The Fighter and the Fallen Woman Read Online Free PDF

eyes. She had taken his grin for a command and rose to come to his side. Oh, yes, things were going delightfully well in Hannibal Adams’s world.
    “Aren’t you worried?”
    Hannibal turned his head only as far as necessary to see the American standing beside him. Bloody hell, did the man think they were long-lost brothers? He stuck his cigar between his teeth and turned back to the fight. “Worried about what?”
    “About how you’re pushing such a beautiful creature toward such a manly one,” Mr. Collins said and waved a prissy hand toward Lady. “And given her profession and all...”
    “When you tell a dog to sit, it sits,” Hannibal said, getting irritated with the American again. Give him a crooked harbormaster any day. They took their bribe and shut their mouth. “That is, if you’ve trained your dog well. And let me assure you, Collins,” he said, then bared his teeth in a wide smile, “I’ve got my dogs trained very well. They wouldn’t dare do anything they weren’t told to do. The bitch before Lady is now in a cheap grave because she was disloyal, and everybody who works for me knows I’ve got plenty more lots where that one is.”
    “It’s amazing what you can do with a whip and a meaty bone.” Collins laughed.
    “Well, I see I’m right in time for the sparkling conversation,” Lady said as she slid into Hannibal’s side, her arm draping over his shoulder. She sounded a little sharper than usual, and where that might usually irritate Hannibal, it didn’t tonight. She could flay Collins alive with the sharp side of her tongue if she wanted and he’d just stand back and laugh.
    “Lady, whenever you’re around everything appears more sparkling,” Collins said. He plucked her hand from her side and gently kissed the back, his eyes on hers the entire time.
    Hannibal saw this. Did he need to direct somebody one way or another? He was used to it with Lady, her angel’s face and duchess’s manner causing men to court her as such, but he wasn’t sure with Collins. He decided to wait it out, but would watch the American a little more carefully. Cheap graves accommodated Yank mongrels as well as British mutts.
    Collins released her hand and straightened, facing the fight as he did so. “I was set to tell Mr. Adams how Jonathan is strategizing the fight.”
    “And how is that?” Lady asked.
    “My way.” The American’s tone was as flat as his facial expression. Hannibal took a puff of his cigar and blew the smoke into the Yank’s face.
    “Jonathan,” Collins called. The fighter stopped in the middle of the bout and looked at his handler, earning a blow to the stomach for his change in attention. It didn’t affect him more than a slight push would have. Collins simply nodded and Jonathan turned his attention back to his opponent. With a right-left-right combination of punches to the face, he dropped the man to the ground in less than five seconds.
    As the referee declared Jonathan the victor and the fallen man was dragged out of the arena, Hannibal wondered if either of his men could be that perfect a fighting machine. King seemed too independent, but Shade might be trained in time. If he could get even one of them half as ruthless, he would be unstoppable. He slid his hand down to Lady’s delicious ass and squeezed. Maybe he would still fuck her here. At least in the carriage. He was too hot and too hard now to wait much longer.
    “Now, Mr. Adams, I hate to go on when you obviously have other, more pressing matters to attend to, but I’d like to raise the stakes,” Collins said in that poncy way of his.
    He looked at Collins and raised his eyebrow.
    “In addition to the ten thousand pounds, I offer Jonathan against your King. Winner takes both fighters. Are you interested?”
    Hannibal felt a leap of excitement, but forced himself to hold it down. “Why should I get all weak in the knees for your boy, there? He’s not much taller than I am.”
    “Height does not a fighter