Learning to Live

Chapter 34

He shifted in his seat. "There's a tournament. A bare-knuckle tournament."

My eyes widened. "Wait, isn't that illegal?!"

He nodded.

"Why would you participate in something like that?" I asked.

Fighting professionally with bare hands was asking for trouble. Not just from a legal perspective, but the injuries he could sustain would be life-threatening. In fights like those, there wouldn't be any rules or forbidden hits.

He rubbed his cauliflower ear. "I was in a bad place. There was this... emptiness." He hit his fist on the middle of his chest. "Nothing seemed to fill it, no matter what I did. I even tried-"

"What?" I had a suspicion.

"Drugs," he continued, looking out the windshield. "But it was one time. Because I knew if I continued using them, I would ruin my life. So I stopped before it could get bad. Nothing filled the void, though. Then Antonio told me about that tournament. I just went there to watch at first.

"When you fight with no rules, you basically fight for your life. It clears up your mind and makes you focus on staying alive. It helped."

I curled my hands in. He looked so distant and gloomy talking about it, I knew it must have been a difficult time.

"You fought. And you won?"

He gave me an offended look. "Of course."

I rolled my eyes. "Arrogant much?"

He chuckled, the darkness in his eyes receding. "Hey, if there's one thing I know I'm good at, it's fighting."

"So what happened? How did you almost die?"

"Do you know Aiden Cullen?"

"The MMA champion. Your arch nemesis." I said.

Hunter rolled his eyes, but that was true. 

Aiden Cullen was known for his dislike of Hunter. I personally thought it was pure envy. Hunter had stripped Cullen of his champion belt only a couple of years after Hunter went pro. They fought a couple of times after that, and every time, Hunter won. They were close matches, Cullen was very good. But Hunter was better.

"That asshole. Cullen fought in that tournament. We met in a fight one year."

"You won."

"Obviously. But Cullen didn't like that. The tournament could make you what a year's worth of MMA fights could in one night."

My eyes widened. That's a shitload of money. "How?"

"Bets. There are a lot of stinking rich people who like to see people fight for real. People bet millions there. So Cullen was pissed when I took him down. The next year, we had to fight again during the tournament. He drugged me."

"Drugged you?!" What a weasel!

Hunter nodded. "He must've gotten something in my water. I don't know who he bribed or how much he gave them, but my water was laced with something. During the match, I could feel myself slipping."

He curled his fist and stared at it with a small frown. "I don't remember much during the fight. Except the pain. Antonio told me he got into the ring to stop the fight because he knew something was wrong. Obviously, Cullen and his team didn't like that. It evolved into a massive fight between the two teams.

"I was caught in the middle, barely conscious. Antonio said someone hit me with a damn bat upside the head. It must've been Cullen. He's the only one who'd dare hit me. Anyway, I got shipped to a hospital. I had so many bruises and broken bones, they could barely ship me onto the ambulance without jostling me. But the loss of blood was what almost killed me. Antonio said my heart actually stopped on the ambulance."