Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(82)

Oh, God, she didn’t even want to imagine what the guy had said. Whatever it was, she would shudder to think of seeing the fury in Mike’s eyes directed at her. The people surrounding them could barely hold him back, though Meyers was going easily, grinning and slinging insults. She wished Mike wouldn’t let the man get to him that way, because that was his only goal, but she could only hope that Mike was one of those fighters who performed better when he was angry, because in that case it was already over. He was f*cking furious. He would be out for blood in a way he never had been with Tommy, even though they had exchanged a few hostilities themselves.

As darkness began to fall across the city outside her window, she paced a hole in the carpet, feeling sick with worry. And dread, and need. The time passed too slowly, but it passed too quickly also. At last, it was time to go, so she headed down to the lobby where the car was waiting outside. She’d wanted to skip the preliminary fights; those were nothing she cared about seeing.

The arena seated twenty thousand people. It had already sold out a while back, but somehow, pulling his strings, Zane had gotten her in.

I still don’t want to watch, Savannah texted Rowan, feeling her heart in her throat as the excited, buzzing crowd milled around her in the lobby of the arena. I’m so scared to go in.

The reply was almost immediate. Go in there and be there for your man, Savannah. And stop looking away. If he’s taking it, you take it with him.

Her breath whooshed out at those words. Okay. She could do that. For him. Her biggest fear was that she would have a panic attack, or freak out, or faint and have to be carried out.

But she didn’t have time for that today. Mike would need her there at the end. She hoped.

What if he didn’t? What if she saw him afterward and was greeted with that same cold aloofness she’d heard on the phone the last time they’d spoken?

It didn’t matter. She had to try. This couldn’t end without her doing everything in her power to fight for it.



Mike had barely slept the night before, but that was the norm for him before fight night. He didn’t have any delusions of escaping this one relatively unscathed. It was going to be brutal. Meyers liked to go for the choke out, so Mike was going to have to keep him on his feet and wear him down. Too bad Frank’s standing game was just as good as his ground game. But Mike would rather go out on his feet than on his back, crying uncle, tapping for mercy. He would pass the f*ck out from oxygen deprivation before he let that happen.

There you go thinking about losing again.

“You got this tonight, kid,” Jon said as they sat in the dressing room, until now sharing the charged silence before Mike’s walkout. Silence except for the rumble of the restless crowd beyond the walls. “I feel it in my blood. You worked damn hard to get here and I couldn’t be prouder.”

“Thanks.” Jon might feel victory in his blood, but Mike only felt Savannah in his. He fiddled with the light object in his gloved hand, only able to feel it with the tips of his fingers. His good-luck charm. The smooth, cool stone, the tip of the prong. Her earring. The one she’d laughingly told him he’d f*cked her out of. He’d found it on the floor underneath the very edge of his bed as he was packing to come to Mexico City, and maybe he should’ve sent it back to her, but he’d kept it.

Until now, he’d tried to keep memories of her at a distance, a survival tactic. He thought he’d succeeded fairly well. But with it all coming down to this night, he let her images swirl through his head, sweet and unfettered. What was she doing? Where was she at this very moment? Was she worried about him? Of course she would be, if she cared about him at all. He liked to think she did.

Now damn sure wasn’t the time to be questioning whether or not he’d done the right thing, made the right decision. Whether he was in the right place. He questioned it nonetheless. Because the simple truth of it was that right now he could be with Savannah, looking into her eyes, holding her, instead of rolling around on the floor in a sweaty tangle of limbs with Frank Meyers. When he thought about it like that, there was no contest. He’d f*cked up.

But he’d thought he had something to prove, so here he was. He’d chosen his path; he would follow it to its destination, whatever that might be.

A knock tapped at the door, signaling it was time to get serious.

Jon looked at him and blew out a breath. “Ready?”

Mike put his fist to his lips, then slipped Savannah’s earring into the pocket of his sweatshirt. He pulled his hood over his head. Jon put his fists up and Mike bumped them with his gloved ones. “Let’s do it.”



The lights went out and Savannah practically jumped in her seat.

“Are you okay?” Damien asked at her side, shouting to be heard over the roar of the spectators, and she nodded quickly. She’d never met Mike’s youngest brother before tonight, but Zane had sent him over to make sure she was okay.

Savannah had only thought Mike’s eyes were intense. What these guys lacked in familial resemblance—there was practically none in Damien’s case—they made up for in their shared confidence, a kind of fighting spirit that had certainly been responsible for them escaping the horrors Mike had described to her about their childhood. She’d been in Damien’s company for approximately five minutes and was intimidated as hell by him.

Like now, for instance. She didn’t have to scrutinize him to know he could tell she was absolutely not okay, and wouldn’t be until this was over. Oddly enough, though, he was staying at her side instead of reclaiming his spot at cage side. One would think his loyalty to his brother would supersede his babysitting a stranger who was on the verge of an anxiety attack.