Santori Reloaded, page 16
part #3 of Santori Series
Jamie’s blog came up on the screen. I stepped closer and read the headline: Anthony Rodriguez: The Naked Truth. Beneath the title was an image of my upcoming opponent sitting on a bed and staring at the camera. Pure shock was what I felt when I realized who must have been holding that camera.
“What the hell,” I mumbled, stepping even closer.
“Apparently, your little boyfriend has been doing a bit of moonlighting.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I said.
Wisely, Aaron did. He also moved out of the way and let me sit in Bill’s vacant chair so that I could work the mouse myself.
The interview was very personal. They discussed his hopes and dreams, his fears, the fact that his parents had disinherited him when they found out he was gay.
What the fuck? He was using my boyfriend to publicly come out? This was unbelievable.
Even worse were the pictures. My body temperature steadily rose as I scrolled down—and Anthony’s clothing got scarcer and scarcer. When I reached the shot of him completely naked with his ass on full display, I pushed back from the desk as if I’d been burned.
Jamie had taken these pictures? My Jamie?
Memories of our own sexy photo shoots played in my mind. At the end of the very first one, Jamie had sucked my cock and come in his own pants without even being touched. It was a memory I’d always treasured, but now…
Now it was tainted.
What had happened at the end of the Rodriguez photo shoot? Had Jamie taken his cock in his mouth the way he’d taken mine? Had he let Rodriguez fuck him? I couldn’t even process the bullshit I was looking at.
Aaron stepped tentatively closer and took control of the mouse again. “Look at this part,” he said. “The date they actually conducted the interview.”
I stared at what he was showing me, trying to make sense of it. Could that be true? It said that Jamie had interviewed Rodriguez in his hotel room during the last fight week, the day Jamie had come home early and found me in our apartment with Theo Brown and his boys.
I looked at Aaron, desperation on my face and in my heart, as if he could help me understand.
“There’s more.” He brought up Rodriguez’s Twitter account and scrolled through several photos of Rodriguez and Jamie. Selfies of the two of them looking playful and cozy in his hotel room. Smiling, sticking out their tongues for the smart-phone camera, and sitting so damn close.
“What the fuck?” I looked away from the screen, unable to see any more. Unable to take any more heartbreak. “Is he trying to kill me?”
“Looks that way,” Aaron said. “Haven’t you learned anything about trusting people yet?”
A laugh came out of me, humorless and dark, and I thought that maybe I had. I’d learned that no one could be trusted. Not Santori, not Theo, not Aaron, not Gio, and not Jamie. Hell, not even me.
Like stupid little Peter Santori, I’d foolishly dared to believe in fairytale endings, and we’d both learned the hard way that there was no such thing—not outside of the pages of a book. We were all fucking monsters, and it was time I started acting like one.
Chapter 17
KAGE
The weekend of my fight with Anthony Rodriguez came sooner than I would have liked. I knew it wasn’t going to be good because it felt like a volcano was rumbling inside my body. It was going to erupt, and there was no way to predict exactly when that would be. I hoped it would remain dormant until the actual fight, but tonight was the weigh-in, and I was afraid it was going to happen on the stage before I even got the chance to face Anthony in the Octagon.
Marco kept glancing nervously at me as we waited for my turn to step on the scales. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. “You seem especially tense tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I grated through clenched teeth.
“I know I’ve been bitching at you about not being prepared this time, but everything is going to work out, Kage. You’re a strong fighter. One of the strongest I’ve ever seen in my life. Your training will kick in once you get inside the Octagon.”
I wasn’t sure if Marco was right or not. I’d never faced an opponent with revenge in my heart. I’d never had any personal stakes in a fight at all. It had always been business and testosterone and nothing more. I had also always been prepared, and this time I wasn’t.
Somehow, I’d managed to make weight, but I’d missed so many training sessions that Marco had threatened to quit. I knew he cared about me, and the threat had been his attempt at getting me to focus, but it had still stung. There were only a few people I felt I could count on in my life—people who had my back—and Marco was one of them. Him refusing to train me would have been like Enzo refusing to cook for me, or Jason declining to spar with me, or Steve going to work for the MGM Grand.
On the stage, Anthony Rodriguez was announced, and it was all I could do to keep from rushing up there and attacking him. “Stay calm,” I whispered to myself. “Save it for the Octagon.”
Anthony sauntered onto the stage, looking just as cocky as I’d remembered. The crowd went wild, clearly spurred into a frenzy by the recent press he had gotten. A deafening chorus of cheers went up, but the cheers were quickly overtaken by boos.
Yeah. The crowd was still mine.
I’d read some of the comments floating around on social media and had listened to a couple of podcasts, and apparently two gay fighters going head-to-head in the Octagon had turned out to be a powerful draw. Not to mention the drama of having Jamie between us like some beautiful doe-eyed trophy. I had to hand it to Rodriguez; it had been a brilliant marketing ploy. We were the stars on this card, no doubt about it.
Rodriguez didn’t let the boos get to him. He calmly removed his T-shirt and basketball pants to reveal a pair of fire-engine red compression shorts. I resisted the urge to look away, letting the overwhelming jealousy wash over and through me as I took him in. He was fierce, and cut, and far too handsome to have been all hugged up to Jamie in his hotel room. Somehow, the sexy photos hadn’t bothered me nearly as much as the selfies had. That is, until I saw him standing there on the scales in all his glory with his dark hair and dark eyes and his ridiculously perfect body.
Oh, my God. Jamie had been in a bedroom with this guy, taking pictures of him wearing nothing but a fuck-me expression. My stomach rolled.
I thought back to my first sexy photo shoot with Jamie and what had happened afterward. That had been our very first sexual encounter. Hell, I’d really only done the shoot to get Jamie hot enough to let me get into his pants. Had that been Anthony’s intention, too? Had he plotted to seduce Jamie like I did? Had it worked?
Marco had to nudge me when it was my turn to take the stage. A chorus of cheers filled the room, with far less booing than Anthony had received. It was little consolation.
I dropped my shorts and stripped off my T-shirt, handed them to Marco, then stepped onto the scales. Miraculously, I had managed to make weight—more as a result of my fierce need to stomp Anthony’s ass rather than preparation. Failure was not an option in this fight because there was much more on the line than getting one step closer to the belt. I was fighting for love, and for revenge.
I wasn’t sure how it happened, because my mind was all over the place, but suddenly I was right in front of Rodriguez. The crowd was deafening now as all of the die-hard MMA fans in the crowd watched us face off. It was entertainment for them, pure and simple, but it was more for us. Rodriguez was trying to assert his dominance, trying to steal what was mine, and I was determined to stop him.
We stared at each other, several pairs of hands shoving between us to keep us separated and to abort any trouble before it got started. As I looked into the dark depths of my Anthony’s eyes, I felt a strange sense of calm settle over me. I made no move to engage him. I was known for delivering controlled threats and getting inside my opponents’ heads before a fight. I could see on his face that he’d been expecting it, and the fact that I was uncharacteristically quiet was getting to him.
I didn’t want to do that, though. Not this time. Instead, I let my eyes do the talking for me, making dark promises I intended to keep. I could have lost my cool and knocked him out on the spot—a hard right backed up by all of the anger inside me would have done the trick nicely—but then I would have been pulled off of him and punished before the fight even began.
No, the Octagon was the place for this war. I couldn’t wait to have Anthony locked inside the fence with me. Couldn’t wait to unleash everything I had on him when he couldn’t get away, and to feel his flesh and bones in my hands as I tore him apart piece by piece.
But then, just when I thought I was going to get through this without an altercation, Anthony spoke. Stupid fucker. Didn’t he know how volatile I was?
“No shit talking tonight? You must really be scared. You look scared.” He gave me a purposeful once-over. “And a little out of shape.”
“I’m in good enough shape to kick your ass,” I said, surprised at the calmness of my own voice. “Even on my worst day, I would own you.”
“We’ll see what you have to say after I submit you tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, I’m not worried about a second-rate fighter who has to resort to cheap publicity stunts to get attention.”
He laughed. “I just took a page out of your playbook. Same photographer and everything. Only I was completely naked. It was hot, don’t you think?”
My fists clenched at my sides, and every muscle in my body locked up. “You fucking bastard. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“No trying to it, motherfucker. I did it.” He grabbed lewdly onto his crotch, his tongue snaking out between his teeth.
I surged forward, mindlessly trying to get at him so I could wring his fucking neck. All of the rage I had kept so tightly reined in exploded out of me, and suddenly there was nothing but the bloodlust. For a split second, he came at me, too. But then the hands between us became solid walls of muscular bodies, and I was being pushed roughly back—manhandled hard, because I wasn’t backing down. It took four men to subdue me and corral me off to one side of the stage. I looked over the shoulder of the huge fucker who was right in front of me, his chest pressed firmly to mine, and saw Rodriguez backing away. Smiling.
Except for the night of Santori’s death, when I’d figured out he’d done something to Jamie and gone to confront him in his apartment, I’d never been so angry. I wanted to chase Rodriguez down and beat the life out of him for what he’d just said and done, but there were too many large men between us intent on keeping us apart. I felt hands my shoulders—not rough, but firm and strong—and turned to find Marco staring up at me with an expression of concern and fear.
“Come on, Kage. Let’s get you out of here.” He handed me my clothes and pulled me gently off stage.
I managed to get my clothes on, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing. My mind was on Rodriguez and thoughts of revenge. Of brutality and blood. When my head finally cleared enough to form a coherent thought, Marco was leading me down a hall toward the exit door, weaving through a mass of people who were waiting to get into a conference room. Inside, fighters were signing autographs. I heard several gasps and a lot of whispering as I passed, but thankfully no one tried to talk to me or ask for an autograph. I supposed I looked pretty intimidating in my current state.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Marco asked when we reached the parking lot and were safely away from the crowd. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so intense, and that’s saying a lot.”
“I’m just focused,” I said.
“Focused on what? Committing murder? What the hell did he say to set you off like that?”
“Nothing,” I growled. “Just forget it.”
“Well, I’m guessing I know what it was about. Don’t let it get to you. He’s only trying to get in your head.”
“I know. But what if it’s true? That he and Jamie—” I couldn’t say the rest aloud.
“No way. Jamie was only doing his job with Rodriguez. His story got a lot of press for this fight, and the fans are rabid for it. I’ve been following it online.” We had reached Marco’s SUV, and he grabbed my arm and turned me to face him. “That’s all it is, Kage. It was good marketing, and nothing else. Do you really think Jamie would get involved with your opponent? That’s just crazy.”
“Yeah,” I said, not entirely convinced. Because Marco didn’t know about Theo and the party of doom. He didn’t know how much my actions had hurt Jamie over the last few months. He didn’t know that I deserved whatever I got.
“Maybe you need to talk to Jamie before the fight and get things sorted out. I’m afraid you’re too distracted to get your head in the fight. You’re playing right into Rodriguez’s hands.”
“I’m not playing into anyone’s hands.”
Except for Aaron. And Theo. And yeah, probably Rodriguez, too.
Marco scoffed. “Why do you think Rodriguez did this, Kage? It’s a strategy and nothing more. You need to realize that and act accordingly. I’ve never known you to let an opponent get in your head like this. Calm down. Don’t let him win.”
“I’m calm now,” I said.
“Calm like the eye of a hurricane,” he said. “That’s what worries me.”
He pressed a button on his key fob and unlocked the SUV with a loud chirp. We both climbed inside, and Marco started the engine. He pulled slowly out of the parking lot and into traffic, biting his lip nervously.
“You’re really afraid I’m going to lose,” I said.
“I don’t know what I’m afraid of exactly,” Marco admitted. “On the one hand, I think you’re going to let this mindfuck of his get the best of you and make a fatal mistake in the Octagon. You know emotions can be a fighter’s downfall, and I don’t want you to give this guy the satisfaction of being your first loss. But at the same time, I’m afraid of the opposite. That something really bad will happen.”
I chuckled darkly. “Jesus, Marco. I’m not going to kill the guy.”
He glanced sideways at me. “You say that now, but once you get locked in that cage with him, I’m not so sure you’ll have the ability to think rationally. Your hands, your body… They’re lethal weapons, Kage. You know that. If you allow yourself to lose control, someone could get hurt.”
I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes, tired of seeing that weird look on Marco’s face. The one that said he didn’t really trust me like he used to.
“Look, Marco… I’m going to follow the rules, okay? I’m not going to go in there and snap his neck or something. Give me at least some credit.”
Marco pulled into the Alcazar and parked. “Let’s just get you upstairs and get some fluids and calories into you. And it’s too bad the spa isn’t open yet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more in need of a massage.”
“You know, that’s actually not a bad idea. I’m tense as fuck. Why don’t you see if you can schedule one for me at my usual place? Or hell, get someone to come to my apartment and do it.”
“Should I order a happy ending?” Marco asked with a smirk.
“You know better than that.”
We rode the elevator to my place and set about fluffing me back up for the fight that would take place in less than twenty-four hours. A fight that would no doubt prove to be the greatest challenge I’d ever faced in the Octagon, for more reasons than one.
Chapter 18
JAMIE
It was fight night. Fucking hell, I was not looking forward to this at all.
I’d actually considered not showing up at all, but it was my job to cover the fights. It wasn’t enough to learn about them on someone else’s blog or YouTube channel and then try to change things up. That might have worked for me in high school and college, using Cliff Notes and borderline plagiarism to get by, but this was the real world.
And besides, it would have been cowardly of me to sit it out when I’d caused the mess in the first place. Anthony may have approached me to do the interview, but it had ultimately been my decision to publish it.
The stir it had caused was undeniable. Just as we had predicted, MMA fans were going crazy on social media. Bloggers were weighing in on the drama. Entire YouTube videos were being dedicated to our little love triangle as some were calling it.
It didn’t help that I knew there was actually no love triangle. The general public didn’t know that, and Kage didn’t know it, and even Anthony seemed to be a little confused on the subject.
A couple of times, he had tried to engage me in a discussion about what was going on between us. I’d told him as politely and as gently as possible that there was nothing going on between us beyond business. When he’d gotten embarrassed and tried to apologize for coming onto me in Steve’s apartment, I just told him not to worry about it.
“Emotions were high,” I’d said. “You were drinking, and you made a bad judgment call. We don’t need to talk it to death.”
But Anthony had clearly still wanted to talk it to death. I didn’t understand what was going on in his head. Was he actually interested in me? It seemed absurd to even think his attraction was genuine, but I didn’t get the feeling he was trying to manipulate me to get to Kage. Well, not any more than Anthony tended to manipulate things on a daily basis. The guy was confusing. One minute confident and pushy, the next uncertain and oddly vulnerable.
Maybe it was because he had no friends. Beyond the casual mention of his training partners, I’d never heard him speak of a friend. I was beginning to think it was a condition many fighters suffered—being alone.
Kage had certainly been alone when we’d met. But Kage had at least known a few people he could confide in. Marco, Vanessa, Jason, Enzo, Steve, Dr. Tanner. He may not have been very close to any of them, but at least they were there if he needed to reach out. I’d never heard Rodriguez mention a soul unless he was describing how he’d worn their asses out in sparring. Even his coach was new to him, since he’d recently moved to Nashville to train with the Alphas.
