by Juniper Hart
“You’re in the big leagues now, Jordy,” Harley had told him. “This isn’t Frank Giles. This isn’t Pauly Piper. This is like fighting yourself. You have to be aware of everything. Don’t let your guard down for a second and tap into your inner slugger. I know it’s not what comes naturally, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“He’s not that good, Harley,” Jordan replied, rolling his eyes. He said the words more for his own benefit than Harley’s. Harley shot Jordan a look he didn’t easily decipher.
“I’m glad you’ve got your confidence back, Jordan, but yes. Yes, he is. That’s why he is here fighting you. You two are the best of the best. And don’t start getting cocky. He will cause you serious damage. He’s a killer by nature. I mean that—a literal killer.”
Jordan had laughed off Harley’s warning, but in the pit of his stomach, he knew the trainer was right. Charlie Dane’s reputation was bloodstained.
He had inadvertently killed an opponent very early on in his career. Word amongst the fighters was that Charlie Dane was a genuine psychopath, and while he smiled sweetly, his instinct was to murder. Jordan was not one to pay mind to idle, jealous gossip, though he did recognize a prize fighter when he saw one.
It didn’t help that the Dancer was a vampire, despite his large size.
Yep. He’s a killer all right. No arguments there, Jordan thought.
In a way, he had Dancer to thank for helping him overcome the loss of Samantha. If he had been a lesser fighter, Jordan would not have invested so much energy in his training. Because he knew what he was up against, he took every punch more seriously.
The long-winded announcer finally finished his spiel and spoke the customary words, sending blood pounding through Jordan’s veins as he touched gloves with Dancer.
“Let’s get ready to rumble!”
They assumed their stances as the bell chimed, and before Jordan could return Dancer’s gaze, he was presented with a left hook to the temple. Stunned, he fell backward, more surprised than hurt, but Charlie was already plummeting at his exposed ribs and kidneys while Jordan staggered for balance.
“Jordy! Get it together! Jordy!” Harley screamed hysterically, sounding as shocked as Jordan felt. The referee circled the pair, looking for signs of weakness in Jordan. For a terrifying second, he thought he was about to black out.
That was impossible—he had never passed out before in his life, but the spots dancing before his eyes told him that was exactly what was going to happen.
That’s it? Thirty seconds, and this guy got me? This is the end of the road for me?
More blows followed, and Jordan covered his face, taking the shots, moving his body sideways to block. Just when he was sure he could withstand no more, he caught sight of the redhead he had seen earlier in the crowd, the one he had mistaken for Samantha. Her mouth was curved into a terrified “O,” and Jordan was brought back to the moment he had run into Samantha outside the washroom at work. Some adrenaline-infused burst of fire sprang through Jordan’s body.
Samantha will see this. Samantha will know I failed. You cannot let her see you fail! She will never come back to you if you fail.
Dancer had weakened his punches, probably comfortable in his victory. Jordan looked up at him, catching the almost demonic glint in his opponent’s eye.
Charlie Dane did not notice Jordan sizing him up. An almost sarcastic smile formed on his lips over his mouth guard as the blows continued to flow forth. In his subliminal cockiness, Dancer did not foresee the superhuman strength which overtook his challenger, and Jordan pulled himself to his full height, using his Lycan abilities to overcome Charlie’s vampire skills.
Instantaneously, he threw a check-hook, and Charlie Dane fumbled, falling backward, his cocksureness fading completely. Like an enraged lion, Jordan pounced, returning the same flurry of fists as Dane tried to lock him in with his legs.
You can’t beat a Lycan, Jordan hissed silently, and Dancer’s face twisted into a scowl of anger.
Within seconds, the ring was splayed with blood as Jordan relentlessly attacked, giving the man no room for movement. He had no idea how long it went on, only that he was being abruptly pulled off Dancer’s limp body. His breathing was so hard, Jordan was certain that fire was about to explode from his lungs.
I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! He heard Harley’s voice in his ear, bringing him firmly to the ground.
Jordan suddenly became aware of the intense screaming in the arena, which reached a feverish pitch. It was pandemonium, and Jordan was suffering from sensory overload. Paramedics rushed onto the floor to revive Charlie Dane, and he eventually came to, his ability to heal overcoming the beating he’d taken.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer boomed, though he could barely be heard. Jordan could hear, however. He knew exactly what the garbled voice was saying over the intercom to the nearly chaotic fans. He had won the fight.
From here, everything got better. The money, the opponents, the opportunities.
You made it, Southpaw. You’ve got everything you’ve been fighting for your whole life. You’ve got everything… except Samantha.
And despite his victory, that sadness was enough to overcome his happiness in one fell swoop.
“Wow! Wow! Wow!” James was like a small child, twisting and turning to see the horde of people vying for Jordan’s attention. “I have never seen such a fight in my life! I almost threw up with excitement!” He babbled on, recapping every moment of the round with Charlie Dane, but Jordan was barely listening.
The flashes were blinding outside the restaurant, and security sat in front of their booth to keep adoring fans from crashing their dinner. Harley sat back, full of steak, looking sleepy and content.
“How does it feel, champ?” he asked his protégé. Jordan smiled weakly through a mouthful of mashed potatoes and nodded. He was surrounded by fame and adulation, dining at a five-star restaurant with people who loved him.
The world was his oyster. He had been training for this moment since before he knew he had been gearing up to be champion, but the truth was, he felt empty inside.
“Don’t look so down,” Harley pleaded. “This is what we have worked so hard toward. Now you can focus on the UFC!”
Jordan tried to force cheer into his smile.
“That’s the next stop!” he agreed, knowing his heart was not in the statement.
What else are you going to do? Go back to being a security guard, to working for your brother-in-law? You weren’t even good at that. You spent more time in Sam’s office than you did anywhere else. You have no job, no woman, and no prospects other than fighting. Don’t forget where Harley found you a month ago. If you’re not careful, you’re gonna end up in the same place.
Jordan nodded, as if affirming what he already knew, even though his mind went to the packet of cocaine in his medicine cabinet.
Yeah, you better keep fighting. He raised his wine glass, and the rest of the table followed suit. You don’t want to see what will happen if you don’t keep fighting.
“A toast!” he declared, jumping to his feet before his thoughts could take him over.
“Hear, hear!” James chanted, tapping his spoon on his drink.
“To always keeping your eye on the prize and your head in the game,” Jordan said. The men nodded approvingly and took a sip.
“To Jordan!” Harley toasted, and a small cheer went up at the table. As Jordan took a sip of his wine, his thoughts were still firmly on Samantha.
It was almost two a.m. when Jordan entered the front of his low-rise building.
The festivities had continued well into the night, but he had been smart under Harley’s watchful eye and kept his liquor consumption to a minimum. He was aching for a stiff drink, and when the limo dropped him off in front of his apartment complex, he scampered across the street to the twenty-four-hour liquor store to pick up some gin. He opened the bottle as he climbed the stairs and took a swig of the acrid liquid straight, cr
inging as it hit his stomach.
Don’t overdo it, he warned himself. Remember what happened last time. You’ll end up shacked up with a witch named Sheila.
Even now, when he thought about that, it seemed like a lifetime ago. He grimaced at what he had done but quickly shoved the thoughts from his mind, walking inside the third-floor hall through the stairwell.
What happens when you are in mourning doesn’t count, he lied to himself. I’m out of mourning now and onto bigger and better things.
The light had burned out on the third-floor hallway, and at first, Jordan thought it was the shadows playing tricks on his door. He drew near, and he realized that the flimsy wood had been kicked open. This goddamn neighborhood—he couldn’t wait to get out of there. At least now he could afford to.
Heart hammering, he stopped by the wall, flattening his body against the concrete, and peered inside. The interior was still dark, and Jordan could not make out movement, so he gently pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. His meagerly decorated place had been turned upside down, sofa pillows slashed, pantry items ripped from the cupboards. His drawers were all pulled out and dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.
Sighing, Jordan flipped on a lamp to get a better look around at the disaster the break-in had caused.
Who the hell would want to break into this shithole? And what the hell could they possibly have taken of value?
As the light flooded the small space, Jordan was staring into the dead expression of a huge man. The giant’s mouth curved into a hideously ugly smile, and Jordan felt the gin bottle slip from his hand and smash to the floor.
“Welcome home, Jordan. I’ve been waiting for you.”
10
After the lumbering beast left, Jordan sat for a long while in his ruined living room, thinking about his next move.
He gingerly touched his knees, where the man had viciously smashed them with the lead pipe, but they were already healing, despite the mortal’s best efforts. He looked forlornly at the broken gin bottle on the floor and made the impulsive decision to return to the liquor store across the street.
Maybe I’m not in physical pain, but I am feeling this pretty deeply, he thought grimly.
“Really, dude? You finished it already?” the young clerk asked in disbelief as Jordan ambled back inside. “Woah! What happened to your face? Did someone roll you for your booze?”
He had forgotten he had fixed up his face after the fight again, a fact that the clerk hadn’t seemed to have noticed earlier. Unless he was taking longer to heal because of the earlier fight. He hadn’t thought to look in the mirror, and a quick glance at his shirt told Jordan he was covered in fresh blood.
“I’m a cage fighter,” Jordan muttered, throwing a twenty on the counter and leaving before the kid could ask any more questions. Once back in his living space, Jordan threw a tattered cushion back onto the sofa and popped the cap off the bottle. He did not move again until he was substantially drunk.
He was in a world of trouble, trouble he didn’t even understand.
“Do you know why I’m here, Jordan?” the beast had asked. Jordan wracked his brain and immediately thought of Charlie Dane, the vampire he’d left lying in the arena. He was sure that the visitor wasn’t Enchanted, despite his massive size. Nothing else about the encounter made sense to him.
“Who sent you?” Jordan wheezed.
“So, you do know who I am,” the man continued, smiling amiably as he recognized the humbled expression. Jordan was not misled by his mirth. He was sitting in the same room as a killer, he knew that for certain.
But a mortal killer, Jordan reminded himself with some smugness. He can’t do anything to me.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jordan finally gasped. “It was business.”
The goon looked puzzled for a moment, his brow furrowed as he examined the fighter skeptically.
“What happened to your face?” he asked suddenly. It was Jordan’s turn to be confused.
“It was—this is from the match…” he trailed off uncomprehendingly.
“The match?”
“From the MMA—who are you?” Jordan suddenly realized that the man had nothing to do with Charlie Dane or anything else Enchanted related.
“Oh! You’re a fighter! Nice!” The man examined his dirty fingernails, nodding in approval. “We like boxers. We have a boxer friend, too.”
“I thought… who are you?” Jordan demanded again, trying desperately to make sense of everything going on around him. Nothing was clicking. The ape looked up, his brow crinkled.
“I guess we’re not on the same page after all. I work for Mr. Carlucci.”
The name meant nothing to Jordan, who stared blankly and waited for more information. The bear of a man sighed heavily, like Jordan was causing him great discomfort.
“Alex Carlucci? From Vegas?” Jordan was still at a loss, and his eyes narrowed as he desperately tried to reconcile who this person was and what he wanted. The giant man rose to his feet and suddenly slipped a pipe out from the sleeve of his suit jacket. The hit came suddenly to Jordan’s knees, and he dropped to the floor, gasping in agony.
Every impulse in him was to shift, but somehow, through the haze of discomfort, he kept himself from doing that. Whatever this is, the Council of Seven is worse, he told himself furiously, struggling to regain his breath.
“What do you want from me?” Jordan panted. “You have the wrong person!”
“I don’t think so, Jordan. Your name is Jordan, right?” For a moment, Jordan considered lying, but he was instinctively aware that the animal knew more about him that he let on. He nodded weakly. “Jordan Archer of Seattle? Spent December twenty-first through thirty-first in Las Vegas?” Again, Jordan nodded. This time, flashes of something began to tickle his brain, but it was nothing he could pinpoint. The entire trip had been a blur to him. “You owe Mr. Carlucci money, Jordan. Twenty thousand dollars. Plus compounding interest.”
“I-I don’t know Mr. Carlucci!” Jordan cried. Another blow came, this time to his shoulders, though he barely felt it. He had prepared himself for another pounding, and his mind raced.
This guy wants to murder me, and I don’t even know why! Why do I owe him money? Who is Alex Carlucci?
“You knew him well enough to take out a ten-thousand-dollar loan to play blackjack in Vegas,” the man reminded him. “And you had promised to repay by January fifteenth. It is now February twenty-eighth. You don’t call, you don’t write…”
The pipe smashed into Jordan’s cheek. Blood poured onto the carpet, and then Jordan did recall Alex Carlucci as the metallic fluid filled his mouth. He remembered stumbling drunkenly to the kingpin’s poker table and brazenly asking for money. The details were foggy at best, but Jordan knew what the muscle was saying was more than likely true. He had become indebted to a mob loan shark while on his bender.
Oh, gods. This was not good.
“So, Jordan. When can I tell Mr. Carlucci to expect his twenty-five thousand dollars?”
Jordan blinked fast and met the man’s eyes helplessly.
“Wait! You said ten thousand!” Jordan protested. He cringed as the words left his lips and fully expected another smash, but it did not come.
“You borrowed ten with promise to repay fifteen. You left town, so that’s twenty, and now you’re six weeks late. You owe him twenty-five thousand dollars by Wednesday, or this will feel like a walk in the summer rain. Capiche?” The giant rushed at him, and Jordan rose his arms to his face. The man jumped back, laughing. “Nice moves, slugger. I can’t wait to tell Mr. Carlucci you’re a fighter! He loves fighters! See ya later!”
As Jordan sat in the ruined room, replaying the horrific details over and over, he wondered how he had let things come to that. He didn’t know what way to turn. All the money he had so painstakingly saved over the past five years was gone toward achieving his goal as champion fighter. True, he would be expecting more money soon, but not by Wednesday, and certainly not twen
ty-five grand.
He needed to call Landon. Just as quickly as the idea popped in his head, though, he dismissed it. There was not a damn thing that Landon could do except give him a lecture and tell his sister that he had failed again. There was no way his brother-in-law would give him a cent to pay off a gambling debt. Landon wouldn’t see him out of this mess, but if he ever learned about it, he would ensure that Jordan never lived it down.
Harley. I need to call Harley. He shot that notion out of his mind as well and gritted his teeth together. No! You can’t call Harley. You made a promise to him, and you screwed up. Again. How many times are you going to disappoint the man? You can’t do that to him. What can he do, anyway? He doesn’t have any money. Knowing him, he’ll put out a second mortgage on Sky Train to help you. He has done enough for you. You have to be a man and figure out a way out of this by yourself.
Jordan continued to drink, his mind whirling. He considered running, but he couldn’t do that to Harley, either. Or to himself. No, he wasn’t a runner. He was an alpha wolf who needed to pull himself up by his bootstraps and make matters right, but how? Who had twenty-five grand?
The epiphany suddenly struck him then. He turned to the phone, which had been ripped from the wall, and plugged it back in. With trembling fingers, he dialed a number, clearing his throat, willing his voice to even. Someone answered on the second ring, and in a rush of words, Jordan spoke.
“Hey, can you come over? I’m in trouble.”
A slight pause followed his question. “Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
When he hung up, he walked into the bathroom and removed the bag from inside the vanity mirror. He was going to need all the courage he could get for this.
“Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Jordan.” James stepped over the pile of glass on the floor and shook his head.