Caged Love: MMA Contemporary Suspense (Book One) by Liberty Thunderbolt, Zac Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

finally caught up to them. The bloodied and battered fighters pushed away from each other.
    With time running short in the five minute round, they regrouped for a final effort to break the other.
    The crowd was berserk. The building rumbled. They engaged in a final massive barrage and struck each other with everything they had until the final bell. Jangchung arena was in eruption mode. The exhausted fighters hugged. Cho’s corner scooped him up then he climbed the ropes with his arms raised, Rodrigo did the same for Bretten and the crowd cheered just as loud.
    The men milled around the ring waiting for the decision. After a nervous minute they gathered in the center. The referee grasped their wrists, poised to raise one hand. The first judge gave the fight to Cho, the second to Bretten. The announcer paused before reading the third judge’s decision. Everyone hung on his words. He seemed to relish in the stillness, the spotlight. “Hyun Min Cho!” He screamed.
    Bretten’s chin collapsed to his chest, he gulped the air, squeezed his eyes shut, then bent over in disappointment. Cho lifted and hugged him. Bretten had vowed to himself that he was done losing. He’d already lost so much in the recent months and yearned for absolute victory. And yet he’d let himself down once again. Despite his heartbreak with the decision, he won a lot of fans with the incredible effort, including a couple who watched while warming up, Whit Daulton and Brooke Simms. Tristan Holmes acted as if he wasn’t all that impressed.
    * * *
    Bretten recovered fine and felt better than he thought he would considering he’d just suffered his first loss and gotten punched in the head more times than he cared to count. He’d stepped out of the cage only forty minutes prior. Now he marched right back towards it alongside Rodrigo.
    His new friend walked with purpose and confidence. He nodded to the fans, gave a few slaps on the hand, and then bounced into the ring. He jogged around once and stopped to hit knuckles with his opponent, Song Min Chu.
    Rodrigo looked bigger, more confident, more athletic, better in just about every way. Still Bretten was more nervous in his corner than he was in the ring. He knew that anything could happen in a fight.
    He didn’t have much to worry about. Rodrigo overwhelmed Chu in the stand-up game and knocked him down only two minutes in. He then took control on the ground, got the mount and rained down punches, forcing a stoppage at 2:36 of the first round. Bretten thought the performance impressive, but it also made him wonder how good Tristan Holmes was since he whipped Rodrigo just months earlier.
    After a quick trip to the dressing room for Rodrigo to clean up, the two returned ringside just as Brooke stepped through the ropes. Hers was the second to last fight and the crowd seemed in a lull, as if they didn’t take her seriously. She was a petite, pretty thing, surely her fists, elbows, knees, and feet weren’t made of thunder and lightning. It didn’t take long for the crowd to see that they were. She dropped her opponent to the floor quickly, and took her back with what seemed like little effort. It wasn’t long before she felt the tap. Brooke ended the fight with a rear naked choke.
    Bretten saw the look in her eyes afterward, relief. He felt it after each of his fights and wondered if she too was trying to beat the hell out of at least some of her past. After the weigh-in Rodrigo had told him more about her. She had lost her mom when she was young and had grown up with Tristan and his father, Scott Holmes.
    He wondered what her life had been like before he met her the last night. He wanted to find out. There was a connection there, he was sure of it. He found himself slipping into a daydream where he was with her, the two of them walking side by side, holding hands and talking about their pasts and their future dreams. He was brought out of the daydream by the start of Tristan’s fight.
    Tristan was up