My Family Wanted a Sacrificial Bride, They Got a Boxing Queen Chapter 05

My Family Wanted a Sacrificial Bride, They Got a Boxing Queen Chapter 05

The air congealed until the guests could hear their own hearts hammering, and everyone waited for

Magnus to snap this crazy bitch’s neck.

Magnus didn’t snap.

He stared at the cloth wrapped around my fists, and something dark and hungry kindled in his eyes. It was the look of a predator recognizing its own kind.

“Off the hook?”

Magnus’s mouth curved into a brutal smile as he ripped off his tie.

“Beat me, and the entire Thorne empire is yours.”

His massive frame exploded into motion before the last word left his mouth. No warning, no feeler -a devastating hook punch screamed toward my face with enough force to cave in bone.

“Fast!”

My pupils contracted, but my body reacted faster than thought. I didn’t retreat. I ducked, slipped, and barely cleared the blow while torquing my hips into a savage right hook aimed at his ribs.

The wet thud of impact reverberated through the hall.

Magnus absorbed the shot without budging, then countered instantly by driving a knee toward my

gut.

I crossed my arms to block, and the impact jarred through my bones and forced me back half a step, my forearms singing with pain.

“Not bad.”

I shook out my hands, fully lit up now. In Stillwater, only one person had ever taken my full-power punch without giving ground-my old man. Magnus was the second.

We threw ourselves at each other and abandoned every conventional form because this was nothing but brutal, primal combat.

The sickening percussion of fists meeting flesh echoed off the walls while the trust-fund kids practically pissed themselves and the socialites screamed and clung to each other.

Reginald, still on his knees, watched me trade blow for blow with this human battering ram, his jaw

hanging unhinged. Cleo’s eyes had gone perfectly round, and she’d forgotten to cry.

The final exchange came when my elbow smashed into Magnus’s jaw at the exact moment his fist cratered the wine table behind my head.

We both stopped and each stepped back.

I was gulping air and wiping a thin line of blood off my cheek where his knuckle had grazed me. My

eyes were blazing.

Magnus dragged his thumb across the blood at the corner of his mouth, and the dark, volatile fury that usually clung to him was gone. What replaced it was raw satisfaction-pure, bone-deep relief.

“Vesper.”

Magnus’s chest was heaving, and his voice brooked no argument.

He turned to where Reginald was still trembling on his knees.

“The Hayes family’s funding gap-Thorne will fill it, and the gift will be doubled.”

Magnus shrugged his suit jacket back on as the bodyguard stepped forward, and his gaze swept the room while every word landed like a hammer blow.

“This woman. She’s mine.”

The hall erupted.

What happened to the torture? What happened to fiancées getting wheeled into the ICU?

The truth was that Magnus was a pure, unapologetic fight addict.

The so-called “abuse” of previous fiancées had been nothing more than a handful of idiots slipping drugs into his drink and trying to climb into his bed. He’d simply thrown them out of a second-story window into the pool.

What he wanted had never been some delicate, clinging flower.

When I heard the gift was getting doubled, my eyes lit up brighter than they had during the fight.

I strode over to Reginald, who was still paralyzed with shock, and clapped him on the shoulder with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

“You hear that, Mr. Hayes? Mr. Thorne is extremely satisfied with his new premium sparring

partner!”

I jerked my thumb toward Magnus with absolute authority.

“As of today, that man is my boss. Remember this-the gift and my sparring fees go straight into my account. If a single cent is missing, I’ll tear this Hayes mansion down around your ears.”