Pulse

by Amity Cross

  It was time to plot revenge and fucking hell…if we could pull it off and snatch back the Championship before Hammer could get his ugly hands on it, then it would be the sweetest revenge ever.

  Chapter 20

  Ash

  “Are you ready?”

  I stood outside of Beat hand in hand with Ren as she smiled up at me. The weather was warming up, the approach to summer in full swing, and the sun made her hair look like it had flecks of red. I smiled back.

  It was strange being outside again. After a year stuck in my own house, interacting with society had my head in a spin. I felt fucking dizzy. People, things, movement, buzz…they were all around and threatening to overwhelm me.

  Everything had all happened so fast. The cops and my lawyer had come to the house, gone through all the rules and regulations regarding my release, I signed some papers and some dude had taken the alarm from around my ankle and that was it. Congratulations Mr. Fuller, the lawyer had said. You are now a free man. And just like that, my house arrest was over.

  First order of business according to Ren was to get me out and into familiar territory. Meaning Beat, but it was far from friendly familiar territory, not after the way I’d left things.

  Taking a deep breath, I gathered my balls and my courage and told myself that this was for her. I had a feeling that everything I’d do from now on would be for my Spitfire. That was love, I guess. We were a team. One hundred percent.

  Ren tugged on my hand.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  She led me through the front door and the familiar smell hit me instantly. Sweat and leather. This place would hold all kinds of memories for me, but none was sweeter than that night I’d almost been hit in the head by a cricket bat. A bat that Spitfire was on the other end of.

  The Twins stopped what they were doing and glanced up. Dean smiled as he saw Ren, but when his gaze fixed on mine he came alive. I swear the guy’s eyes turned red the moment he realized who’d walked through the door. He turned and strode across the mats, Lincoln hot on his heels.

  Dean shoved me hard, dislodging my hand from Ren’s and I stumbled back a step. “You’re not welcome Fuller,” he spat. “Get the fuck out before I rearrange your face.”

  “Dean,” Ren almost shrieked at him.

  “Let him get it out,” I murmured.

  “No!”

  “What are you doing here Fuller? Didn’t you get the message the last time?”

  I snorted at his empty bravado. “What message was that? I remember beating your ass and being welcomed by everyone else with open arms.”

  “Ren, seriously?” Dean asked my Spitfire, disbelief in his eyes.

  “Seriously,” she hissed at him.

  “Everything was fine until he turned up and now he’s back?” the Twin said. “He got you caught up in illegal fighting and then he left you Ren. He put you in danger time and time again and you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

  “You’re trying to turn her against me,” I hissed, stepping forward, but Ren placed a hand on my chest. It had an instant calming effect, like she was a fucking beast whisperer, and I stopped mid-stride.

  “You didn’t see her after you abandoned her, Fuller.”

  “You broke her heart,” Lincoln added.

  I glanced between the Twins and wondered how messy it would get if I had to teach them both a lesson. They didn’t know the things I had to sacrifice in order to protect her. They didn’t know what that fucking word even meant. Sacrifice.

  “Stop it,” Ren hissed, stepping in between me and the Twins. She pressed her back against my chest like she was trying to shield me. Turned me the fuck on.

  “Leave off Ren,” Dean said. “This is between us.”

  “I don’t need a man to protect my honor,” she cried.

  “No you fucking don’t,” I murmured into her ear, which only seemed to piss Dean off even further.

  It was clear that the Twins thought they had a claim over Ren in some twisted way. I hoped they’d never fucking touched her, ‘cos if they did they had a huge problem on their hands. I hoped for their sake it was brotherly love, nothing more. Ren was mine.

  “If you knew,” she said, shaking her head, her gazed locked onto the Twins. “If you knew the things he’s done for me…”

  “I can’t believe this,” Dean said, throwing his hands into the air.

  “I love him, Dean,” Ren cried. “We’ve worked it out. I don’t need your permission. I don’t need anyone’s. I’m a grown ass fucking woman.”

  “Step aside Ren.”

  Clearly there was nothing Ren could say to sway Dean’s opinion. I was the bad guy, I’d always been enemy number one, ever since the day he walked into Beat and fell in love with Monica Miller. He could say he was trying to protect Ren all he wanted, he could say whatever he wanted and I wouldn’t believe a fucking thing that came out his mouth. He looked at me and all he saw was an enemy no matter what I said or did to sway him. There was only one way this could play out and I’d rather it happen now than later.

  We had to beat it out with our fists.

  I wrapped an arm around Ren’s middle and heaved her to the side. Before she could sandwich herself between us again, I stepped up into Dean’s face.

  “We fought once before,” I said through gritted teeth. “We fought with rules. This time-”

  “Ash,” Ren yelled at me, trying to claw at my arm.

  “It would be my pleasure,” Dean said, understanding that once we started, there was no stopping until there was blood.

  “Are you serious?” Ren shoved at Dean, but he didn’t budge. “He’ll fucking kill you!”

  “Ren.” Lincoln reached for her, but she twisted away.

  “In the ring,” I hissed. “Let’s sort this out once and for all. I’m sick and fucking tired of your ugly fucking face.”

  “Stop it!” Out of nowhere Monica pushed between us, her hands shoving at Dean.

  “No,” she cried. “It’s not his fault.”

  “Stay the fuck out of this Monica,” Dean hissed, his eyes still fixed on me. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It’s all of my business,” she said, slipping between us.

  “You’ve got no claim on any of us,” I spat, stepping back from her aura of bullshit.

  “It was my fault,” she said, her gaze flickering to Ren’s. “All of it was my fault.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean asked, turning on the younger Miller sister.

  She heaved in a lungful of air, her eyes becoming glassy. I knew Monica Miller was a snake, but my gut was telling me that she’d done something to Ren…something big. They’d never gotten along, but this...

  “Start talking,” I hissed, balling my fists at my side.

  Monica glanced at Ren again, but she didn’t move, her gaze stony.

  “I let him in,” she whispered, tears beginning to fall.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. She let him in… That night… That night was scarred into my memory and I had to live with it for the rest of my life. The horrifying image of Hammer over Ren was seared into my brain. The image of her fighting, but not being able to get him off sliced my heart into a trillion jagged pieces. She let him in...

  “He was going to rape her Monica,” I spat. “If I wasn’t- He was going to cripple her.”

  The abrupt silence was deafening. I felt the vein in my forehead begin to throb as I ground my teeth together.

  “I thought I was in love with you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I-”

  Everyone just stared at her in shock, but when I glanced at Ren, she was standing stony-faced, her entire body rigid. She didn’t have to say it. She’d known all this time.

  “Monica?”

  Everyone turned as Coach stood at the far side of the studio, a confused look on his face. I’d thought the shit had already hit the fan, but it turned out it hadn’t splattered yet.

  “Someone better start explaining,�
� Coach said, striding across the mats, “because when a father hears the words rape and cripple…”

  Monica started breathing hard, swatting tears away with the back of her hand.

  “Monica.”

  “It wasn’t kids who trashed Beat,” she said, her eyes downcast. “He attacked Ren… I…”

  “Who?” Coach said thinly, his gaze flickering to mine.

  “Hammer…” she said through a hiccup.

  “I was there to stop him,” I hissed. “We trashed the place. I trashed it trying to-” I clamped my mouth shut.

  Monica glanced at me, but her gaze didn’t quite meet mine. “I gave him a key and the alarm code.”

  “Monica,” Coach whispered. “You’re not serious…”

  “I’m completely serious Dad. It was my fault. I helped them and I ruined everything.” She shook her head, glancing away, the shame clear in her features. “I wanted her gone. I didn’t know that he was going to do those things. I didn’t know it was going to turn out the way it did.”

  “What did you fucking expect?” I roared. “Hammer is evil. He’s fucking evil and after what he did to my sister you let him in here?”

  “Ash.” Ren wrapped her hands around my arm and tugged, but I was too far gone to let her pull me back.

  Lincoln stepped forward then, his skin turning white. “What did he do to Violet?”

  Well, that fucking crush went more than one way. I snorted and narrowed my eyes at Monica. “I was never in Thailand.”

  “This just keeps getting better and better,” Dean exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air yet again.

  “Then where were you?” Coach asked.

  “I was in prison.”

  I swear there was a collective gasp as the truth finally came out. There was no use trying to hide it anymore. Ren knew and had accepted me and my shortcomings, she fucking loved me, so who the hell cared what anyone else thought.

  “Hammer attacked Violet,” I went on, not wanting to elaborate the details. That was her part to tell. “I retaliated, which was what they wanted, and I got kicked out of pro and sent straight to the slammer.”

  “Hammer fights at The Underground now,” Ren said. “He came after me to get to Ash.”

  “He saw you as a threat.” Everyone glanced at Coach, whose expression was unreadable.

  That was the thing about Coach Miller. I remembered the day I first found Beat and the moment I thought I knew what he was going to do, but didn’t. I was just a messed up kid with hardly any idea how the world worked, and here was this man with the most unbelievable poker face giving me a hard time and tough love… Little did I know it was for my own good. He wore that same expression now.

  “Monica.” Coach gestured for her to follow him and she hesitated, wrapping her arms around her stomach.

  That was our cue to get moving so I grasped for Ren’s hand and a moment later she laced her fingers through mine. No doubt there would be more choice words between the Twins and me, not to mention Coach, but for now I wanted Ren. I tugged on her hand, leading her toward the kitchen. The truth was out now and everyone would do with it what they wanted, it was no use trying to convince them that my intentions for being back at Beat and with Ren were honorable. At least, not right now.

  “Ren,” Monica whispered as I passed.

  I hesitated, glancing over my shoulder, my hand still firmly wedged in my Spitfire’s.

  Ren nodded at her sister once before saying, “That’s the moment I was waiting for.”

  Frowning, I glanced at Monica as Ren tugged on my hand. She shrugged, looking totally defeated, and made her way across the studio to the stairs. I didn’t have to wonder about the things Coach was going to say to her. Nothing good was going to come out of that conversation.

  Ren dropped my hand as we entered the kitchen and I stood in the middle of the room noticing that there had been more storage built in. It was smaller in here now, where as before it had been cavernous. I rubbed my eyes and wondered when all the secrets would stop. A year wasn’t the longest amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but so much had changed since I’d been gone. I felt like I’d missed the most important time in Ren’s life when she made pro. I wasn’t sure how I was meant to feel about that.

  Ren curled her hands into the front of my T-shirt and pulled. I stepped forward and she melted against my chest.

  “What?” she whispered, knowing that something was eating me up. Something more than the shit that just exploded out in the studio.

  “You knew all this time?” I asked. “After everything…”

  “I gathered you would’ve worked it out all on your own, but I guess not.”

  “When-”

  “The moment Hammer grabbed me.” She said it with an air of nonchalance that got under my skin.

  I opened my mouth but shut it again, clamping down on whatever I was going to spit out at her. I wasn’t in my right mind back then. I wasn’t in a good place until she’d come back. There was nothing I could say.

  “You never ratted her out?” I asked. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “It was my leverage.”

  “For what?”

  “A lot of things. She never made my life here very welcoming,” she said. “It was manipulative, but I used it to get her out of my face. And Dean-”

  I hissed.

  “Ash,” Ren scolded, “he was only trying to protect me and I tried to protect him too in a way. She’s not good for him.”

  “Nothing will ever keep me from your side,” I said, swallowing my anger. “Least of all pansy ass fuckers like those Twins. I don’t give a shit about what’s good for him.”

  “What is it with you men?” She shook her head at me, her pretty brown hair tumbling around her shoulders.

  “Dean hates me because of Monica.”

  “That much I gathered, but it’s more than that.”

  It was a statement and as per usual Ren hit the nail right on the head.

  “It was competition, nothing more,” I said. “I was good, Dean wanted to be better, but he could never match me. Monica was the wound and everything else was the salt.”

  Ren stared at me like I was a puzzle. Couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t figure out most of the shit I did myself.

  I ran my palm across her waist, tugging her against me. “I never looked at her like that. Not even once.” I didn’t know why we were even talking about her. I’d told Ren time and time again, there was no one else. Not then, not now, not ever. “I love you.”

  Her face began to light up and my heart began to thump erratically in my chest in answer. She was either going to give me a heart attack or I was going to come in my pants every fucking time she looked at me.

  “I love you, you animal,” she said and crushed her mouth against mine.

  It was my thing to dominate and take from her, but this time, I let her kiss me the way she wanted. Her tongue swiped greedily at mine, delving deeper with each caress and I held her against me, rubbing my hands up and down her back. I’d never get tired of kissing her, tasting her, fucking her… Ren was mine.

  She moaned into my mouth and I pulled away slightly, sucking softly at her bottom lip.

  “Spitfire,” I muttered between kisses.

  “I need to cool down,” she said, her lips curving against mine.

  “Fuck, I want to do you on the kitchen table.”

  Ren began to laugh and it was the most fucking intoxicating sound… I could get drunk on that shit.

  “Maybe we can revisit that notion tonight.”

  She stepped away, but I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her right back. “Do you think they’ll let me stay?”

  She nodded, her arms snaking around my neck. “They better.”

  “It’s all out there now,” I said with a shrug. “Who fuckin’ knows what’s going to happen.”

  “The Twins will come round,” she said. “Dad will eventually.”

  “I fuckin’ hope so,” I mumbled against her mouth.<
br />
  She pulled away slightly and said, “I’ll talk to him. It’ll be better coming from me.”

  “He won’t let you go back to The Underground,” I said. “I’m not sold either, Spitfire.”

  “Too bad, so sad,” she said, her lip curling into a wicked smile. She shoved her hands down the back of my jeans and dug her fingernails into my ass cheeks.

  Groaning, I flexed into her lower stomach. “You’re bad-ass Ren Miller.”

  She gasped as she felt my hardening cock and muttered, “And don’t you forget it.”

  Chapter 21

  Ren

  I lingered in the doorway of the kitchen, watching for Monica’s exit. Ash had begrudgingly allowed me to talk to my dad first and break the news that we were going back to The Underground.

  This was the easy part, right? All the bad things were out in the open, so one more shouldn’t tip the balance, right? Famous last words.

  The office door slammed overhead and a moment later Monica was running down the stairs, tears streaming from her eyes. I wanted to feel satisfied that she’d gotten what she’d deserved after all this time, but I just couldn’t. She brushed by me without a word and disappeared out the front door and onto the street.

  Dean caught my eye from across the studio and I shook my head. The look on his face said everything. He wanted to go after her, but she didn’t deserve it. He needed someone else to come along and sweep him off his feet. Monica Miller wasn’t worth his time and it was a match made in hell as far as I was concerned.

  “Let her go,” I heard Lincoln say.

  I cast my gaze up the stairs to the office where Dad was still inside, probably reeling from all the heartfelt confessions. Talk about family drama.

  Without glancing back, I climbed the stairs ready to get this over with. Dad had to be on the same page and for some stupid reason, I wanted him to approve. I’d forgiven Ash for the things he’d done to me and somewhere along the line I’d forgiven Dad, too. I’d more than forgiven him. He was a part of my life now.

  How’s that Mum? I thought. I found the family you wanted after all.

  I knocked softly on the door before opening it and stepping into the office. Dad was standing in the middle of the room, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, obviously at his wits end. When he heard me at the door, he glanced up.