Montaine (11 page)

“How can you say that?” I
heard her shift in her seat. When I turned, her arm was wrapped around Oscar’s
back. She kissed his temple and rested her head on his shoulder.

Trent’s fight terminated
with a monstrous roar from the crowd. The rich kid lay sprawled on the mat,
rolling helplessly from side to side. Trent walked calmly toward the referee.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion. The referee raised Trent’s wrist to a
cheer that rocked the stands.

A scared-looking girl in
a flowery sundress approached me with a wad of cash in her hand.

“For you?” she said,
glancing nervously to the right and left.

“Yes, it is.” I lowered
my voice, trying to sound like an old pro. She smiled limply and trotted down
the steps. I stuffed the money into a duffel pocket.

“I took it easy on him,”
Trent said when he returned. “No use destroying the kid’s pride, right?”

He peered at Esmeralda
and Oscar, sensing the lingering vibes of recent tension. He looked at me and
raised a questioning eyebrow. I shrugged and shook my head.

“Oscar, why don’t we make
a bet?” He smacked his friend on the knee with a rolled-up towel. “Whoever
knocks out his opponent fastest has to pay for dinner. Deal?”

“Deal, brother.” Oscar
smiled wanly.

The fights continued
until Oscar’s number appeared. He bent over Esmeralda, their foreheads resting
against one another. Trent stood, his attention focused at a point in the
stands and shifting to the entrance of the fighting cage. He locked his fingers
over my forearm.

“No, this can’t happen,”
he whispered.

“What?”

I spotted the object of
his focus. Oscar’s opponent was the stranger from earlier, the one with the
bleeding skull tattoos, biceps of iron, and beastly carnivorous eyes.

Trent snagged Oscar’s arm
as he passed. “I don’t like this. Something is not right with that guy. Walk
away from this one.”

“You know I can’t just
walk away.” He snatched his arm free of Trent’s grip.

 “Baby, he’s right.” Esmeralda’s
eyes widened. She watched his opponent pace the edge of the cage, grunting and
huffing like a wild thing. She reached for Oscar’s forearm but missed and
swiped at the empty air.

“You too, Ezzie?” Oscar
stared dumbfounded between Trent and Esmeralda. “The people I trust most don’t
believe in me?” He swallowed hard and lowered his head, wagging it from side to
side. “I’ll see you all soon.” He jogged down the steps, into the lights and
noise.

“Stop him. Please stop
him.” Esmeralda wrung her hands together, lifting out of her seat with
indecision and fear.

Trent ran halfway toward
the ring. Oscar was already inside, looking small and fragile as he offered a handshake
to the hulking beast. Trent called once, his hands gathered around his mouth to
magnify a sound that was instantly lost in the roar of the crowd. Oscar ignored
him, walking around the edge of the ring with his head bowed. Trent turned and
headed back up into the bleachers.

I placed an arm around
Esmeralda’s curved spine. She swayed from side to side, head lowered, whispering
a soft prayer. Trent settled on her other side. He shook his head and peered at
her from the corner of his eye.

“It’ll be alright,” he
said gently. His arm touched mine as he patted her back. Our eyes met above her
head. His quick glance communicated a profound worry.

“It’ll be alright.” I
repeated Trent’s words. They were empty and meaningless from my mouth, echoing
the uncertainty that we all felt within our hearts.

Trent and I continued to
watch the ring with anxious dread. Esmeralda stared into her lap. Her muscles
shuddered against my arm with each cry and shout from the bloodthirsty crowd.

Oscar stepped forward,
his arms held defensively at his sides. His opponent exuded the controlled stealth
of a jungle cat and the unstoppable strength of a freight train. His arms hung long
and loose at his sides as he bobbed and shifted from foot to foot, his teeth
bared. He seemed to be taunting Oscar, who merely watched the ground and
punched one fist into his other palm.

With a throaty roar from
the assembled multitude, the fight began. A lightning burst from his opponent
sent Oscar reeling and staggering backwards, clutching at the air for balance
and caroming off of the cage netting. He gripped his ribs, where an iron fist
had landed with a devastating thump of pounded muscle and a crunch of bone.
Oscar flailed at the face of the giant, taller by at least six inches, and bent
double with another fist to the gut. He spit something dark onto the mat.
Blood.

“Stop the fight, Oscar,”
Trent muttered.

The referee approached
Oscar with his hands spread in a questioning gesture. Oscar waved him away,
rising unsteadily to his feet.

His opponent loomed,
shoulders hunched like a stalking predator, mallet hands hanging loose, waiting
for the perfect opportunity to strike. A distinct tension began to form within
the crowd as spectators stood and watched silently, their cries stilled by a
collective sense of onrushing tragedy. The only person in the arena who seemed
unable to detect the air of impending doom was Oscar. He flicked blood from his
lip and stepped forward.

Esmeralda gripped my arm
until her fingertips were stark white. I placed my hand over hers. The ending
seemed fated. Each hit, the butchering sound of fist hitting flesh, was magnified
in the rapidly hushed arena. A shudder ran through the crowd like a traveling
wave. Oscar raised his hands in defense. He was too late. With an awful crack
of splintered bone, the beast landed one perfect blow that felled Oscar instantly.
He dropped to the mat in a lifeless heap. Gasps erupted to my right and left.
The seconds ticked away in stunned silence. Oscar did not move.

Trent rose and zipped through
the stands faster than my eyes could follow. When I next spotted him, he was climbing
through the ring’s entrance and kneeling over Oscar. I grasped Esmeralda’s
wrist and pulled her after me. The crowd parted before us. Their sideways
glances expressed sympathy and dismay.

“Come on, buddy.” Trent’s
voice was audible in the nervous quiet. Oscar’s opponent simply stood and
watched from the sideline. He spit onto the mat and scratched his shorn scalp
with apparent unconcern.

We tried to enter the ring
but were shunted aside by several men in dark blue uniforms. In an instant,
they set Oscar on a stretcher and carried him from the ring, straight to an
ambulance that had appeared like magic through the open garage door. The
ambulance tore into the night with a squeal of sirens.

I felt a hand grip my
shoulder and turned to see Trent, wide-eyed and staring.

“The hospital is five
minutes away,” he said.

He pulled us toward his
car. Esmeralda ducked into the front passenger seat, pale as a ghost and
shaking. Just before I climbed into the back seat, Trent placed a hand on my
waist and drew his face close to mine.

“Kat, he wasn’t
breathing,” he whispered. “Oscar wasn’t breathing.”

Seconds later, we sped
through the pitch-black waterfront streets on the tail of the screaming sirens.

“Any news?”

Trent handed me a paper
cup filled with steaming black coffee. I took one sip and recoiled at the
bitter flavor.

“Nothing yet. The doctors
haven’t been out to see Ezzie. I wish they would tell her something just to
ease the uncertainty.”

I tilted my chin toward a
corner of the waiting room, where Esmeralda sat hunched in a chair, her phone held
up to her ear. She periodically swiped tears from her cheeks and shook her head
as she spoke to the person on the other end of the line.

Trent settled into the blue
plastic seat beside me. He sighed deeply and rubbed his hands on his thighs. A
few other acquaintances from the fighting arena had come to the hospital in a
show of support. Trent nodded at them grimly. Everyone seemed afraid to speak
until a bull-necked man with a Celtic cross tattooed into the side of his
shaved head took a seat on Trent’s other side.

“Trent, what’s the
story?” His voice was low and rough, with a rumble like tires crunching over
gravel.

“Len, I didn’t know you
were here.” They shook hands. “Len, this is Kat.” Len’s eyes flashed at me, an
absinthe green.

“Pleased to meet you,” I
said weakly. My gaze flitted every other second to Esmeralda. She sat curled
around her phone, speaking softly, her shoulders rising and falling with each breath.

“Len started the fighting
ring. Pretty much runs it at this point,” Trent explained. He turned back
toward Len. “Who the hell was that guy anyway? I haven’t seen him at any of the
fights before.”

Len shook his head and
knit his thick black brows together. “I don’t know. I checked the roster. The
name he gave was Hades.”

“Hades? As in the
mythological god of the underworld?”

Len cocked a skeptical
eyebrow. “I guess.” He shook his head and spread his palms outward. “Look, he
puts up the money, he gets to fight. Those are the rules. We don’t dig any
deeper than that. My hands are clean.”

“Relax, man. I’m not
accusing you of anything. I just want to find out the identity of the asshole
who destroyed my friend.”

None of us realized that
Esmeralda had approached from the other side of the room. She flinched at
Trent’s last words as she stood before us, her phone gripped tightly in her
palm.

Len rose from his chair
and patted her arm. “Here, take this seat, hon.” The rough grit of his voice
had audibly softened. He nodded briefly at Trent and walked in the direction of
the vending machines down the hall.

“Oscar’s mother is with
the kids. I just talked to her.” She sniffed and wiped damp streaks of mascara
from beneath her eyes. She glanced around the waiting room, decorated with
painfully cheerful decals of oversized flowers and cartoon animals. “What’s
taking so long? Why won’t they tell me anything?” She turned expectantly to
Trent. “Did he speak to you? Was he awake when you reached him in the ring?”

Trent dropped his head and
wagged it from side to side. “No, he didn’t.” The words sounded choked and raw.
He cleared his throat and placed a hand on her knee. “I’m sure he will be
alright, Ezzie. Oscar is as tough as they come.”

“I know, I know.” She
closed her eyes and breathed slowly in and out through pursed lips.

The door to the emergency
wing swung open with a startling squeak of metal hinges. A doctor in green
scrubs blinked in the fluorescent lights and surveyed the room. Esmeralda
stood. The phone in her lap clattered to the floor, but she didn’t bother to
pick it up.  The doctor strode toward her with rapid, swinging steps and the
soft tap of rubber shoes on linoleum.

“Mrs. Calabresis?” he
asked. He looked far too young to be a doctor, probably fresh out of medical
school. He was also more than a foot taller than Esmeralda. She resembled a
supplicant at an altar as she peered hopefully up into his face.

“Here, have a seat with
me.” He guided her over to the row of plastic chairs. His large brown eyes were
kind. He seemed to struggle momentarily for the right words.

Anxiety pounded in my
temples as I watched and waited. I grabbed Trent’s hand and twined my fingers
between his.

“Mrs. Calabresis…” the
doctor began.

“Esmeralda,” she
whispered.

“Esmeralda.” He nodded
and cleared his throat. “I am doctor Patel. I have been with your husband since
he came in this evening.”

“Is he alright? Can I see
him?”

Dr. Patel paused. “We
believe that your husband…Oscar…sustained a serious injury to his spinal cord.”

Esmeralda gasped. Trent
squeezed my hand.

“He is currently in a coma”
Dr. Patel continued. “We do not yet know the extent of any brain trauma that he
may have sustained. I can take you to see him, but I want you to be prepared.
This is a very delicate time, but be assured that we are doing everything we
possibly can to help Oscar.”

Esmeralda rose from her
chair. Her legs shook. She nearly stumbled and was saved only when Dr. Patel
reached a hand around her back to keep her steady. He also stooped to retrieve
her phone from the floor.

“Do you want me to come,
Ezzie?” Trent’s voice trembled.

“I’m sorry, it’s family
only,” Dr. Patel said gently.

“Go home, Trent.”
Esmeralda tilted her head to the side, her eyes welling with tears.

“Ezzie, I ---”

“Please. Go home.” Her
tone was quiet and firm. “Everyone should go home,” she said a bit louder,
trying to catch the ear of the small assembled crowd. “You can’t do anything to
help him now. None of you can.”

She turned and followed
Dr. Patel through the swinging doors.

***

“It’s my fault.”

Trent tossed his keys
onto a glass table, where they clinked and jangled loudly in the cavernous
silence of his penthouse.

“This is not your fault.
You did everything that you could to stop it.”

“No, I didn’t,” he
snapped. “I could have done more.”

A single ceiling lamp
shone on him in the center of the foyer. His fists were clenched at his sides,
the muscles in his arms tense and thick beneath the roiling bands of tattoos
that seemed to writhe and shift in the filtered light.

I leaned backwards on my
heel, startled by the anger in his tone. He sighed and shook his head, his
beefy shoulders slumping and his clenched fists relaxing. He cupped a hand in the
air and gestured with curled fingers for me to come closer.

“I’m sorry, babe.” The
word sent a thrill into my core. I stepped forward and allowed him to wind an
arm around my waist. “I know you’re just trying to help.”

He clutched the side of
my neck, my chin resting in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger. He kissed
me, his lips warm and full. His tongue stroked mine in a smooth rhythm. I
angled my hips against his.

“It’s not your fault,” I
repeated between hungry kisses. His lips and tongue snaked down my neck and
over my collarbone. His fingertips reached under my shirt and pressed hard into
the naked flesh of my back.

“I need you, Kat,” he
said with a throaty growl. “I need you to help me forget about everything. I
need you to keep me sane.”

He gripped the edges of
my tank top and lifted it roughly over my head and outstretched arms. With a
quick pinch and a solid tug, he tore my bra from my chest. He buried his face
between my breasts, licking the center of my cleavage and wrapping his warm
mouth around each of my hard nipples. I threw my head back with a long moan as
his tongue and teeth tickled and bit the yearning flesh of my naked breasts.

He held my waist tightly
and raised me up. I wrapped my bare legs around his hips until I was completely
off the ground, his hands firmly clasping me. He carried me into the living room
and tossed me onto the couch.

He removed his t-shirt,
crumpled it into a ball, and threw it across the room. The swells of his
rippling chest and arm muscles shone in the reflected light of the panoramic city
skyline outside the windows. A thin shaft of moonlight outlined his hulking
form, casting shadows over his handsome face and keeping his expression dark
and hidden.

He lowered his shorts and
briefs and tossed them aside. His body was like a work of art, a classical statue
in its perfect proportions. He was huge with a throbbing erection. I wanted to
lick it and suck it and feel it plunged deep within me. I unbuttoned my shorts
and slipped them over my thighs and shins, along with my flimsy black panties.

I spread my legs wide
apart, an invitation. He watched me, his face still obscured in shadow.

“What do you want me to
do, baby?” He stood next to me and played his fingertips along the curves of my
bare breasts and stomach and down between my legs. I was glistening wet and
fully open. He teased me with gentle strokes.

“I want you to fuck me,”
I said breathily. I groaned with the tingling pleasure of his touch.

“Do you
need
me to
fuck you?” He climbed on top of me, his hips resting against my inner thighs
and pressing my legs wider apart. His hands rested on either side of my head as
he loomed above me. “Do you need
me
, Kat?”

“Yes, Trent. I need you.”

“Good.”

With a dashing and
delicious smile and a long rumbling groan, he thrust himself fully into me. I
gasped and moaned as our bodies combined in one hot and writhing wave of
absolute ecstasy. He moved slowly in an out, the muscles of his six-pack undulating
with each lift and plunge of his hips. My back arched high. He kissed and
sucked my breasts while he moved within me, his heft sliding smooth, long and
slick.

I clutched his back,
digging my fingernails into his flesh with each agonizingly pleasurable thrust.
He moved faster, our bodies locked in a steady pulse. I spread my legs wider apart
and dug my fingernails deeper into his bare skin. We panted and moaned
together, grinding and thrashing with abandon as we both reached the peak of
orgasm. I opened my mouth with a guttural cry as my thighs tensed around him, holding
him tight and strong. He came inside me with a thick, hot wave and a staggering
throb of release.

We were both sweating and
breathing heavily. Trent rested his head on my chest. I lifted my fingertips
from his back, where my nails left red half-moons, and twirled them in the
thick, black waves of his hair. His hips rested comfortably between my thighs. I
crossed my ankles over the small of his back.

“How do you do this to
me, Kat?” he asked softly.

“What do you mean?”

He lifted his head and
placed his palms flat on my chest, resting his chin on the backs of his hands.
“How do you make me lose control? No woman has ever done that to me before. I
am always the one in charge. With you, I’m not so sure.”

I was surprised to hear
him say this. To my understanding, he was the one in charge. I was merely the
one following along like a lovesick puppy. I didn’t feel that I had any measure
of control over Trent. His whims and desires were in full control of both my
body and my heart.

“Why does anyone have to
be in charge?”

Trent flashed a wide and
rakish grin, luminous in the moonlight.

“Sweet Kitty Kat,” he
said soothingly. He wrapped his lips around each of my nipples and smiled
again. “Someone always has to be in charge.”

He lowered his head onto
my chest, his ear pressed against my heart. I stroked the back of his head with
absent-minded gentleness as I wondered whether I really knew Trent at all. I
walked on perpetually shifting sands whenever he was near. Just when I thought
that I understood him, I was knocked off balance by a new facet of his
personality, a new depth of emotion, or a new and nagging doubt.

“I can’t shake the notion
that I’ve seen that Hades guy before,” Trent said, smoothly changing the
subject. “I keep racking my brain, but I can’t figure it out. Maybe I’m
imagining it. I should have been the one to fight him, not Oscar.”

“And then you might be the
one lying in a hospital bed in Brooklyn. How does that solve anything? Plus,
you tried to switch numbers with Oscar. You gave him the option.”

“I should have tried
harder. I should have stopped the fight. I knew it was all wrong. I knew that
something terrible was going to happen. I’ll understand if Ezzie never forgives
me.”

“I don’t think that Ezzie
blames you. No on blames you. And you shouldn’t blame yourself.” I lightly
tugged at his hair so that he would lift his eyes to mine. “Do you hear me?
Don’t fixate on it. You can’t change what happened. And you are not at fault.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I leaned forward and
kissed his forehead.

“Besides, there may be
nothing to forgive. Maybe Oscar will be fine. The doctor said that they still
don’t know the extent of any damage.”

“Kat, I saw him.” Trent’s
eyes were solemn, his face taking on a pained expression. “Oscar is not going
to be fine.” His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. His heart beat against
my stomach. “I thought he was dead at first. He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were
half open. His neck was twisted at an odd angle. In that moment, I really
thought that was it. I thought I’d lost him.”