Vera

Chapter 37

Santiago

Blood pounds in my ears, and sweat burns my eyes. My breathing is heavy and deep. My calves ache from pivoting on my toes. In front of me is Weston Patel, a cocky, rich boy, that thinks he is bad news. Right now, I'm letting him get hits in. He's getting arrogant and sloppy, leaving his head open and not guarding his stomach. Just swinging because he thinks he's strong. It's pathetic.

My gut contracts at the hard blow West hits me with. That'll leave purple and black bruise. If he hit a little harder he would have broken my rib. He's a good fighter I'll give him that, just lets that ego get the best of him.

He punches me across the face, making me bite my lip. Blood pools in my mouth, I spit it out and look at the splatter it makes across the floor. Almost like art, but with a fucked up meaning. The crowd cheers for West and a grin splits across his face. I'll let him get one more hit before-

"Santiago," Someone shouts my name, it's not one of the women that come in the hopes of getting me to fuck them, they don't know my name. It's too high to be a man, and if it's someone from the business they'd call me Desoto. I'm snapped from my thoughts when West hits my side with two punches. It knocks the wind out of me and almost to the ground.

"Santiago!" The voice is louder coming from behind me. I turn halfway keeping my eye on West but also trying to see who is calling me. Out the corner of my eye I see mocha brown hair swept up into a ponytail. Vera, why is she here? She sees she's caught my attention and finishes the rest of her sentence.

"Stop letting that 12 year old boy get hits in and get out of the damn ring." I crack a smile and chuckle which hurts more than I'd like to admit. I was going to finish the fight anyway. I never let someone else win, I just let them beat me up a bit to quiet down my mind.

"Now, Santiago." She demands, her lips in a pretty pout and her brows pinched together and anger but also worry. God, she could talk to me like I'm scum on earth, and I'd still do whatever she says.

I bring my hands up guarding my face, the only reason she had the time to tell me that is because West is smiling and waving at his fans, not paying attention to me. I come up from behind and send a blow to his side. He curls over in pain and turns towards me trying to defend himself, but like I said he's sloppy and sucks at guarding. I launch two punches at his ribs and he keels over before he hits the ground I slam his nose on my knee. He crumples to a ball on the ground, nose bleeding and tears streaming.

The audience blows up with cheers, applause, and yelling of my name. At least my name down here, Saint, which is funny to me how it came to be. The rumor is I tortured a man until all he could say was 'Please have mercy on me, Saint.' It isn't true but I like it.

I get out of the ring and walk over to Vera. Her jaw is clamped tight and her arms are crossed over her chest. I'm trying my hardest to not laugh, but it's not working. She's cute when she's mad. She turns on her heel, almost slapping me in the face with her ponytail, and walks to a back room where fighters usually get ready. I follow her into the room which looks like a regular gym locker room even though this is just an abandoned, worn down building with rats. On a bench there's a set out first aid kit.

She pins me with a stare, silently telling me to sit down. Not having it in me to fight her, I heavily, fall onto the bench and look up at her. She has a small beauty mark on her bottom lip and my eyes go up until they reach that one mark made by somebody's ring. I don't know which one of them made that mark but I made sure all of them paid for it.