging him, “Stay with me. Stay with me, okay?”

“Okay, Brooke,” he murmurs automatically.

We link our hands together, and his reassuring squeeze fills me with courage as we walk down the hospital hall.

He wraps his free arm around my waist as a fresh wave of contractions shakes me. “Distract me,” I plead.

“Did you like the fight?” he asks in my ear.

His blue eyes dance in delight, his lips stretched crookedly due to the swollen part of his jaw, and I painfully burst out laughing between contractions—because of course, of course, Remy would like to know.

“It kicked ass like you did, but now your baby is kicking the shit out of me.”

He helps me back to the room. Soon I’m in a haze of pain and all I want is to push, push, push.

By the time the doctor tells me I can push, I’m already exhausted.

Wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders from behind me, Remington buries his nose in my neck, as if my scent calms him. His scent calms me, and I try not to yell for his sake, because I want him with me, and I know he would never want to forget a moment like this. Chewing hard on my lip, I push and squeeze his hand while I swallow back my groans. Pushing harder against the pain, I push another time, harder and longer. I’d never wondered why it was called “labor” but now I know. After several more breath-stealing efforts, the baby finally slips out, and I groan tiredly as the pressure in my body eases, dropping my head back onto the table.

The doctor catches it, and through a gaze misted with relief, I see something wet, slick, and pink.

“It’s a boy,” we hear, and then the baby’s first cry tears into the room. His lungs may not be fully developed, but that soft little wail still makes my heart overflow with joy.

“A boy,” I gasp.

“A boy,” Remington gruffly repeats, and my chest floods as I hear the acceptance and contentment in the word. Remy doesn’t need to tell me, but I know that now, our son is real to him. Our son is real to both of us.