The Badass Bodyguard

My dad accidentally rear-ended a gleaming Rolls-Royce.

Facing the billionaire who radiated a ruthless, suffocating aura of dominance, my dad gulped hard and had the sheer audacity to ask, Can I pay off the damages in installments? Like over three generations?

Before I could even process the mortification, he shoved me forward. "Here's generation number two."

Chapter 1

"Ned, I'm warning you right now. We have exactly eighty-five bucks left to our names." I glared at my father. "We need to sell the van. Otherwise, we're literally going to starve next week."

Dad whipped his head around, his eyes wide with betrayal. "You heartless monster! Don't you even think about it! I would sell you before I ever put a 'For Sale' sign on Whitey!"

"Holy shit! Watch the road!"

A deafening crunch of metal echoed through the cab as the front of our rusted Chevy brutally slammed into the bumper ahead.

My stomach dropped heavily to my knees when I saw the gleaming silver hood ornament, the intertwined 'R's staring back at me. It was the kind of car you only saw in movies or parked outside Manhattan high-rises. The kind of vehicle that, if you weren't born with the keys in your crib, you'd never touch in your lifetime. A Rolls-Royce.

Dad spotted the logo too. He slumped back against the peeling driver's seat, the color draining from his face. "Maeve," he whispered hoarsely, "what are the odds some douchebag just slapped a fake hood ornament on a Chrysler to look rich?"

Right on cue, the rear door of the Rolls swung open, and a man stepped out onto the asphalt. He was tall, with a jawline sharp enough to cut glass, and the second he leaned against the crushed bumper and crossed his arms, a suffocating wave of dominance radiated off him.

The last shred of my delusion shattered. I swallowed dryly. We were dead.

The guy oozed the kind of billionaire arrogance you couldn't fake.

My hands shook uncontrollably as I yanked out my phone and frantically pulled up Google. How much does it cost to fix a rear-ended Rolls-Royce?

The search results spit back numbers in the hundreds of thousands. A wave of dizziness hit me, but the moment I read the word "insurance," the crushing weight lifted off my chest.

"Maeve," Dad stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck, his weathered face flushing a deep, guilty red. "I, uh I need to tell you something. That money you gave me last week for the auto insurance renewal? I lent it to Shirley next door to cover her medical bills. Whitey is uninsured."

Perfect.

I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms they almost drew blood, doing everything in my power to suppress the overwhelming urge to commit patricide right there on the pavement.

A heavy knock on the driver's side window snapped my attention back. The chauffeur was waiting. Dad and I exchanged a grim, dead-man-walking look before pushing our creaking doors open and stepping out.

"Whatever the repair costs are, we'll cover every single cent!" Dad bowed so low he practically folded in half.

The billionaire merely shot me a glacial, dismissive glance and kept his mouth shut.

"It's just that" Dad chuckled nervously. "Can I set up a payment plan? Dropping that much cash at once is, well, you know"

The man's piercing gaze drifted over our rusted van. He gave a slow, barely perceptible nod. "A payment plan. Over how many months?"

Dad flashed him the most pathetic, sycophantic grin I had ever seen. "Over three generations. Here's generation number two."

He shoved me forward so hard I stumbled.

His aggressively intense eyes narrowed. Instead of stepping back, he closed the distance between us with suffocating dominance. His rough thumb shot out, gripping my chin in a punishing hold right before I could collide with his chest.

He cleared his throat smoothly. "Generation two. What exactly are your special skills?"

Wait, what? Was he actually entertaining this insane payment plan?

Dad's eyes lit up. He slammed a heavy hand on my shoulder, his chest puffing out with unwarranted pride. "My girl is a once-in-a-century lethal weapon! She can be your personal bodyguard!"

The chauffeur let out a muffled snort, his shoulders shaking as he failed to hold back his laughter.

The billionaire's expression hardened back into ice. He raked his gaze up and down my frame with disdain, letting out a harsh scoff. "Her? A lethal weapon? Is this some kind of bad joke?"

His condescending stare ignited a furious heat in my chest. If there was one thing I couldn't stand, it was being looked down upon by some arrogant suit. Without hesitating, I stepped right into his personal space and grabbed his hand.

His mask of perfect indifference slipped, genuine shock flashing in his eyes, clearly not expecting me to touch him so brazenly. "What the hell do you think you're do"

A sickening crack of bone snapped through the air.

He let out a harsh, guttural grunt, his sharp brows pulling into a tight knot. Yet, looking into his deep, dark eyes, I didn't see a single ounce of retreatinstead, a violently intense, almost manic possessiveness flared to life inside them.

Chapter 2

"Repair costs for the Rolls-Royce stand at 1.27 million. Medical bills, 50,000. Lost wages, 500 million. Please review the breakdown, and if everything is in order, sign at the bottom." The gorgeous secretary slid a thick stack of contracts across the desk, a flawlessly polite smile plastered on her face.

"Lost wages? Five hundred million?" My mind went blank. I had to be hallucinating.

"Allow me to clarify. Mr. Alistair's average daily income is approximately 50 million. His fractured hand requires a lengthy recovery." She tapped a perfectly manicured nail against the document. "Standard medical recovery for a broken bone is roughly a hundred days. A hundred days of lost wages equates to 5 billion."

"However, our boss is feeling exceptionally generous. He applied a ninety percent discount. You only owe 500 million."

This kind of math was so ruthlessly cold-blooded it would make Wall Street vampires look like charity workers.

Ned slumped back into his chair, his already weathered face aging ten years in a single second. "If this were the Middle Ages, we'd be sold off as indentured servants. I'm a dead man."

"Dad, what if we just make a run for the border and disappear into Mexico?"

The secretary blinked, her polite, corporate smile cracking slightly. She clearly hadn't expected us to casually plot a felony while she was sitting right in front of us.

Alistair leaned against the doorway, his arm locked in a fresh plaster cast. He let out a dark, mocking scoff. "You need actual cash to disappear off the grid. Do you even have fifty bucks between the two of you?"

I slammed both hands onto the table and shot up from my chair. "Stop looking down your perfectly sculpted nose at us! Everyone has fifty bucks!"

I snatched the pen and aggressively scrawled my name on the dotted line. "Fine! I'll sign! But let's get one thing straightyou can withhold our paychecks, but you are covering room and board!"

Just like that, Ned and I officially became the newest, lowest-ranking members of the Alistair estate's security detail. The man didn't just have guards; he had a private paramilitary force. The disgustingly massive, obscenely expensive mansion had a 24-hour perimeter patrol, plus an elite inner-circle bodyguard unit. Since we were the bottom feeders working off a generational debt, we were tossed onto the basic perimeter patrol.

"These are your quarters. Maeve, your room is here. Ned's is right next door." Nancy, the head housekeeper's assistant, offered a stiff nod. "Rest up. Someone will come grab you when dinner is served."

She stepped out, pulling the heavy door shut behind her.

I threw myself face-first onto the mattress. It was so thick and bouncy I felt like I was sinking into a cloud. I rolled over, grinning like a maniac. "Dad! We have an en-suite bathroom! I never have to freeze my ass off using the communal hallway toilet again!"

Ned was practically drooling as he ran his calloused hands over the sleek edge of the massive flat-screen mounted on the wall. "Look at the size of this thing. It's gotta be worth thousands! Maeve, we hit the absolute jackpot!"

A vivid memory of yesterday flashed through my mind. Dad and I kneeling in the middle of our dirt-patch yard back home, bawling our eyes out as we packed our meager belongings. Right before we left, he had tragically handed Whitey over to Shirley next door, treating the handover with the solemn gravity of passing on his firstborn son. Whitey was the fat pig Dad had originally bought to slaughter for winter provisions, only to completely fail and form a deeply emotional, borderline embarrassing attachment to the beast.

All that gut-wrenching sorrow we had spent twenty-four hours building up evaporated the second we stepped foot into this sprawling billionaire compound. By the time dinner rolled around, the soul-crushing tragedy of selling ourselves into indentured servitude was wiped out entirely, replaced by raw ecstasy.

Who would have thought the staff cafeteria was a literal all-you-can-eat buffet?

I stared in disbelief at the spread. I saw mountains of Tomahawk steaks, Boston lobsters thicker than my arm, sizzling black truffle BBQ, and an entire bar dedicated solely to bottomless caviar. Staring down the endless rows of high-end culinary perfection, Dad and I felt so deliriously happy we were practically dizzy.

Chapter 3

After a full day of stuffing my face and recovering, it was finally time to earn my keep. Today, the head butler brought me right in front of Alistair. He informed me that whenever Alistair was home, I would run perimeter with the security detail, but the second he stepped off the property, I was his personal, close-quarters protection.

Wait, wasn't that basically the lead bodyguard? I just got promoted.

Alistair sat on the leather sofa, his sharp eyes narrowing with heavy suspicion and probing doubt. "Maeve, do you actually have any real combat skills?"

I glanced sideways at his yellowish, beaten-up old desk. It was just wood. Probably not worth much, right?

Bang!

I didn't waste a single second explaining. I just slammed a heavy, brutal punch directly onto the surface. The corner of that priceless-looking solid wood desk instantly shattered like a brittle cracker, sending sharp splinters flying everywhere.

Alistair closed his eyes tight. His long, thick eyelashes trembled slightly. I could clearly see a muscle in his sharp jaw twitch violently, a heavy vein throbbing right at his temple.

Heh, he was totally blown away by my raw power! Ned was wrong. I wasn't just some ordinary street thug. I was the ultimate lethal weapon of the underground fight clubs, and I had never lost!

Alistair snapped his eyes open, and they were burning with barely contained fury. His lips twitched into a dangerous sneer as he forced the words out through clenched teeth. "That was a seventeenth-century antique rosewood desk. I won it at a private auction for eight million dollars. Add another eight million to your debt."

The chauffeur drove us deep into the winding mountain roads. I shrunk my shoulders and pressed myself completely flat against the far car door, wishing I could put a million miles between me and Alistair.

Alistair leaned back against the plush leather seats with lazy dominance, shooting me a sideways glare. "I have a scheduled rock-climbing match today. But since you shattered my hand, you are going to compete in my place. The loser owes the winner a brand-new Ferrari."

"If you lose, that money comes entirely out of your own pocket."

I raised a trembling hand. "What the hell is rock climbing?"

I couldn't believe it when we arrived. Rock climbing was literally just scaling a cliff. That was it?

It immediately threw me back to my grueling training days. To increase the difficulty of my vertical wall runs, Ned used to smear thick layers of industrial grease all over the brick surfaces. I could have scaled the sheer rock face in front of me with my eyes closed when I was ten years old.

"Well, well, if it isn't the great Alistair! And he brought a girl? Now that is a rare sight."

The guy walking toward us was flashy. He had bleach-blonde hair and features so sharply refined he looked prettier than most runway models. A small entourage of young men and women trailed lazily behind him, all dripping in designer labels and smelling like old money.

I subtly shifted my weight, taking a cautious step back to put some solid distance between us. If I accidentally snagged one of their sleeves, selling my organs on the black market wouldn't cover the dry-cleaning bill.

"Damn, Alistair, are you kidding me? You're in a cast?" The entire group locked their eyes on his wrapped arm.

The blonde guy's face lit up with immediate arrogant glee. "So, I'm guessing you're forfeiting?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Brooks. I don't give up that easily." Alistair's face was completely devoid of emotion as he suddenly grabbed my arm, yanking me forward right into the center of the crowd's attention. "She will be competing in my place today."

The group stared in dead silence before erupting into loud, obnoxious laughter. Brooks laughed so hard he actually wiped a tear from his eye. "Alistair, did you completely lose your mind? You're having some random chick race for you? This is hilarious!"

As he spoke, he reached out and casually squeezed my bicep. "She's cute enough, but look at these scrawny little arms. Have you ever even touched a harness before you decided to show up here?"

I glared at him with total annoyance, slapping his hand away. "I've climbed rocks before!"

Chapter 4

The entire crowd erupted into even louder, more obnoxious laughter.

"Damn, Alistair, where did you dig up this clown? Fine, let her race for you!"

"Don't start bawling when you get too high up, little girl," Brooks sneered, condescendingly patting my cheek. His eyes were swimming with mocking amusement and total dismissal.

I tightened my fists, repeating a desperate mantra in my head. I can't afford to pay for his medical bills. I can't afford to break his jaw. His face is worth too much money. After chanting that a few times, I finally managed to force my boiling temper down.

A sharp, piercing whistle echoed from the top of the cliff, followed by seven or eight heavy climbing ropes dropping down to the base. The rich boys lined up at their respective stations, lazily strapping themselves into their high-end climbing harnesses.

Brooks was stationed right next to me. He shot me a cocky, teasing smirk and wiggled his eyebrows. "If you get too scared up there, sweetheart, feel free to scream for me."

I mirrored their movements and strapped into the safety gear. Honestly, I didn't even want to wear the restrictive crap, but Alistair shot me a razor-sharp glare, so I obediently buckled myself in.

Bang!

The starting pistol fired. The race began.

I completely ignored the useless safety harness dragging me down. Relying purely on the terrifying, explosive strength in my fingertips and my tightly coiled back muscles, I locked onto the razor-sharp edges of the rock. I launched myself straight up the sheer, vertical cliff face, climbing with the frantic speed of an enraged leopard.

"If your scrawny arms give out, sweetheart, just beg, and I might just pull you up!" Brooks yelled over the wind. He turned his head with a cocky grin, only to find thin air.

The girl who had been standing right next to him a second ago had literally vanished. Completely bewildered, he looked over at the guy stationed on my other side. "Dylan, did you see where that chick went? Did she run away?"

Dylan's handsome face was entirely blank for a second as he frantically whipped his head around. "Her? No clue, man, she was literally right beside me a second ago. Holy shit! What the hell!"

"Brooks, look, look up." Dylan's eyes were bulging out of his skull. He stared straight up at the cliff, his jaw completely unhinged, looking exactly like he had just seen a ghost. It was like he was witnessing something utterly incomprehensible.

Brooks sneered in disgust. Dylan was always so overly dramatic; no wonder his family was only considered a second-rate syndicate. He rolled his eyes hard and casually tilted his head back, only to freeze in total confusion.

"What the hell is that? When did a bird that massive get up there?"

Dylan's voice was shaking, heavy with disbelief. "Brooks, that, that's Maeve."

The second the starting gun had fired, I had stepped back, taken a deep breath, and launched my body entirely off the ground. My toes had lightly tapped a protruding rock, and I rapidly shot up the vertical wall. By the time they processed what was happening, I had already reached the summit.

There were four or five rich kids hanging out at the top, and right now, they were staring at me like I had just crawled out of a grave.

"Super, Superman" one of them stammered.

These rich kids were seriously weird. I casually walked to the edge of the cliff, leaned half my body over the massive drop, and screamed down at Alistair at the bottom.

"Alistair! I won! Stop deducting money from my paycheck!!!"

Meanwhile, way down at the base, Dylan and Brooks were still frozen in the exact same position, heads tilted back, eyes bulging, and jaws slacked wide open. They hadn't even climbed a single meter.

Chapter 5

"Alistair! You have no shame!"

By the time I reached the bottom of the cliff, Brooks and his entourage were swarming Alistair in a chaotic frenzy. Brooks had a death grip on Alistair's collar, literally spitting in his face as he screamed. "What the hell is this? It's a climbing race, and you bring a human jetpack? Tell me, where did you hide the propulsion device!"

Alistair recoiled in disgust, trying to dodge the spray of saliva. "What device? Are we supposed to use jetpacks? I have no idea what you're talking about."

The second Brooks heard my voice, he shoved Alistair aside and lunged for me. "Let me see that jacket! It's insane! It's so thinwhere the hell is the motor hidden?" He reached out to rip my clothes open.

Alistair's usually cold, composed expression shattered. "Don't kill him!"

The panic in his voice cracked, but it was already too late.

The moment the words left his mouth, Brooks was already airborne. It was pure muscle memory. I'd kicked Brooks into the air before I could even process it, and I immediately regretted the move. If I injured another one of these people, I'd be indebted until my great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren were dead.

I exploded into motion, launching myself like a cannonball to catch him before he crashed. Realizing I was slightly off-target, I flicked my foot out and tapped the seat of his pants. The trajectory shifted instantly. Brooks stopped his horizontal flight and soared straight up, a good three or four meters into the sky.

I calculated the landing, dropped into a solid, stable defensive stance, and caught him firmly in my arms as he plummeted back down.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!"

Brooks had his arms wrapped tight around my neck, screaming his lungs out. I looked down at the pretty boy I was holding bridal-style and rolled my eyes. "Shut up. I've got you."

Brooks went silent, his neck craning up to stare at me. The second our eyes locked, a jolt went through him like he'd been hit by a high-voltage wire.

The whole thing happened in a blink. The crowd had only seen Brooks lunge at me, get sent flying horizontally, and then suddenly shoot straight up into the air. By the time I set him down, everyone was still frozen, eyes bulging and mouths hanging wide open.

I dusted off my hands and walked over to Alistair.

"Holy shit! What was that? What just happened!"

The silent mountain turned into a rowdy marketplace.

"Was that martial arts? Like the stuff in the novels?"

Brooks snapped out of his trance and sprinted toward us, jumping and yelling like an excited monkey. The rest of the group swarmed me, faces flushed, breathing ragged, looking like they were drunk on adrenaline.

Alistair shot me a sharp look, pulled his phone from his pocket, and handed it to me. I took it, the realization hitting me instantly. He wanted me to show off and completely break these guys' reality.

With one clean, decisive chop, I sliced through the air. The top half of the phone dropped to the ground. The gleaming, top-of-the-line device was instantly in two pieces.

Alistair's lips twitched. "Eight point four four million. I've used it for two months let's round it down. Just make it eight million."

Chapter 6

I stood there frozen, clutching the mangled half of the phone. "Wait, what? What's worth eight million?"

Alistair let out a cold, sharp scoff. "My phone costs 8.44 million. You destroyed it. Did you think you wouldn't have to pay for that?"

I clutched my chest, staring at him in utter agony. "You handed it to me! Didn't you just want me to perform the demonstration?"

Alistair rolled his eyes, looking completely done with me. "I meant that your raw power earned my respect, so I was granting you the privilege of having my contact info."

I felt the light leave my eyes. Talk about a devastating blow.

The group of rich kids had brought a portable stove with them, and they were all huddled around, grilling food. I slumped into an outdoor chair, staring blankly at my own hands.

How could I be this incredibly stupid? I came out here expecting to earn some cash, and instead, I'd managed to rack up another eight million in debt.

"Maeve, here, have some grilled beef skewers." Brooks handed me a skewer, his face practically glowing with sycophantic eagerness.

"Get lost. I have no appetite."

Wait, what was that smell? That was agonizingly delicious. Damn it.

Before Brooks could even try to convince me, I snatched the skewer and started devouring it, grease coating my lips. "Is that all you've got? Give me twenty more!"

After I'd systematically scavenged every single skewer from the group, Brooks trotted over and pulled up a chair right next to me. "Maeve, besides that wall-running stuff, what else can you do? A martial arts god like you, why are you working for Alistair? Whatever he's paying you, I'll double it!"

I looked up from my feast, my eyes instantly sparking with pure, desperate hope. "Really? I owe him a fortune. Would you actually pay off my debt?"

"Easy! Done deal. Just take me on as your apprentice and teach me your skills."

"Five hundred and seventeen million, three hundred and twenty thousand." Alistair had appeared out of nowhere and sat right beside me. He plucked a skewer from my hand and started eating it with infuriating grace and precision.

The meat in my mouth suddenly tasted like ash.

Brooks sucked in a sharp breath, staring at me with a new level of awe. "A true martial arts master. That kind of debt actually makes sense for your level of skill."

News of Alistair hiring a "martial arts master" spread through their circle like wildfire, but because Brooks had exaggerated the story so much, everyone just took it as a joke. Many of them pestered Alistair to bring me out for a demo, but he shut them all down without a second thought. I had no idea what he was working on lately; he just moved between the house and his office like a machine.

Meanwhile, I was thriving in the security detail.

"Ned, Maeve, hereI just picked up some fresh fruit."

Dad and I were sprawled out on deck chairs in the garden, a table full of sliced fruit sitting between us. Keith, the security captain, who was pushing forty, was meticulously massaging my dad's calves. The story was that on the day I went out with Alistair, Dad had taken on fifty guys at once. He'd systematically dismantled the entire security team single-handedly, leaving half of them sobbing on the ground, begging him to take them on as disciples.

"Maeve." Keith leaned in close, checking our surroundings with a guarded glance. "Word is, the boss has been paying way too much attention to you lately. It's already caught the eye of Valerie."

"Who's Valerie?"

"The heiress to a massive jewelry empire. She's been chasing him for years and has been pulling every string she can to force their families into a merger."

Chapter 7

I shot up from my lounge chair, my heart racing. "Seriously? Do you think she's going to slide a blank check across a table and demand I leave Alistair, just like in the soap operas?"

Ned's eyes lit up with the exact same frantic energy. We exchanged a heavily loaded look. In his eyes, I saw the exact same desperate hunger for freedom.

Keith, the security captain, gave a grim, serious nod. "I wouldn't rule out that possibility. Plus, that top-tier socialite has a vicious temper. You need to be careful, Maeve."

Honestly, I was already completely sick of this lifestylewaking up, stuffing my face with luxury food, and having a small army of people practically worship the ground I walked on.

Wait. Was I actually sick of it?

Later that night, Ned and I sat in our massive, ultra-luxurious suite, staring blankly at the wall with matching expressions of profound misery. Ned opened his mouth a few times before finally letting out a heavy sigh. "Maeve, I finally understand why peasants in the Middle Ages would literally beg to become indentured servants for the ruling class."

I nodded slowly, a heavy, sinking feeling forming in the pit of my stomach. The realization that our all-inclusive billionaire vacation was about to end made me want to curl into a ball and weep.

The brand-new, top-of-the-line iPhone the butler had tossed me suddenly started ringing. I scrambled frantically to answer it.

"Maeve. Get ready. You're coming with me," Alistair's voice was crisp and commanding over the line.

"Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" I barked back automatically.

God, I was pathetic. The crushing weight of extreme wealth had completely shattered my spine.

Inside the painfully pristine new Rolls-Royce, Alistair was leaning back against the leather headrest, his eyes casually closed. "Maeve, effective immediately, I'm putting both you and your father on a monthly stipend of a hundred grand each. It's a bit on the lower end, I admit, but if your performance remains satisfactory, I'll increase it."

A hundred grand? A month? On the lower end?

I nearly launched my head straight through the car roof. Back when Ned and I were breaking our backs working sketchy odd jobs, we barely scraped together twenty grand a year.

"Hehehe" I spent the entire drive practically vibrating in my seat, giggling like an absolute maniac as I mentally visualized all the ways I was going to blow that cash.

"Shut up. You're giving me a headache," Alistair muttered, shooting me a sideways glare of utter disgust. Yet, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the faintest, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of his lips.

Alistair escorted me into an ultra-exclusive private club. Tucked away in the very back was a massive, fully equipped underground fighting ring. A group of men were aggressively yelling at each other, but the exact second Alistair pushed the heavy oak doors open, the entire room fell dead silent.

Brooks dramatically rolled his eyes at the heavily muscled guy standing across from him. "Our lethal weapon is finally here. She's going to wipe the floor with you."

The guy merely let out a dark, mocking sneer. Montgomery was the heir to a ruthless Eastern European oligarch, in town to negotiate a massive military contract with Alistair's syndicate. He wasn't just a cold-blooded billionaire; he was an absolute psychopath completely obsessed with underground, no-holds-barred cage fighting. Word on the street was that he had literally beaten three men to death with his bare hands in the black market rings last year.

During the meetup today, Brooks and his crew couldn't stop running their mouths, bragging endlessly about my explosive combat skills. They arrogantly claimed that a random girl from the streets could knock his teeth straight down his throat.

Montgomery sneered, his thick neck flushing. To a guy who killed for sport, flashy martial arts were nothing but fake, scripted movie choreography, an insult compared to his brutal combat techniques.

So, after Montgomery aggressively demanded a match, Alistair had personally brought me over. Montgomery raked his cold, predatory gaze up and down my frame before bursting into booming, arrogant laughter.

"This is your lethal weapon?" He flexed a heavily tattooed arm, showing off a terrifying, bulging bicep that looked like it was carved from granite. "My arm is literally thicker than your waist, little girl."

The hulking thugs Montgomery brought with him immediately erupted into a chorus of obnoxious, mocking laughter, pointing their thick fingers at me.

"You rich boys watch one too many action movies and suddenly think you know how to fight," one of them sneered.

Chapter 8

That vodka-soaked bastard!

I clenched my fists, ready to lunge forward, but Alistair's expression hardened as he aggressively yanked me behind his back. "He is dangerous, and he fights without rules. I know how the underground rings work, and the absolute weight class difference here is practically a death sentence. He easily weighs twice as much as you."

"Are you absolutely sure you want to step into that cage?" Alistair's flawlessly sculpted face was inches from mine. "Maeve, I don't want to see you get hurt."

Beneath his thick lashes, his dark eyes were stripped of their usual arrogance, replaced by a heavy, grounding intensity. My pulse instantly spiked, an involuntary heat rushing up my neck. Damn, he was criminally gorgeous when he actually acted like a human being.

"Maeve?" Alistair waved a large hand in front of my face.

I snapped out of my daze, wiped a nonexistent drop of drool from my mouth, and flashed him a blindingly confident grin. "How many moves?"

He froze, his brows pulling together in pure confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"This is supposed to be a friendly corporate exhibition match, right? I shouldn't make him look too humiliatingly pathetic in front of his crew." I shrugged casually. "So, how many moves should I take to dismantle him?"

Alistair was completely caught off guard by my absolute lack of hesitation. He blankly held up his fingers. "Ten?"

"Done." I nodded, brushed past his towering frame, and walked barefoot onto the cold canvas of the fighting ring.

Montgomery vaulted into the cage after me, letting out a heavy, mocking scoff that echoed in the silent room. "Martial arts? More like street-corner scams. I usually make it a strict rule never to beat up little girls. But since your rich boyfriends hyped you up as some kind of lethal weapon, I decided to make a special exception."

"I'm going to physically demonstrate why underground combat is the only real power in this world."

I immediately regretted my promise to Alistair. Ten moves was way too generous for this arrogant prick.

I mirrored his aggressive stance and let out a dark, cynical sneer of my own. "Bring it on, you roided-out meathead