The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(67)
“That’s it? No Vaseline?”
Marcos held up his hands. “What do I need Vaseline for?”
“What if you get hit?” Neto asked with a snort of disbelief. “You’ll mess up that pretty face of yours. Then what’ll the chicas have to say about it?”
“I’m not gonna get hit.”
“Mierda.” Neto groaned and dropped his head. “One day the crazy is gonna catch up with you. It has to.”
Marcos might have practiced on Neto for doubting him, but then the guy on the mic was saying his name and the crowd was shouting, and he supposed he ought to go up there and make sure Neto’s kids didn’t starve.
“El Vibora,” the emcee yelled in Spanish, and then added in English, “The Viper!”
“One hundred and eighty-five pounds and—”
“Fuck him.” Marcos gestured to the emcee in the ring around the corner and turned back to Neto as he ignored the rest of his introduction. “I’m one eighty-nine!”
Neto winced. “I lied.”
“What?” Marcos shouted at him over the screams of the crowd. “Why?”
“He was gonna put you with a bigger fighter. Light-heavy weight.”
“I am a light-heavy weight!”
“It’s four pounds!”
“Four pounds of muscle!”
“Chuito fights light-heavyweight and—”
Neto’s voice was drowned out when the emcee’s voice got too loud to talk over. “First cousin to the one, the only, UFC Light HeavyWeight Champion. The Slayer!”
Marcos turned back to Neto when the emcee repeated it in Spanish. “?Maldita sea la madre que te parió! You told him Chu was my cousin! You better hope I get knocked out!”
“I thought it’d make the other fighter nervous!”
Marcos pulled his gun from the back of his pants and shoved it at Neto’s chest. “Hold that so I can shoot you later!”
“?Ay carajo!” Neto growled as he grabbed the gun. “You don’t just shove a gun at me!”
“You think I’m strapped without the safety on?”
“Probably!” Neto yelled. “It wouldn’t be any more insane than anything else you’ve done this week!”
Marcos just threw up his hands and stepped around the corner. The crowd was loud and insane, and people kept touching him, which made Marcos nervous and antsy. This place was much worse than where he’d fought in Hialeah on Tuesday.
At least they had a f*cking scale in Hialeah.
He crawled into the ring and glared at the emcee, who was likely the promoter too. This was what he got for letting Neto find the fight. He’d been too caught up with other things to pay attention much. He just figured showing up and winning was his job.
The emcee dropped his mic and whispered to Marcos in Spanish, “Where are your gloves?”
“Gloves are required, but a scale isn’t?” Marcos snorted.
The emcee shrugged and looked to the other fighter. “No gloves?”
Marcos turned to him, seeing that he wasn’t one eighty-five either. He was at least ten pounds heavier. That made him feel a little bit better. This fighter’s friends were probably running the same scam Marcos’s were.
The fighter looked to the crowd behind him and then pulled off his gloves and started unwrapping his knuckles.
“NO HAY GUANTES!” The emcee’s voice boomed. “NO GLOVES!”
The crowd really went insane over that.
Bloodthirsty bastards.
When the emcee stepped out of the ring, the other fighter met Marcos in the center. He growled, “The Slayer’s cousin? What bullshit!”
They bumped fists, but Marcos didn’t bounce back like the other fighter did, he jumped forward instead, following him as he lashed out, catching him in the corner of the eye with a right hook hard enough to make the pain in his knuckles blinding.
The other fighter stumbled and fell, and Marcos finally bounced back, staring at him for one moment, seeing if he was going to get up. At the same time, the energy in the crowd seemed to change. If Marcos wasn’t hyperaware of the Angel situation, he wouldn’t have looked, but he did.
He turned around, glancing to where the wave of people seemed to be going away from the ring instead of toward it. There, in the middle of the crowd, was Chuito. Looking a little bigger than the rest of these pendejos, with sunglasses on at midnight, and a black UFC hat pulled low over his eyes.
Motherf*cker really did think he was a baller.
Actually, Marcos had to admit, he did look like one, especially with a whole crowd of people around him, wanting to touch him, like he was a rock star or something.
This was exactly why Marcos watched Chuito’s fights on television.
Something about Marcos’s world felt upside down when he saw Chuito as anything other than the cousin who’d shared a bedroom with him growing up. This was too far away from Marcos. Something he couldn’t even fathom.
It wasn’t that he was jealous.
It was that seeing how different Chuito’s life was now made him realize how far apart they’d drifted.
Then from one moment to the next, Marcos’s world really was upside down when someone grabbed his foot, and he was suddenly flat on his back in a ring that wasn’t the most padded he’d ever fought in.