by E. M. Moore
“I’ll do it,” I say automatically.
“What? Fuck no,” Johnny says.
At the same time, Oscar says, “That’s not a good idea.”
I can’t see Magnum, but Big Daddy K glances over my head, lips thinning. “I was actually thinking exactly that. Kyla up against whoever Fonz chooses.”
Johnny gets to his feet. “Fuck no. Have you seen her fighters? They’re huge. They’ll fucking destroy her. Dad…” he begs.
I gaze at him, eyebrows pulling in. Jeez. Thanks for the fucking vote of confidence.
“I’m with Johnny,” Oscar says.
I turn to glare at him. “Fuck you.”
Big Daddy K smirks.
Johnny turns away from him and addresses me. “Hey. I’m just worried about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Didn’t you tell me she was the best fighter you’d ever seen?” Big Daddy K interjects, a small smile over his lips. He’s enjoying this.
“She is.”
“So, what’s the problem? In the Crew, we use everyone and everything at our disposal.”
“The problem is, she’s mine!” Johnny growls.
Big Daddy K’s eyes narrow. “If she’s yours, she’s a part of the Crew which means she can be used for Crew business. This is Crew business. She has a chance to do something for us we’ve wanted desperately for a long time.”
This is my chance. I have to do this. I stand next to Johnny. “I’d be happy to fight.”
I should feel nervous as fuck because I have no idea who Fonz will choose to put me up against, but I’m also getting exactly what I wanted. I’m a fighter first. It’s in my blood. Plus, this is the way to get the leader of the Heights Crew to trust me. I know it.
“I think we should bet on someone we’ve seen fight more than once,” Oscar says. He’s avoiding my gaze now, but I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to save me. “I say Brawler,” he says nonchalantly. “Rascal, even.”
“Rascal uses his strength,” Magnum says, speaking up for the first time. “He’s not skilled. He’s just big.”
“I want to fight,” I say again.
Johnny takes my arm, squeezing it hard to the point of pain. “Shut up,” he grits out.
Big Daddy glances at his hand on me, so I can’t do anything about it. I just stand there. “Obviously, I’ll go with whatever is decided,” I say, staring right at the most important person in the room. It’s up to Big Daddy K. He has the final decision in everything. “But know that if I’m chosen, I will win. I don’t care who I’m up against.”
Johnny squeezes harder. The bones in my wrist rub against one another.
“Thank you,” Big Daddy K says. “Oscar, take Kyla home.” He gestures our way like he’s shooing us out the door. “Make sure she gets some ice for her wrist since my son doesn’t know how to treat a woman who’s his. We’ll decide what’s happening.”
Johnny immediately drops my arm like it’s a scalding hot pan he’s just burned himself on.
I don’t make a move to even inspect what he’s done. Johnny tries to catch my eye, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. I walk toward the door we came in, and Oscar follows me.
As soon as we get outside, I spin on him. “What the fuck?”
“What?” he growls back.
His mask slips. He’s back to being Oscar Drego, the guy who was forced to join the Crew.
“What the fuck was that back there?”
He ignores me, and we get into the elevator. I have no idea if there are cameras in here or not, so maybe I shouldn’t even be talking right now, but motherfucker. His opinion could’ve swayed Big Daddy K away from me and then what advantage would I have?
“I’m not allowed to have an opinion?” He glances up to the corner of the elevator, and I’m wondering if he means to tell me to wait to have this conversation.
Even though that’s the last thing I want to do, I keep my mouth shut.
The elevator opens in the underground garage and Oscar turns the opposite direction from the car I arrived in. His taut muscles don’t make his lithe movements more jumbled. Instead, he looks like a predator ready to strike. Whatever was said up in that suite affected him as much as me. He strides up next to a motorcycle. “This is what I brought with me. It’ll have to do.”
I stare at it. My jaw unhinges. “You don’t have a car?”
“I used to, but it went to shit. A fellow member of the Crew was getting rid of this, so he sold it to me for cheap.”
It looks cheap too. Well, it looks like it used to be a damn nice motorcycle when it was first built, but now it’s showing its age. It looks like a goddamn death trap. “I’m not riding on that.”
Oscar drops his head back in annoyance. “Don’t give me shit about this. I have to take you home, head back to school because I have a fucking game tonight I don’t want to miss.”
Fuck. I’d already forgotten about Oscar’s game. I swallow back the selfish feelings rising inside me and sigh. “Fine. But don’t fucking kill me.”
“Are you kidding? You get hurt and Johnny will fucking kill me.” He makes sure I’m staring straight into the abyss of his eyes. “He’ll also give me shit because those beautiful legs of yours will be wrapped around me.” My heart kicks up. He’s trying to bait me.
He winks, and a flush of heat hits my cheeks. In another place, another town, Oscar would be the shit. I bet the girls swamped him when he went to Spring Hill. Who doesn’t want to date the quarterback? Especially if he’s as good as Oscar makes himself out to be.
“Are you seriously flirting with me after you told them you didn’t think I should fight?”
A scowl crosses his face, and he stalks toward me. “Did you ever think Johnny’s not the only one who doesn’t want to see you get hurt? Don’t be so fucking dense, Princess.”
“Don’t call me fucking Princess.”
His lips quirk up. “I like calling you Princess. I like the angry heat it brings to your cheeks and the mouth it gives you. That’s like crack to me, Pretty Girl. Pretty, Pretty Princess,” he tacks on, like shoving the knife that much deeper.
He returns to his bike and hops on. He revs it up, and it surprisingly roars to life without hiccups. In fact, it thunders, dangerous and sexy. And Oscar most certainly has sex appeal while he’s on it.
“Careful when you get on,” he calls back to me.
I bite my lip and step forward. He points out where to put my feet, and I straddle the seat, then end up having to move closer to him as the bike vibrates beneath us.
“Hold on,” he says, his voice loud enough to hear just over the purring engine.
I stare at his back. His shirt hugs his torso, so I can imagine the athletic body underneath. I move my arms around him, but it’s Oscar who pulls them tighter, overlapping my hands until I grip one in the other. He pats me as if saying, “Good girl,” and I grit my teeth.
“Don’t enjoy this too much, Princess. I’m sure there are eyes all over us right now. Wouldn’t want someone seeing how much you enjoy being pressed against me.”
If they’re watching the look on my face right now, there’s nothing I have to worry about.
But when Oscar hits the gas, I squeeze him. Try as I might not to, a skitter of fear runs through me. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before. The guys I went to school with had Porsches and Mustangs, not bikes like this. Not that any one of them ever asked me out for a drive anyway.
Oscar drives the city streets, muscles tensing and moving beneath my touch. There’s no doubt about the fact that he has a six-pack hiding under his shirt. The hard ridges of his abs bite into my wrists.
Once we get going, the fear of the ride floats away. My hair blows in the wind, and a sense of freedom flows through me. I wish escaping was this easy.
The feeling of being free doesn’t last long though. After a while, my mind retreats, catching and dragging on all the things that just happened. Now that I’m out of the moment, my body locks up. Oscar must feel
the change in me because he pats my hand again, then smooths his fingers over the tiny bones in my wrist to comfort me. Without even seeing my face, he knows I need it.
I met the guy who killed my parents.
Fuck.
I touched him. I sat in the same room with him. Hell, I fucking strategized with the asshole.
Oscar pulls up in front of my building. I stumble off the bike and make it to the cement wall. I lean my forearm against it as my stomach revolts. The hand that touched that dirty fucker dangles at my side, my fingers outstretched. I stare down at it, and my stomach twists again with the threat of losing its contents.
Behind me, the engine cuts off, and Oscar runs up to me. He puts a hand on the small of my back, rubbing there. “It’s okay.”
I swallow, my eyes closing on their own free will. It’s not okay. Not at all. It’s not okay that I have to make nice with that asshole and his friends. He should be able to hear what I really have to say. He might’ve, in court. But that day has long passed. The fucking corrupt cops and the Heights Crew’s reach made sure of that. I never got the chance to stand up and tell that fucker exactly what he did to me and my family. And even then, at twelve, I wouldn’t have known the extent. All I knew was grief. Now, I know the extent. Now, I could tear that fucker down.
Then again, since he doesn’t have a soul, he won’t care. He has no feelings left inside him.
This is the guy I have to appease.
I know what I have to do, but for just this moment, I’m going to rage against it all.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” Oscar says, his voice gentle. All the teasing and flirting from earlier is gone. In its place is true concern.
Since it doesn’t look like I’m actually going to throw up, I take his hand and we both move up to my apartment.
Oscar opens the door for me, and this time it doesn’t even faze me that everyone else seems to have a key to my apartment too. I’m used to it. It no longer bothers me that certain people do. I’m not used to having friends. People who care about me.
Oscar guides me to the chair. “Have a seat. I’ll get you some water…and some ice,” he tacks on.
I stare blankly ahead, my elbows on my knees as soon as I’m sat in the chair. The faucet runs, and a few seconds later, Oscar thrusts a glass in my face. I take it with shaking hands and then press my wrist onto the icepack Oscar sets on the coffee table in front of me.
I swallow down a few mouthfuls and then put the glass down.
It’s a few more minutes before Oscar even says anything. “You want to tell me what that was about because I know it wasn’t about the bike. You liked that.”
“You wish,” I say.
“You have to open up to someone,” he says, trying again. “You know my background with the Crew. You can talk to me. I won’t say a goddamned word. Promise.” He puts up the scout’s honor sign.
“You were a scout?”
“Fuck no,” he says, his lips teasing into a smile.
I laugh at that. The easy banter makes everything that just happened feel even further away. Even with that reprieve, I try not to trust these boys. Especially not Oscar. He’s in the Heights Crew, and that’s all that matters.
“Fuck me,” he says, pacing around the room, hands diving into his thick head of dark hair. “I’m such a fucking sucker,” he mutters. He blows out a breath then turns toward me. His dark eyes light with passion. “Sometimes I fucking hate those guys.” He glowers. “You’re pissed off because I said I didn’t want you to fight. Do you know why I don’t want you to fight? Because I don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t belong in the Heights, Princess. That much was clear from day one. Yes, you’re badass. Yes, you’re strong. I’m not talking about any of that shit. I’m not even saying I can put my finger on why you don’t fucking belong here, it’s just a feeling I have in my gut.” He places his hand around his midsection, pulling it into him. “It’s a feeling I can’t fucking get away from, and I’ve learned to listen to my feelings. That’s why I don’t want you fighting. Because once you fight and win, you don’t have a fucking chance of ever getting out of here.”
His stormy eyes draw me in. Oscar isn’t what you see on the surface. Not at all. “What makes you think I want to get out?”
“I don’t think you want to. That much is clear. You want in or else you wouldn’t have said you’d take the fight. I don’t even need to know the fucking reasons, but what I’m saying is there are certain people who should be in the Crew and certain people who shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.”
My mouth goes dry. “And you should?”
His exterior starts to crack. “You already know the answer to that.”
“You don’t,” I say. “You don’t belong here either.”
“Some decisions are borne from desperation.”
“And you hate being fucking desperate.”
“More than anything in the fucking world,” he says, voice sure. “But I’ve been living in this arena since day fucking one on this Earth, and I don’t expect to get out of it now. There’s no fucking hope for me.”
Hope. There’s that word. Or in the Heights, it’s the lack of that word that’s like a shroud over the entire city. It’s fucking depressing.
“You’re better than this. Than them.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you, but I know you are.”
I shake my head. Ever since being here, I’ve felt exactly like them. I’m caught up in their business. I’m attached to Johnny at the hip, and some-fucking-times, I actually like it. I actually want to be next to him like some sick, fucked up kid with that syndrome that makes you want to be with the person who treats you like shit. “You don’t know a thing about me,” I tell him, my finger trailing over the bruising that’s just starting to appear on my wrists from Johnny’s tight hold.
“I get that, but there’s one thing people who grow up around here know right off the bat. Whether someone is worth their time or not. I knew you were worth my time as soon as you walked into school.”
Oscar steps forward. My chest tightens the closer he gets. He reaches out, placing a strand of hair around my ear. It’s like we’re back at the school all over again, hiding down an empty hallway, warring with our emotions.
“That makes me sound crazy, but I’m used to sounding fucking crazy. Did you hear the conversation we all had earlier?” His voice lowers to a low hum. “Fighting for a fighting territory. Sending an innocent girl into the ring to win our right to fight. Hell, K didn’t even ask you. He already had his heart set on you. We all fucking know that.”
“I’m not innocent,” I tell him, not sure why I’m choosing to comment on that part of his speech and not something else.
His lips tip up. “Just because you said that… it means you are.”
Oscar tracks his gaze across my face before pausing on my lips. His presence is commanding. The broken parts of him call to me just like Brawler’s do. My heart thunders in my chest as he moves closer.
“What are you doing?”
Oscar blinks, but he doesn’t pull away. He slides his other hand around me. “Showing you that just because I’m a part of the Crew, doesn’t mean I’m like the rest of them.” He swallows. “Or maybe I’m showing myself.”
His lips graze mine—a brush that calls up every surge of emotion inside me to the surface. He clings to me like I’m his anchor in a storm. He doesn’t deepen the kiss, he just leaves his lips there as we breathe each other in, holding one another in place.
“I forgot that I could still feel things,” Oscar says, his words seeping out of him like a secret he didn’t know he kept inside.
That’s when I realize how fucked I am. No wonder why these guys call to me. I’m exactly like them.
23
The doorknob rattles. Oscar and I break away from each other like we’re both on fire and we don’t want to get burnt. Actually, that should’ve been the reason we shouldn’t touch. We’re both playing with fire, and we know it.
&
nbsp; Brawler stomps into the room. His face is pure viciousness, but it falls when he sees the both of us there. “Hey,” I say, my voice rising several octaves.
Brawler glances between the two of us. Confusion riddles his features, but then it’s like he has a moment of clarity before the clouds roll in again.
My heart thumps like mad. It’s beating a rhythm of Why? Why? Why? Somehow, Brawler and Oscar have bored a hole into my skin. They’re both lost, sad, angry. They’re both stuck in a place they shouldn’t be, whether they know it or not.
“I take it you heard?” Oscar asks.
A fierce look crawls over Brawler’s face again. His muscles pull taut. “All I know is I got a call from Johnny asking me to train Princess.”
Oscar snickers. “Let’s not pretend anymore, dude. You fucking like her. It’s obvious. You may have even done shit.” Oscar glances at me for confirmation.
I swear I stop breathing. Irrationally, I wonder if Johnny has this place bugged. Or is that irrational? It sounds exactly like something he’d do in an effort to keep me safe. Then again, the guys he chose to keep me safe have been doing more than that. They’ve been working their way into my life.
Brawler strides forward. It’s like watching two boulders collide. He runs into Oscar and pushes him against the wall. “Do not fucking joke about this, Drego. I swear to fucking God.”
Oscar looks away, bored. He catches my eye and winks.
My nerves tear apart even if I do think he’s downright sexy winking at me in the middle of a fight. “Stop,” I shout.
Brawler looks over at me. He must mistake my gaze because he steps away, shaking his head. “You like him?” His disbelief is written all over his face.
“Hey,” Oscar says. “I’m not so bad. Never had any complaints before, actually.”
My brain feels like it’s buzzing with flies. I have so many things to concentrate on, but I can’t pick one and stay with it. Just overall, there’s a sense of foreboding lingering everywhere. Can I confess to this? It seems like it would be so easy.