by Callie Hart
I needed the reality check. I needed to feel the panic that comes with the realization that I might actually lose this fight. It spurs me on, fills me with the anger I need to come back swinging. I take the fucker out at the end of the round, sending him crashing to the ground like falling timber. Most of the time, practiced fighters are on the look out for pile-driver hooks and uppercuts from new guys like me, but they’re not as prepared for back kicks and roundhouses. The crowd screams in disbelief as I plant my foot, pivot and land a powerful kick to the side of his head, knocking him clean out, and that’s it. That’s all she wrote.
Predictably, Ben gets his ass handed to him in the first round. The crowd loves seeing him sail through the air, falling like a bundle of limp, wet rags onto the canvas as his lights go out. Rayne’s a decent sportsman, crouching down beside Ben and waiting until he regains consciousness before he gets up to celebrate, fist pumping and hollering at the masses of people packed around the cage, who chant his name and rattling the chain link, going wild.
I catch the flash of white-blonde hair by the entrance to the cage and I do my best to get the fuck out of there before the owner of the unmistakable pixie cut catches me, but I’m not quick enough. The crowds move out of the way as hurriedly as they can for me, bodies jostling against bodies, people standing on one another’s feet as I slip through them, but they magically part for Kaya Rayne like she’s the queen of fucking Sheba. Her hand is on my shoulder before I can get halfway to the exit.
“Smooth,” she purrs. “And here I was, thinking we were friends.”
I turn and there she stands—perfectly formed, pocketsize Kaya, with her rosebud mouth and devilish twinkle in her pale blue eyes. Damn. I’ve been hiding from her for weeks like a goddamn coward. What the fuck is wrong with me? She’s smoking hot. As far as I can tell, she’s very interested in seeing me naked, which is awesome because I find myself imagining what her nipples look like, how they’d feel in my mouth, at least three or four times a day. Don’t get me started on how much time I spend thinking about her pussy. I should be giving her exactly what she wants: my dick. And yet I can’t. It wouldn’t be even close to fair. My life is a fucking circus right now. To drag her into it would be shitty beyond measure.
“Hey. What’s up?” I rub the back of my neck, scanning the sea of people pressing in around us, trying to see Ben. If I can find him, I’ll be able to use him as an excuse—the old, I-gotta-go-take-care-of-my-friend bit. Kaya seems to have other ideas, though.
“Hmm. What’s up? Well, lately I’ve been worried about how complicated technology is getting, y’know?”
“I’m sorry?” Her weird response throws me off balance.
“Yeah, you know. Old people can’t work TV remotes anymore. People in their forties can’t figure out social media apps. Now it seems like guys in their mid-twenties don’t even know how to use their cell phones to reply to their text messages.”
Ahhh. That makes more sense. She’s pissed at me. “God, Kaya. I’m sorry. I’ve just been kinda tied up the past few weeks.”
“Literally or figuratively?” She reaches into the pocket of her jacket and pulls something out of it, the end of which goes straight into her mouth. A red vine. The girl seems to have a never-ending supply of the damned things.
“Figuatively,” I answer. “Of course not literally.”
“Okay, ‘cause, see, even when people are really busy they still find time to shoot other people a quick text message. It happens all the time. So I asked because I figured, Kaya, give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he actually was hog tied in someone’s basement, and he was only released from captivity earlier this afternoon.”
Ben’s nowhere to be seen. Fucking Ben. He’s probably bleeding profusely in the showers by now and I could really use an out. “It just didn’t seem fair,” I say. “I don’t have time for a relationship, Kaya. I like you, I do, but if we hooked up it would only be sex. And I don’t want you to think I’m using you.”
“Why?” She snaps some red vine off in between her teeth and chews, frowning up at me.
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you want to use me for sex? Am I repulsive or something?”
Oh god. How the fuck am I supposed to answer that without putting a foot wrong? “You’re beautiful. You know you are. You know I wanna fuck you. I just don’t want to hurt you.”
Looking around, Kaya laughs quietly down her nose. She doesn’t look hurt. In fact, she looks amused. “You can’t hurt me, sweetheart. You want to fuck me. I want to fuck you. We both want to use each other for sex. So we should.”
I just stare at her. Believe it or not, I’ve been in this position before. Girls have used this line on me in the past, given me the whole, ‘I don’t want anything from you story,’ and then two months down the line they’re trying to sleep over at your place every night and attempting to introduce you to their parents. It never ends well. When Kaya says it, though, I get the impression I’d be the one trying to sleep over at her place every night, attempting to talk her into meeting my parents. I guess there’s no real fear of that happening, since both my mother and father are long dead, but still… Kaya makes me feel like I’m not the one in control here, and I don’t fucking like it. It’s terrifying. I’ve never liked a girl enough to consider picturing where she might slot into my life on a permanent basis. I don’t think Kaya would slot into my life. I get the feeling everything would have to change to accommodate her, and that just can’t happen. It’s just not possible.
Kaya sucks the red vine into her mouth, wrapping her lips around the twisted red candy, and my dick stirs in my pants. She knows all too well what she’s doing. It’s a cheap and obvious trick, but it’s also really fucking effective. My mind instantly starts showing me how awesome it would be if she were sucking my cock instead of that length of licorice, and she waggles her eyebrows, trying not to grin.
“You need to loosen up, Reeves. Not everything has to be serious. Sometimes, things can just be fun.” Slowly, she begins to back away, melting into the crowd, and I’m painfully fucking aware of the fact that I’m still in the tight shorts I fought in, and I’m about to be sporting an obvious boner. “If you remember how to use that cell phone of yours, you should reply to one of my texts. I’d love to help you relax sometime soon.” She gives me a tiny wave, and then she vanishes, swallowed by the surging flood of people now trying to leave French’s since the fights are over with.
Someone slaps me on the back. Another guy in a pale grey suit with a dark wet stain down the lapel hands me a fifty-dollar bill and laughs like a hyena as he tells me I won him three grand tonight. More people thank me, congratulate me, and shake my hand, but I don’t really hear the words coming from their mouths. All I’m thinking about is Kaya Rayne’s mouth wrapped around that red vine. Kaya Rayne’s mouth wrapped around my dick.
God damn, that woman is dangerous.
******
I am electric, alive, filled from head-to-toe with an exhausted energy as I jog across the parking lot toward the truck. By rights I should be exhausted after a long, stressful day like today, but fighting always does this to me. If I were in bed with a woman right now, I could fuck for hours. I could come over and over again and it wouldn’t matter. This kind of buzz doesn’t dissipate at the drop of a hat. It lingers, keeps your mind sharp, honing your senses so you’re aware of everything. I’m considering driving straight back to St. Peter’s, foregoing sleep altogether, but then my mind flashes white, all thought vanishing instantly as I notice the black Camaro parked up beside my truck. I’d know that Camaro anywhere; I see it every day, pulling up outside the Blood & Roses Fighting Gym.
What the fuck is Zeth doing here? He knows about the underground cage fights that take place at French’s, he must, everyone does, but I never expected to see him here. No way.
I slow my jog down to a walk, my heart suddenly thumping out of rhythm, spiking, shock waves of adrenalin rushing my head and my arms, skin tingling. There
’s no such thing as luck in this world, either good or bad. It’s no happy coincidence that the crazy bastard from across the street has somehow managed to come across my truck and has accidentally parked beside it, when the rest of the parking lot is fucking empty. No, he’s been waiting for me here for god knows how long, and I really don’t want to find out why.
No good trying to slink off into the shadows now, though. He must have seen me, the same way I’ve seen him. I’m condemning myself if I bolt. I try to loosen the stiffness that’s settled in my shoulders as I walk directly to the driver’s side window of the Camaro, already planning out what I’m going to say to him.
‘Oh, hey, man.’ (Insert enigmatic smile here.) ‘You came to the fights? D’you see Jameson Rayne destroy Ben Farminger in the first round? Crazy, right?’
Or…
‘Hey, Zeth. What brings you out to the Markets on this fine evening? Couldn’t sleep?’
When I reach his window and the glass slides down, though, I don’t say a word. Inside the front seat, Zeth sits as still as a statue, staring straight ahead out of his windscreen, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other resting on the Camaro’s gear stick. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t breathe a word.
He knows.
I exhale, letting my head hang, my chin nearly hitting my chest. Zeth starts the Camaro’s engine, and I know what’s expected of me. Fuck Lowell. Fuck this whole day. Fuck my fucking life. I go around and climb into the front passenger seat beside him; Zeth throws the car into gear as soon as my ass is in the seat and the door is closed behind me. The inside of the car smells like lemon and leather soap, like it’s just been detailed.
“She threatened to take her away,” I say quietly. “I couldn’t let her do that, man. Millie’s been through enough. She’s just a kid.”
Zeth grunts, eyes still fixed on an unknown point in the road. I don’t expect kindness or understanding from a man like him. His reputation precedes him. He’s a cold-blooded killer. Lowell wouldn’t be chasing him down so hard if she weren’t one hundred percent sure he is responsible for the death of the girl on the mountain. So perhaps this is how it ends: me being driven off into the night, my sister still in the hospital, destined to wake up tomorrow, wondering where the fuck I am. Maybe I’m about to give Lowell the evidence she needs to put Mayfair away once and for all. Zeth could be driving me out into the wilds, where he’s already found the perfect spot to dump my freshly dead body into a freshly dug grave. All I know is I’m in big, big fucking trouble, and there’s no way out of it now.
Chapter Eight
ZETH
There are only a few rules I live by. I can count them on one hand. First: if you’re going to kill a man, make sure he’s definitely dead before you dispose of the body. Second: Always check every room for a potential threat when you enter an empty house. Third: If something seems too good to be true, it definitely fucking is. Lastly, fourth: never snitch on someone, no matter how fucking terrible they are. Ever.
It was never an option to hand Charlie Holsan over to the police. It was never a consideration that I might be able to hand him over to Seattle’s boys in blue and let them do their jobs. They might have prosecuted him, finally bringing him to justice for all of the terrible atrocities he committed throughout his life, putting him away forever. Holsan could have spent every last breath he took locked behind bars, his freedom taken away until he finally died in his prison issue cot, his bones aching, crippled with arthritis, but I couldn’t have given them the information they needed to make it happen. Fuck no. It’s just not how things are done.
Mason Reeves remains still as I drive through the night. I had to come clean when Sloane called and told me what she’d overheard. I had to pick him up and figure this shit out once and for all. Typical that Mason would end up in St. Peter’s, and typical that it would have to be my girlfriend that treated his sister. The world is just too fucking small sometimes. Sloane was not happy with me at all for keeping Lowell’s presence a secret, not happy at all, but she was far more concerned over what I had planned for the guy. She could hear the cold violence in my voice, no doubt. She knew all too well what that meant, and she didn’t like it. Took forever to convince her to leave the hospital and go home, to get some sleep and wait for me there, but she’d finally agreed. And now, here I am driving Mason across the city toward the warehouse, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to deal with this situation. I gave up killing people, yes, but shit. I also swore I’ll do anything I have to in order to make sure Sloane is safe, no matter fucking what, and let’s face it: I’m still so fucking mad at him. I’m so mad I could quite easily lose control and snap his neck.
Mason watches with alert eyes as we head across the city, moving toward the water and the docklands. I’ve had grown ass men in the same position as Mason, zip tied and thrown into the trunk of this Camaro, crying their fucking eyes out, and yet the kid just climbed in and hasn’t made a peep since. There’s something to be said about that.
When we reach the warehouse, Michael’s standing in the open doorway, a rectangle of bright light blaring out into the darkness behind him. The deep navy blue suit he’s wearing is immaculate as ever. I swear the guy’s wardrobe must be worth thousands and thousands of dollars. He opens up Mason’s door for him and stands back so he can get out.
“Hey, man,” Mason says.
Michael smiles at him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Better come inside, huh?” He sounds a little sad—bastard’s supposed to be on my side, not feeling sorry for the guy who’s been feeding information to the woman hell-bent on destroying our lives. I shoot him a dark look, and Michael just shrugs. He’s not sorry in the slightest. Some right hand man he’s gonna be tonight. I follow them inside the warehouse, pulling the heavy sliding door back into place behind us and locking it shut, and then I make my way into the living room, where I find Sloane sitting on the couch with her hands knotted together, her face as white as a sheet.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I growl. “What happened to waiting at home, getting some sleep?” I spin on Michael, ready to punch the traitor in the head. “And you? What the fuck were you thinking, letting her come here?”
Michael arches an eyebrow at me, sighing. “You know your girlfriend better than anyone else, man. If you think there was any element of ‘allowing’ her to do something here, then you’re giving me far too much credit.”
“You should have picked her the fuck up and forced her to go home,” I snarl.
“I threatened it. Then Sloane helpfully pointed out what you’d do to me if I laid hands on her, and I decided to leave her to her own devices.”
I have nothing to say to that. Fair enough, I would have torn him limb from limb if Sloane had been manhandled in any way. Still, though. Fucking unbelievable that he’d just let her waltz in and make herself comfortable on the couch, knowing what’s about to happen to this kid.
“You can’t be mad at Michael,” Sloane says. Her voice is cool, filled with ice water. She’s pissed at me—I can see it in her eyes. I don’t need to hear her say the words, but still she says them anyway. “You should never have kept me in the dark on this. I should have known about Lowell from the start.”
“It could have been nothing,” I growl. “What would have been the point in worrying you?”
She glares at me with the intensity of a thousand suns. Not another word comes out of her mouth, but I can tell this matter is far from resolved.
“I can come back later if you like?” Mason says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. Smart ass.
I give him a look that makes the small smile slide right off his face. “Just sit the fuck down.”
He obeys, sitting down opposite Sloane. He gives her a barely visible nod of the head. “So you guys know each other. I guess this explains why you were so frosty when I came back into the room earlier,” he says. “I had no idea. I’m really sorry, Dr. Romera.”
Sloane clears her throat. She looks arou
nd the room, before she finally lets her gaze rest on the kid. “I had no idea you were training with Zeth, either. Tell us about Lowell. Why are you helping her? And what does she want to know?”
She’s asked the burning question we’ve been trying to figure out ever since I laid eyes on Lowell again. Sloane has also asked another question I probably wouldn’t have bothered with: what were Mason’s motives for helping her? See, this is the difference between a person like Sloane, a normal person, and a person like me. She cares about the why. She gives a shit about the reasoning behind someone’s actions. I don’t care about that. I only care about Mason’s betrayal, right alongside the consequences of that betrayal.
Mason rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head. “She knew about Millie. She said she was going to have her taken away if I didn’t help her. She wanted me to find out if Zeth ever went up into the mountains. One specific place. They found a body buried up there. Some dog walker’s Lab was going nuts, digging in the dirt. A nearby river flooded in all the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, and a body was unearthed. When forensics did their thing, they found a partial print that belonged to Zeth. That’s all I know.”
My stomach muscles clench tight, as if I’ve just been sucker punched hard to the gut. What the fuck is he talking about? A body buried by a river in the mountains? A partial print? Of course, I know exactly what the fuck he’s talking about, but I don’t want to admit it to myself. This can’t be happening. Just fucking can’t. Less than a few months ago, we buried a body up there in the mountains, but we buried her deep. We buried her in the most secluded spot we could find, where she would be at peace, where she wouldn’t have to suffer any further.