Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

16. Milo

SIXTEEN

MILO

TEN YEARS AGO

Shouts rained from the dank, dark space, echoing with the call of bloodlust against the thick block walls of the seedy basement.

The ceiling was low in the pit. The pipes exposed. Water dripped from the orifices and gathered on the dingy ground in blackened puddles that rippled with the stomping of feet.

Heat overwhelmed the space, fire on his flesh and old, ugly hatred in his soul.

Here, where the shroud was ripped away and the vileness came to play.

Milo stalked the edge of the ring, watching his opponent like prey. A gash on the side of the man’s head gaped open, and blood poured from the wound and streaked down his face. One eye was swollen shut, and bruises had begun to welt on his sides and chest.

Milo lifted his shoulder to swipe the blood that gushed from his mouth, the pain nothing but fuel that fed the frenzy that pounded in his brain.

The chants rose, filled his ears, “Finish him! Finish him!”

They’d learned quickly if they wanted to line their pockets with dirty money, they’d do best when they were shouting for him.

“Come and get me, pussy,” his opponent taunted as he bounced on his toes and gestured at himself with his blood-stained fists.

“You little pussy. Good for nothin’. Pathetic waste of space. Just like your mother. Should put a bullet in both your heads.”

Milo snapped. He flew forward and released the violence that seethed in wait just beneath the surface of his skin. His fist rammed into his enemy’s face, knocking him from his feet.

Milo descended in a blaze of fists and fury. Old hatred that he poured into the wrath that he unleashed.

Hit after hit.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Darkness enclosed, and the basement walls spun and blurred into one with the cement floor that pooled with the man’s blood.

Vengeance shouted in his ears.

Louder than the calls that hurtled from the monsters who chanted their greed. “Finish him.”

He delivered another blow, and the man went limp. Hands were suddenly all over him when he went for another hit, yanking him back and pulling him up.

In the middle of the ring, his hand was tossed into the air in a victory Milo would never really win.

He stumbled back to his corner and looked at the man he’d beaten to within an inch of his life.

His skin covered in welts and blood and the grime of this disgusting life.

Gore.

Milo shook as he fell back against the corner of the ring, barely able to stand.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. “You did good. That’s ten thousand in your pocket.”

He swallowed down the bile before he slipped out of the ring. He shoved off those who sought to talk to him like he was a hero rather than a monster, and he stalked down the darkened, desolate hall to the old locker room that had been used for employees before the industrial building had been abandoned.

Bought for renovations by a man who was as dirty as they came.

He went directly to the shower and turned it on as hot as it would go. He didn’t bother to peel himself from his trunks before he stepped into the spray. He stood beneath the scalding water with his forehead pressed to the grungy tiles as he searched for a cleansing breath.

For a way out of the desolation.

He pushed his hands to the wall, his back bowing as he writhed, his mind in search of sanity and his soul filled with the abhorrence of who he’d become.

The molecules in the space suddenly shifted. Changed and took new form. Intensified and deepened.

He shifted to look over his shoulder at the girl who peered back at him through the jaundiced light that glowed in the space.

His ugly heart nearly stopped.

Maybe it was the residual aggression.

The adrenaline that instantly spiked in his veins.

It was her…the same girl who’d been there to watch him two times before. Out of place, so fucking gorgeous he thought his brain had short-circuited and tripped.

The girl who’d become an infatuation in his mind.

“You should probably leave,” he warned, his voice low.

She stepped forward. “I think it would be better if I stayed.”