He leaps across the cage to stop Kayden from leaving.
“Fight me!” Jax gives Kayden a hard shove, forcing him to stumble back. “Fight me, you fucking bastard!”
But Kayden regains his balance quickly, fire lighting in his eyes.
“No,” he roars back, unfazed by Jax.
Jax scowls deeply in response. As if the word doesn’t exist in his version of a dictionary.
“You’re gonna prove me right and be a fucking coward?”
He blasts out.
I watch nervously as Kayden’s face reacts to Jax’s comment.
He winces at the word coward but attempts to shake off the verbal blow, converting it into raw, defiant anger.
“I don’t care if I am,” he snaps back at Jax, eyes igniting with newfound purpose. A purpose that no longer aligns with mine. “I’m done being a part of this game. It’s not worth it. So get out of my fucking way.”
A muscle pulses in Jax’s jaw, and to my relief, he appears to be debating letting Kayden go. More screams for blood and jeers fly from the crowd as both fighters continue to stare each other down. My body is shaking with nerves at the tension trapping Kayden and Jax inside that cage, amplified by the raging, frenzied crowd.
For a moment, I notice a flicker of sympathy captured in Jax’s dark eyes. I know he’s capable of feeling remorse.
I’ve seen it before. He just needs to put his ego aside and let Kayden leave unscathed. Let the feud between them die.
Jax just needs to be the bigger man here.
But the crowd is not forgiving tonight. It is a fiery, temper tantrum–fueled abomination finally reaching its crux at the possibility of seeing the biggest fight of the season coming to a disappointing end.
“Come on! The fight is never over!” someone screams.
“You’re gonna let him go, Deadbeat? What a pussy!”
“Fight! You useless sack of shit!”
Jax’s eyes flare with alarm, the flicker of sympathy leaving him just as quickly as it arrived. His tongue sweeps across his upper teeth as the insults keep coming, causing his massive body to violently shake with anger. I know that look all too well—I became accustomed to it during the years that I was with him—and as a result, a familiar feeling arrives, one of pure dread and fear.
“No. No, no, no, no—” Are the only words I can repeat as the tension in the cage explodes and Jax pounces on Kayden.
Jax is relentless. His fists are everywhere—knocking into Kayden’s face and body like the wrathful inferno that he is. Kayden brings his defense up too late, taking each deathly blow that Jax rains down on him. He doesn’t fight back, merely absorbing and blocking the hits with his arms, perhaps hoping that Jax will stop once he gets in a couple of hits that the crowd has been ravenous for.
But Jax doesn’t.
And Kayden falters in his stance, his body clashing hard against the side of the cage.
“They shouldn’t be fighting!” Brent wails, frantic eyes bouncing from the cage then back to me and Evans. “Why isn’t the referee calling it?”
The answer is obvious. I look around and all I see is excitement charging up everyone’s faces as Jax continues to pound on Kayden mercilessly. This is what everyone had been waiting for. The brutal, long-standing rivalry finally coming to an end.
But this isn’t the fight I wanted.
Not like this.
“Kayden’s not fighting back,” Brent says miserably.
“He doesn’t want to fight back.” The words that leave me feel more like a statement than a realization.
I don’t know if I respect him for his decision or find it irrational that he’s choosing not to fight, especially when his opponent is hell-bent on ripping him to shreds.