The chant rises up. “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”

“Rip! Seal the deal, Rip!!!!!!!!”

I head over to his prone form, working some air into my lungs. Sweat drips down my chest and arms. I watch him crawl on the ground in an effort to avoid me. I keep approaching, my eyes on Brooke now, because that’s where I’ll see the victory, and not anywhere else.

“Go, Remy!!!!!” she says.

At my feet, Scorpion tries to move, and I swing my arm and slam him down.

The crowd roars. Bending over, I grab his unbroken arm and break all his fingers, then I move to his wrist, and I lift it up for the crowd to see, then I break that easily too.

A low sound rumbles up his throat, and he squirms on the mat. I slide my hands up to his elbow and I start twisting, wanting to make it painful, and slow. Oh, yes, fucker. It’ll be slow.

He thrashes and sputters, and the bone is about to snap when I hear his coach yell out, and a black towel falls into the ring.

I see the towel and grit my teeth in frustration when I do.

“Booo!” the public shouts. “Booo!!”

Fuck me, I’m so wired, I don’t think I can back off. I want his blood. I want to break his elbow, his shoulder, and then his goddamned face. I want him to pay for the little box of goodies he sent Brooke, and I want him to pay for what he did to her sister, and I want him to pay for what he did way back when that meant I’d never be able to box professionally again. It would be so easy to pretend I didn’t see the towel, and just like that, I can twist his neck and he’s dead.

. . . And I’d prove to Brooke that I’m a killer.

Only seconds before asking her to marry me . . .

Which isn’t right.

With an inhuman effort, I let go and step away. Scorpion spits out blood and raises his head to look at me. I start walking away when I hear him, “Pussy, come and finish me!”

I do. I turn and slam my fist down, hard enough to knock him unconscious.

“RIPTIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!” the announcer’s yell reverberates across the arena.

The crowd stands with a roar, and I immediately search the stands for Brooke. I’m fucking hungry for her. For the acceptance I see in her eyes, the joy. I want to see that she’s proud of me, and I want her to know I would kill him. For her. I would maim, destroy, do anything, for her. But I also won’t. For her.

Her lips are curled into the sweet little smile I like, but her forehead is puckered, and she’s crying softly in her seat, the only person in the arena that’s not standing.

I’m barely aware of my arm being raised as a kernel of fear settles deep in my gut.

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

Something’s the fuck wrong. Something’s the fuck wrong and the instant it hits me, I leap off the ring and charge for her, kneeling at her feet, wrapping my sweaty, bloodied arms around her.

“Brooke, oh, baby, she’s coming, isn’t she?” She nods, and my heart has never pounded so hard as I wipe away her tears, murmuring, “I got you, all right? You got me, baby, now I got you. Come here.” I scoop her up in my arms, and she cuddles into me, so vulnerable and sweet as she cries into my neck.

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

The crowd has flocked around us, but I tuck her head under my neck and use my shoulders to bulldoze past the fans, determined to get us out of here as fast as I can as hands reach out to rub me. “RIPTIDE, YOU ROCK! RRIIIIPPPPTIIIDE!” they scream.

White roses start raining over us from the stands when the announcer speaks.

Fuck this is all wrong. I’m supposed to be on my knees. She’s supposed to be happy tonight.

“At the request of our victor, who has a very special question to ask . . .”

I spot the exit when the music starts playing in the background, and my heart starts pounding in a way it doesn’t even pound when I’m fighting. Brooke’s confusion seems to grow, and the chorus that asks what I’ve wanted to ask her from the moment I held her in my arms, kissed her for the first time, and introduced myself to her, plays out loud.

She was mine then.

She. Is. Mine.

She will be mine.

“Wh-what?” she asks me in confusion.

Pushing out through the exit, I tell Pete, “Pull the car around,” and I keep walking until Pete screeches to a halt before us. Brooke’s sister climbs up front.

I tuck Brooke into the back, and she keeps looking at me expectantly, watching me close the door as Pete drives us out of there. I hold her face between my hands, and my heart is still galloping.

This is it.

This is what I want most in the world.

I feel like I’ve been waiting since before I was born to ask her. It’s like asking her to jump off a cliff, with me. It goes against my instinct to protect her, but my instinct to claim her overrules anything else. She’s mine, my girl.

Her eyes hold me, hot and pained but shining expectantly, and I hear the need in my voice when I speak, “The song was supposed to ask you to marry me, but you’ll have to settle on me doing the asking . . .” She stares at me, her lips apart, and she’s trembling so hard, she doesn’t know my hands are trembling too as I squeeze her face between my hands. “Mind. Body. Soul. All of you for me. All of you mine . . . Marry me, Brooke Dumas.”

“Yes!” she exclaims, sobbing and grabbing my jaw and pressing her lips to mine, no hesitation in her answer, no worry, no concern. “Yes yes yes!”

“Fuck baby, thank you,” I murmur, my throat tight as I pull her to me and she buries herself against me. She can’t see my face, and I exhale a breath against her hair and hold her, my adrenaline starting to crash almost instantly. She moans in pain and I quietly rock her, whispering in her ear, “Tell me what to do.”

“Hold me,” she says, groaning softly, then breathing fast, “Stay with me, don’t go black, stay with me.”

I nod and hold her, but I start to worry when she keeps moaning in pain.

Don’t fucking go black, asshole!

When we check her in, I’m trying to calm down, but she’s moaning and grimacing and I can’t stop thinking I’m the bastard who knocked her up.

I try to think of the look of happiness on her face when I proposed. I try to hang onto it and remember what she’s told me before. We want this. We want a family. We deserve it like anyone else. I try to think of that look of happiness when she’s on the delivery table, pushing.

Holy god, I don’t even know how I’m in one piece.

I hold her hand as her cries tear through my ears and split me open.

I brush her hair behind her face and watch her chew on her lip as she pushes, while I quietly beg myself to please just hang tight and not let my daughter first meet me when I’m black.

It feels like forever by the time Brooke lets go a sigh and drops back on the table, suddenly relaxed, when I see the doctor holding a squirming, wet, pink figure. “It’s a boy,” he says, and a soft cry follows.

“A boy,” she gasps, delighted.

“A boy,” I repeat.

“Breathing on his own. No complications. He’s preterm—we still need to incubate,” the doctor murmurs.

“We want to see . . .” Brooke cries.

She lifts her arms and they tremble as she waits for them to clean the baby, and it howls in protest, and then, the nurse brings it over.

I’m staring in disbelief as Brooke holds it . . . not it . . . him. Our son.

Our son who stopped screaming when they placed him in her arms.

She ducks her head, her hair tangled, a sheen of sweat across her neck and face, our son wrapped in a small blanket and in her arms, and my body loosens as I bend my head to her, and to him, as a whole truckload of protectiveness, and love, and pure raw happiness slam into me.

“I love him, Remy,” she whispers, tilting her head to me, and I feel so fucking grateful for her giving me this, I just need to kiss her, feel her whisper against my mouth, “I love you so much. Thank you for this baby.”

“Brooke,” I rasp, protectively wrapping my arms around both of them. My throat is raw, and my eyes are killing me, and I’ve never had something so perfect, pure, and precious in my life than my little firecracker and a little part of her, with a little part of me.

“If he’s like me, we will support him,” I whisper to her. “If he’s like me . . . we’ll be there for him.”

“Yes, Remy,” she agrees, looking at our son, and at me, her expression so loving I feel renewed by it. “We will teach him music. And exercise. And how to take care of this little body. It will be strong and astound him and maybe frustrate him sometimes too. We will teach him to love it. And himself. We will teach him love.”

I wipe the moisture from my eye and tell her yeah, that yeah, we will, but I won tonight, and I still wish I felt worthier and I were different. I wish I were perfect for them. I wish I were perfect in every way so they’d never shed a tear for me, worry, or stress because of me. But I love them more than anything perfect ever could. I love them more than anything perfect ever will. Nothing perfect would kill for them like I would, or die for them like I would.

Tears are streaming down her cheeks as she stretches out her arm, and I realize I stepped back like some pussy afraid to be rejected by them.

“Come here,” she whispers, and I come and bow my head to hers, and I’m not sure if the wetness on my jaw is mine or hers, but it’s taking all my effort to hold myself under control. “I am so in love with you,” she whispers as she nuzzles me, caressing me in a way that makes my eyes burn even harder. “You deserve this and more. While you fight out there, I will fight for you to come home to this.”