The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(13)

What the hell did they put in the water in Garnet? Steroids?

The pain faded under the wild rush to protect himself. When Wyatt punched him, Chuito didn’t feel it. He just saw a huge gringo cop over him, trying to force his last breath out of him like they had taken everything else.

Chuito slammed his fist into Wyatt’s nose, because the dumbass had lifted his hold on Chuito’s left arm to hit him. Like every other fighter, Wyatt wasn’t able to compensate for the awkwardness fighting with Chuito caused. They were all preprogrammed whether they realized it or not. The harder they had trained, the worse they suffered for it.

Chuito used it to his full advantage. He flipped their positions and laid into Wyatt like they were in a street fight instead of an MMA match. Wyatt tried to use some sort of wrestling move to switch their positions once more, but Chuito blocked him at every turn, and it was easy because he had been fighting right-handed gangsters his entire life.

Wyatt clearly hadn’t fought very many left-handed MMA motherf*ckers.

“Clay!” Jules screamed from somewhere.

Clay forced him off Wyatt, which pissed Chuito off.

He fell back on his haunches and jerked the mouth guard out, throwing it on the mat in a pool of spit and blood. “He didn’t tap! You said if he tapped!”

“You’re done!” Clay pushed Chuito’s shoulder, forcing him back with a scowl of warning, and then leaned over and smacked Wyatt’s face. “You all right?”

Wyatt surprised Chuito, because he should be f*cking unconscious. Instead Wyatt pulled his mouth guard out. He wiped his face, coming away with a handful of blood, and glared up at his best friend. “A f*cking southpaw.”

Rather than apologize for not warning his friend, which Chuito personally thought was very f*cked-up, Clay just asked, “Nose broke?”

Chuito watched with trepidation as Wyatt felt his nose. Chuito’s heartbeat was still throbbing in his ears. His eye was swelling. His jaw hurt worse, but he was starting to realize that he had just beat up a sheriff.

Even if they had asked him to, the reality was scary in the aftermath.

“It’s fine,” Wyatt assured him, still feeling his nose cautiously. “I think it’s fine. I’m gonna look like hell tomorrow, but not like it ain’t happened a hundred times before.”

“Wy—” Jules was at the cage, her fingers intertwined through the holes as she looked in.

“It’s fine, Ju Ju. I’m okay.” Wyatt rolled over and got onto his hands and knees with a grunt. He lifted his head to look at Chuito with wide eyes. Then he did the craziest thing of the afternoon, which was saying something. Wyatt glanced back and gave Clay a wild, manic smile and repeated with a sense of awe, “A southpaw.”

Clay held up a hand with a wince of apology. “I should’ve told you, but I thought it’d make the point better to fight him without knowing. To show you what all those motherf*ckers in Miami were dealing with. He doesn’t give any hints. He blindsides them.”

“Oh my God, you found a f*cking unicorn. A big, mean unicorn who fights like his life depends on it. Intense, no shit!” Wyatt jumped to his feet despite the fight and wiped a hand over his face, staring at his bloodied glove, while the blood dripped off his chin and ran down his chest. “And he’s fast. Holy shit, this boy is so f*cking fast.” He spun around and pointed at Chuito. “How much do you weigh?”

Chuito frowned at him, still trying to recover from the mental whiplash. “’Bout two hundred. A little over.”

Wyatt ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in bloodied blond spikes as he considered that. “God, we could put him Heavyweight eventually. He’s only twenty. He’ll be fighting for years after you retire, and no one knows about him. He’s completely unknown on the circuit. You couldn’t buy that advantage for a billion dollars. It won’t last forever, but for now—”

“He’ll have to be twenty-one to get a contract,” Clay reminded him.

“It’s okay.” Wyatt still sounded manic with excitement. “We need time. His right side is weak. His offense sucks. His ground game is even worse, but who cares? He’s got a left hook that could kill a bull.”

Chuito realized Wyatt had just claimed to be stronger than a bull, which wasn’t far off, because he was bleeding like a literal stuck pig and looked to be happy as f*ck about it.

These people were loco.

“Wyatt, are you all right?” Jules seemed to be the only one with common sense. “You’re bleeding like crazy.”

“I’m so good,” Wyatt assured her before he turned back to Chuito with a hard look. “Boy, you better stay out of trouble. You better appreciate that gift you’ve been given and plan to do something with your life.”

“Something, like what?” Chuito asked hesitantly.

“Are you naturally left-handed?” Wyatt asked him rather than respond, because he was really stuck on that.

Chuito nodded. “Sí.”

“Do you understand what being a southpaw means? Do you know how terrified professional fighters are of a natural southpaw? They will be scared to death to get into the cage with you. Do you know what a scared fighter is?”

“A dead fighter,” Chuito answered without hesitation.

“That’s a little over the top.” Wyatt threw up his hand at that and then grinned again. “But a scared fighter is a losing fighter, and that is the only kinda opponents we like fighting. We’ll get your right side strong and your left side stronger. All you got to do is stay out of trouble. Can you do that? ’Cause if you don’t, it’ll be the greatest waste in the history of this sport. Seeing you do anything else but fighting in the cage will be like an insult to God, who gave you that golden left hand.”