Guy’s got money. Being a snake must pay off.

I knew when I saw him in that cage he was slime. Not evil exactly. I’ve seen more than my fair share of demonic pricks in my life. But Vance is the kind who will take what he can get with the least amount of cost to him.

That he has the discipline to train for fights only shows that’s part of his life purpose. He can rise above the pettiness of his greed in order to mold his body and mind into a machine to reach his higher good.

We’re all on this planet for a reason. Given gifts we can use to better ourselves and feel what it’s like to be soul-satisfied. All of us. Every single last one. If you’ve forgotten, it’s just because life has beaten you down. You gotta fight to get back up. I’m telling you, it’s the only way. Fight like your life depends on it. If that doesn’t do it, fight like someone you love’s life depends on it.

Hell, do it for your dog.

Your cat.

Your child.

Someone else’s kid.

Your plant.

I don’t care.

Just fight.

My gift is elevating dicks like Vance so he’ll do the right thing. It’s complicated but what the Ciphers do is take down the abusers so the victims can get up and walk again. We can’t take the steps for them, it’s up to them to do that. And sometimes they lay down on the floor to be a doormat again because that’s all they know. But other times their world opens up and they’re able to achieve that soul-satisfaction I’m talking about. That feeling they have when they’re aligned with who they really are, who they’re meant to be.

Nobody is meant to be a place for someone else to wipe their feet.

No one.

And I won’t let my cousin Hannah get dirt on her. Not from these pieces of shits.

“Who the fuck are you?” Vance shouts as I stroll into his kitchen.

“Come to talk marriage with you, Vance.”

“What?” he hisses, reaching for a knife from one of the wood things that holds a lot of them, all shapes and sizes, tiny row of steak knives at the bottom. Forget what they’re called, because really, who fucking cares.

Before he sees my hand move I’ve whipped my own sharp blade out from my hip and zinged it through air. It stabs the wall inches from his head and stays there. He’s trained to fight, not throw knives like I just did.

His eyes go huge as fuck, looking from it back to my calm face. “Who are you?”

“Listen, you don’t wanna wake the married girlfriend, so let’s keep this quiet.”

He lunges for the collection of knives, but I grab onto the kitchen island to whip myself through the air and kick his hand away before he has the chance. Pretty sure I broke that hand. His reaction as he grabs the wrist and bends over in agony is a pretty good indication. He’s making some of the worst noises a human ear can take.

Never easy to watch suffering, at least not for me.

Men know how to shut it off.

I have too much estrogen flowing through my veins to never feel empathy. I feel it all the time. Yet I never let it stop me.

With a kick to his chest I push him away and grab the biggest knife he’s got, so quickly that he’s just blinking at me in utter shock.

“Never fought a woman before, huh?”

He mutters, “What the fuck?”

Pointing the knife at him with my hands steady and confident I show him I’m not kidding around here and I will use this if necessary.

His fingers are turning red from the blood. Soon that bruise will be black.

I did break it.

Good.

It’ll make this easier and I love easy.

“Here’s what you’re gonna do.” But as I begin to lay it out for him, a small white Maltese dog trots into the room. I tense up, knowing it could bark and wake up Carla and the baby. Grabbing the unwrapped beef jerky from my pocket I throw it and say in my sweetest, girly voice, “Hey Coby! Hey boy, hi sweetie!”

Vance stares at me like things just got mafia-weird. “How do you know my dog’s name?!”

“A lady never tells.”

Now Vance is terrified and I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t want to wake them up either because he has no idea what I’ll do. I’d never hurt them, but he doesn’t know that. And it’s to my advantage. I’ll use that terror and uncertainty to coerce him.

He says to his dog, “Good boy, Coby. Nice treat! Eat the treat!”

I sweetly add, “That’s right. Eat up.”

The fluff ball collapses on the floor to happily gnaw the jagged dried meat to oblivion. With those tiny teeth it’ll take him all night.

Vance starts to make a move so I advance, whipping the sharp blade through the air. He freezes and as I motion to the ground, he kneels like a good boy.

“Look if you want money, I’ve got a safe upstairs.”

“I don’t need your fucking cash. Do these jeans look cheap to you? They cost me over three hundred bucks. What I want is for you to make Carla an honest woman.” His confusion multiplies. “And you’re gonna come out and have a big publicity day saying you stole her from Tobias after your last fight.” Correcting myself I mutter, “I mean the one before that. Where you broke his leg. You’re going to say that you took the title and his wife. You got me? It’s going to make you look like a badass.”

Cocking his head like he’s trying to follow my logic but has no clue why I want this, he asks, “I don’t get it. That’s why you broke into my house?”

“Yep. Because you know what’s about to go down? Tobias is going to take away her card, put himself in jail and you will lose your family.”

“What the fuck!?” Vance starts to rise up but I swing the knife.

I whisper-yell, “Get back down!” In a place this size, nobody upstairs can hear us unless we start shouting or the dog barks. Falling to his knees Vance holds his hands up. “You love your kid?”

He blinks and shrugs, wary of me. “Yeah!”

“You want to visit them in Greece?”

Anger fires his eyes up and he hisses, “No!”

“Then you do it this way, because if you don’t make a stink about it and keep up the act that she and Tobias aren’t cousins, that they really are married, then she will be deported and her card revoked. But if you act like an asshole then they’ll think it was a love triangle and the government won’t blink an eye with the changing of hands. Him for you, she stays. Got me?”

Vance nods, still blown away even though he gets the sound logic. “You’re a friend of his?”

“I’m a righter of wrongs.” Backing up now that I believe he’s not a threat, I keep the knife at the ready by my side. “Knees hurting yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Stay there. One last thing. You’re going to come out and tell the Media the reason you’re coming out now is you don’t want him claiming the glory again. She chose you. She wants you. It was her who left two years ago to be with you. You’re going to say, I took his title and his wife.”

His eyes glitter. “Okay.” He likes the sound of that.

“The next fight you guys have will be the largest stadium in the world, sold out, am I right?”

He hisses with glee, “Yessssss!” envisioning all the money this public love triangle will bring him.

“My job is done. Oh, and I broke your security system. Gonna have to get those cameras repaired.” On a smirk I toss the knife into the sink and pause on my way out to say, “You’ll have more than enough money to fix them. Every fighter alive is gonna want a piece of that media pie. You’ll be challenged to so many battles you won’t even have time to heal. Except maybe that hand. Come up with a good excuse for that, would ya? You never saw me.” Picking up his dog I bring it to my face for nose-licks. “Good Coby. That’s a good boy.” I lock eyes with Vance just to show him I could come back and take this little tidbit with me. “I always wanted a pet.”

“Don’t!” he groans.

The thing is, I know from social media that he inherited this dog from his grandma when she passed. If I took it I’d be taking her memory with me.

I’d never be so cruel.

But Vance doesn’t need to know that.

Heheheh.

Setting Coby gently down I keep my eyes locked on Vance and warn him, voice eerie, “Don’t make me take your cute little doggie.”

And this is the part I love…vanishing like I was never here.