Chapter 12:

The next morning….

Michael enters the training grounds and sees Christina is sitting on top of her sparring partner punching him blow after blow. All the guards just stood there and watched in silence.

Michael's first instinct is to rescue the poor defenceless man but then he restrains himself because he did not want to blow his cover forcing him to just watch till Christina beat the man to a pulp.

She finally gets up from the man. Her chest is rapidly moving up and down while she is breathing in and out. She removes her grappling gloves which had blood on them. Then she wipes her hands on a towel one of the soldiers handed to her. She starts to walk away and soon notices Michael and gives him a sarcastic look.

“How was it? Did you have a good time?” She sneered.

Michael frowns briefly then nods his head. He has a low EQ so he doesn’t quite notice the sarcastic way that Christina poses that question.

Anger bubbles up within Christina when he agrees. She expected him to decline or at least fight not to be sold as a sex slave. He was intimidated by her in the beginning but suddenly he became docile.

“So you like her then?” She questions, raising her brow.

Michael looks up at her and smiles. “Yes. She’s a great lady.”

A pang of jealousy ripples through Christina’s chest. She didn’t expect him to like her. The only reason she agreed was she didn’t want to alert her enemies that Micheal is special to her.

She gives him a cold glare and she walks away into the house without sparing him another glance.

Seeing this, Michael furrows his brows in confusion. He quickly and quietly followed her at a distance thinking she was going to call out to him but she didn't.

'What is going on with Christina? Could she be jealous of me spending the night with lady A? But then again she ordered me to go spend the night with her.' He mused.

Christina's chest heaves with inexplicable anger as she strides back into the mansion with reddened eyes. For now, she did not want to see Michael after he touched another woman.

At the same time, Michael runs after her but can't seem to find her. After a few minutes he asks his fellow soldier about her whereabouts..

"Have you seen the comare? She came this way not too long ago." Michael asked.

"She just left a few minutes ago with commander Mario." The man replied calmly.

'But she never goes anywhere without me.' Michael thought as he wonders why she left him this time.

"What did you say?" The soldier asked him.

"Oh it's nothing. Thanks man." Michael said while touching his face. He was nervous because this was the first time the comare is leaving the mansion without him. He took a long deep breath and slowly exhaled.

Suddenly, Michael gets a good idea to go around the mansion and investigate the place. 'I might find all the evidence I need to take her down. I will never find such a good chance again.' He murmured to himself.

He casually walks past the garden and finds a hidden door on the corner of the Mansion. A frown plasters his face because he had never seen this door since the day he was brought to the mansion. He looks around and decides to open the door. He sees a steep staircase leading underground to the mansion. He enters inside and slowly takes a steady step because he didn't know how safe it was.

He reaches the bottom and sees a deemed light at the end of the corridor. Yet again he follows the light. The closer he got to it he could hear sounds of voice at a distance. He calmly walked towards the voices till he reached them and was outraged with what he saw. A good number of soldiers were busy screaming and cheering on two men fighting each other.

The soldiers talked rapidly and loudly as they betted on the best fighter they thought could win. Michael gets closer to have a better look and suddenly a soldier who notices the new face quickly calls out to Michael for him to be the next fighter.

Michael tries to shake his head to refuse but the crowd is excited to hear the announcement. Michael is pushed to the front and the soldiers around him unbutton his smart shirt and remove it from him

"I can't fight," he screened out. This was the wrong place to showcase his talents. Then suddenly a tall huge man with perky muscles walks up to him.

"Today is your last day walking because I'm going to break your legs like this toothpick." he said while spitting out a toothpick from his mouth to his hand and breaking it with two fingers. He groaned loudly.

Michael let's out a silly chuckle at the stupid thought the man had. First thing is that his legs were not as weak as a toothpick hence he could not break them up like a toothpick.' He must one of the dumb but strong soldier's in the cartel' he thought to himself.

"Come on boy let's do this..!" The man raised his hands up against his face with folded fists.

At first, Michael is reluctant to fight him, so he avoids the punches directed to him.

"Look man, I won't fight you!" Michael said. With raised open palms to signal surrender..

One of the men surrounding them notices how Michael is deliberately trying to avoid the fight then decides to push him directly in the huge man and gets one huge blow in the face causing him to stumble backwards. The man gets the courage to get another punch in Micheal's face and hits him for the second time causing Michael to lose balance and fall to the cold concrete ground he then kicks Michael his ribs. Michael puts his hands to his chest and tries to protect himself…the crowd go crazy and cheer on their champion.

At that moment, as Michael is gaining back the strength to get up from the ground, he starts to notice a strange taste emitting from the mouth. He touches his mouth and feels a watery liquid on his lips. He looks at his hand and he sees blood. He spits out more of it and he is outraged. His neck veins began to pop out in anger and could not control himself anymore. He gets up with his jaws clenched together and confidently walks over to the man and lands a single punch to the throat causing the man to fall to the ground while he struggles to breath. Michael had broken his opponent Adam's apple.

Upon seeing that, the crowd of men went silent for a few seconds then gave out a thunderous roar to cheer on Michael, their new champion. One of them tosses his shirt back to him as they clap. Michael grabs it and limps away in pain…the men pat his back in respect to his victory.

Michael heads straight to the guards quarter to nurse his wounds. He gets there and removes his shirt to examine where the kicks had landed.

"Aww fuck! That asshole broke my rib" he said while clenching his jaws in pain.. He washes the blood off his face and sees his lower lip cut with a black eye. The intensity of the pain is nothing new to Michael because as a detective had to fight some notorious criminals.

**********

A few hours later…

Christina and commander Mario arrive back at the mansion. Christina looks calm and her face is beaming with happiness. The outing cooled her temper down. As she enters the mansion, she looks around for Michael but he is nowhere in sight. 'where could he be?" she murmured to herself.

"The Russian cartel could be good business, they have a wide connection in Europe and we may need their help." Mario said.

Christina on the other hand did not hear a word Mario uttered because she was busy looking for Michael.

"Uhm can you please find Michael and send him to my room immediately?'' she ordered Mario.

Mario opens his mouth wide open in shock. 'So this woman is still interested in Micheal even after what happened last night?'

"Yes Comare." he said with veins popping out in the side of his neck. He remains behind and orders a soldier to find Michael and bring him to the comare room.

Christina confidently walks into the mansion while swaying her hips side to side.

*******

In the comare's room….

Michael reaches the long hallway to the comare's bedroom and gives out a long sigh while flinching his face in pain from the broken rib. His eye had become even more black. The guard outside the door opened it as he approached it. He enters the room and stands at attention.

"You called comare?" He said with his chest sticking out.

Christina glances at Michael and her mouth drops wide open with shock. She puts both her hands on her mouth and walks over to him.

"Who did this to you Michael?" She tried to touch his face but withheld from doing so because she did not want to hurt him even more. She walks to the door and slams it shut.

"Michael, can you tell me who did this to you? I saw you in the morning and you looked fine." She added. She pulls him over to the bed and he flinches in pain.

"Am sorry but are you hurting anywhere else?" She asked while inspecting his body.

"No Comare. Am ok." he said while holding his rib cage.

"You are not ok." She gently sits him down on the bed and pulls up his shirt only to see his bruised body. She quickly gets up and grabs an ice pack from her mini fridge and places it on him and he quivers in pain.

"Let me call my doctor so he has a look at you." She gets her phone and calls her doctor to come over.

"It's nothing serious comare. I just need some pain meds and I will be ok." Michael said as he tried to hide the pain.

"Stop it Michael. I am not buying it. I want to know who did this to you so that I can punish them." she said with her eyes reddening.

Michael's heart starts beating fast with shock. 'But why is she reacting like she cares when she did not want to talk nor look at me in the morning? Women are confused creatures.' He thought to himself.

Christina softened her gaze and cleaned Michael's wounds. She was bent over and part of her cleavage was in full view.

Michael could clearly see the two soft mounts rising and falling as she breathed. He gulped, feeling his heart begin to race and the tips of his ears became red.

'I can't deny that she's very beautiful.' He thought in the back of his mind.

At the same time, Christina felt like her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She was touching Michael's manly abs and a tingling shot down her spine, giving her nether regions a weird sensation.

She couldn't deny that she was enamoured by him.