Untamed (199 page)

“Who is Ricky?” she asks a moment later.

I sigh, and pinch the bridge of my nose. Blood is beginning to pool beneath my foot. My whole body hurts to hell.

“He was eighteen, needed money. Good body, strong, athletic, but no fighter. You’re right, he went crying to his mother. He was raising money for her. She’s disabled.”

“What?” Penny asks.

I grimace at the memory. “Four fractures in his face. Edema in his ear canal that was pushing into his brain. He almost died.”

“Jesus.”

“He stepped into the cage.”

“You do care, don’t you?”

I lick my lips. “He stepped into the cage.”

“But you keep in touch with him?”

“Yeah,” I say. I look at Pen. She’s looking at me different, like she’s surprised.

“So all your bullshit
what goes on in the cage stays in the cage
crap was a lie. The consequences
do
matter.”

“I don’t want to get into this, Pen.”

“Fine,” she says. “But is that
all
you do? Keep in touch?”

“No,” I tell her. “I help out financially, pay for his mother’s rehab. She’s learning to walk again.”

I see just the tiniest glimmer of a smile on her lips. She almost looks… relieved.

Who the hell did she think I was? The devil?

Chapter Thirty Seven