by Jo Raven
The glove is pink, I realize as I approach, dragging my feet. It can’t be…
The door opens. “Ms. Page, please come in. Sorry for the small delay.”
Wow.
I climb into the limo, close the door and we’re off before I even settle on the leather seat. A slender old lady is sitting there with the air of a queen. She’s dressed in a long black coat, a pale pink dress peeking underneath, and pink pumps. Her gray hair is styled in an elegant coif, swept back from her face. Huge diamonds glitter on her ears and around her neck.
“Nice you meet you, Ms. Page,” she says and tends a gloved hand.
I take it automatically. “Please call me Pax.”
“Pax.” She smiles, deepening the wrinkles in her cheeks. “Please call me Ellen. So you’re Riot’s friend.”
“Girlfriend.” Again, automatic responses. I’m too weirded out to engage my brain properly, the truth coming out of me without prompting.
“I thought as much.” She smiles contently. “It was about time that boy found some happiness in his life.”
“He wasn’t happy before?”
“Not really. He smiled a lot on the surface, but his job was wearing at him, I believe.”
“And yet you paid to pet his hair.”
“Someone had to get through his defenses, and it was the only way I could think of. He wouldn’t let anyone near. So I paid him so he’d allow me.” She tsks. “Boy needs affection. Hasn’t had enough in his life. He’s like a wild animal sometimes. You need to take your time to let them smell you and accept your touch.”
Like what Riot said about his pets. And me.
“Why would you want to show him affection? And get through his defenses?” I narrow my eyes at her, suspicious all of a sudden. “What are you hiding?”
She laughs, a bright sound that has my mouth twitching. “Oh dear me,” she gasps. “I love it. You’re so protective of him. That’s good.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Indeed.” She cuts me a sideways glance out of wide blue eyes. “Maybe I wanted some affection myself. Riot’s like a son to me.”
“You don’t have children?”
“I do. That’s the problem.” She looks away. “My son is nothing like Riot. Riot is the son I would have wanted, if fate cared at all.”
***
The limo stops in a narrow back street and the driver comes out and helps Ellen out. He’s dressed in an immaculate blue uniform and has a mustache that could be used as a lethal weapon.
I feel as if we time-traveled as we drove here.
The driver leads Ellen to a heavy metal door and rings a bell in the panel beside it. The panel only has The Club engraved in it.
I shiver in my coat and wonder if I was supposed to dress better. More elegantly, like her. I always thought underground fights took place in a pit with sweaty half-naked men yelling and dogs barking and women in skimpy bikinis slithering down poles.
The door cracks open and a suspicious face appears. The driver tells him something in a voice so deep and low it lifts the hairs on my arms, and the door opens wide.
“Mrs. Morris,” the man at the door says, a huge guy, at least six feet four, his craggy face set in lines of great shock.
“In the flesh,” Ellen says as she walks into the club, her head held high. “Thank you, James, you can go now. I’ll be fine. Come along, Pax, my dear.”
James. I snicker as I enter, because come on, a driver called James? Can you get any more clichéd? But then my snicker turns into a gasp.
Because the inside of the club is nothing like I imagined. It’s like an amphitheater with seats going down in rows to the ring. Around the perimeter there are raised platforms with couches and tables laden with bottles and glasses. And although not everyone we pass is dressed like they’re going to a gala, they sure have taken care with their appearance.
Gelled-back hair, flashy jewelry, fancy brands flashing on clothes, smartphones glittering with Swarovski crystals and God knows what else.
Holy crap, the place is packed.
“No way we’re getting a seat in here,” I mutter as I follow Ellen down the steps between rows. “I can stand, no problem, but—”
“Stop worrying, dear.” She turns to me, links her arm with mine, and leans in as if to confess a secret. “Everything will be all right.”
Not so sure about that, but her confidence gives my frail hope a boost and I nod.
A woman clad in a dress so tight I wonder how she can breathe accosts us and smiles brightly at Ellen.
“Mrs. Morris. Welcome to the Hellfire Fight Club.” Her accent is foreign, a little musical. “We were not expecting you.”
“Of course not. I have never come before, have I? Not since Sergei died.”
The woman’s smile falters. She has huge blue eyes and her blond hair is in a ponytail so long it reaches her ass. “Your seats are right this way. If you’ll follow me.” She turns and walks down on her sky-high stilettos, her ponytail swaying hypnotically, and we follow. “Should I alert—”
“Only when I tell you, girl,” Ellen says in a tone so icy I flinch. “Your name?”
“Natasha, Mrs. Morris.”
“You stay close, Natasha. There’s a few things I may need.”
“I am honored,” she says as she leads us onto one of the raised platforms, and I can’t tell from her tone if she’s being sarcastic or not. “I will be right here.”
“Very well.” Ellen takes a seat on the white leather couch and sighs. “Come sit, Pax. We have a few things to talk about before the match begins.”
My mind reeling, I sit beside her. Natasha leans over to pour us both a narrow, tall glass of amber liquid, then retreats to the side like before.
“I’m all ears,” I say, my voice raw. I lift the glass, take a sip, and warm sweetness glides down my throat.
“Riot left the fight club two years ago, right after his friend Markus died.”
“Was killed,” I correct softly.
“Killed,” she concedes with an incline of her head. “Since then he has been working at Bad Boy Escorts and sending all his profits to a single-mother family. Markus’s family. Now the club has found an opportunity to have him fight again, because the Crusher is back in town.”
“Why didn’t the Crusher come back these past two years, then?”
Her blue eyes flash. “Killing people isn’t acceptable in the club, not if everyone agrees it was done on purpose.”
“He killed Markus on purpose?” I put down my glass, my hand trembling. “Why would he?”
“Because the Crusher is an angry young man and violence is his only outlet. His father wasn’t like him at all.”
“His father?”
“Sergei Baran, or the Enforcer as he was known in the underground scene.”
“Russian?”
“Yes. All this,” she waves a hand with a flashing diamond ring, “is the Russian mob’s business.”
“What’s your role in this?” I narrow my eyes at her. “How do you know so much about the fight club and the mob?”
“Long story.” She lifts her glass, takes a dainty sip. “We’re not here to talk about me, but about Riot.”
“The reason I called you in the first place was to ask if you could spare him this. If you know people in the scene, maybe you could ask them to cancel the match, let him go.”
“I cannot do that.” She turns the glass in her long, thin fingers. “They wouldn’t agree. You see, this is an honor debt. Riot stepped down, forfeiting the match, and if the boss hadn’t replaced him with Markus, the club would have been the ridicule of the scene. You don’t just walk away from a fight. From a club. This is the mob.”
“But why—?”
“If he doesn’t fight tonight, they’ll probably kill him, and everyone he cares for as well. A show of power to appease the other clubs. But if he does fight, no matter the outcome, then he’s free to go afterward.”
“As long as he su
rvives.”
She tips her chin in a nod. “Yes.”
Somewhere a whistle sounds. People crowd around the ring.
“Can’t you buy them out? You’re rich, aren’t you?” I’m being rude, but the match will be starting any minute now, and here I am, playing my last card. “If you care for him like you claim.”
“You can’t buy out the Russian Mob. At least, I can’t. You can’t imagine the sums needed for that, girl.”
She’s angry. Of course she is.
“I’m sorry, Ellen.” I scrub my hands over my face. “I don’t want him to die.”
“Neither do I.” She sighs. “That boy never let me give him a cent more than I owed him. He’s stubborn and proud, or I’d have helped him long before now. He never told me about himself. And…” She puts down her glass and leans forward, staring at the ring. “Here they come.”
A cheer rises from the crowd as a huge man steps onto the ring. He’s bald and even from afar he looks handsome. A huge tattoo covers his chest. Flowers and a grinning skull.
“Clay the Bone Crusher,” a man yells into the mike
“Oh God,” I whisper, my blood turning to ice.
“No gods,” Ellen says. “Just a mortal. Clay Baran.”
Enormous muscles ripple on his back as he turns. More tattoos—blood and bones and more flowers and a castle. Huge biceps bulge in his arms when he lifts them.
The crowd claps and whistles.
Shit.
“And his opponent,” the announcer yells, loudspeaker multiplying his voice until it echoes around me and inside my bones, “Riot Callahan!”
I didn’t expect the crowd to go wild at the sound of Riot’s name, to roar so loud. They’re deafening.
“They love him,” Ellen whispers and I barely hear her over the din. “As they should.”
I wouldn’t know what to reply, but I don’t have to because at that moment Riot steps into the ring, and I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle a cry.
“He’s hurt,” I breathe. “Oh God. They beat him up again. He wasn’t limping this bad when he left me this morning.”
Ellen frowns. “What do you mean, again? They beat him up before?”
I nod. “A few days ago.”
She makes a strange noise in the back of her throat. “Bastards. They want to make sure he loses this fight.”
“To get their revenge.”
“Yes. But I doubt that’s their only motivation. I am sure they bet loads of cash on the Crusher.”
So it’s about money, too. Always is.
“I’d bet all my money on Riot. And I wish he knew it. Knew I have faith in him.”
“You will.” Ellen’s face has set into hard lines. “And he will, too.”
I blink. “What will you do, Ellen?”
She beckons to Natasha who sidles over to her. When she bends over to hear what Ellen whispers in her ear, I bet she flashes the whole of the club.
I’d laugh if I could, but there’s a lump the size of Illinois in my throat.
Natasha straightens, a wad of pale pink cloth with a symbol—a castle?—embroidered in golden thread in her hands. She steps off the platform, striding away, strangely steady on those narrow heels.
“Will you tell me what’s going on?” My attention is back on Riot. He’s leaning against the ropes of the ring as a young guy tapes his hands. In the other corner, the Crusher is ready and waiting, cracking his knuckles. “Ellen?”
“This fight is rigged. Beating Riot up, putting all their money on the Crusher. Well, we are betting on Riot. Stand up.”
“What?”
She takes my hand in a shockingly strong grip and pulls me up with her. I have no idea what is happening, but I see Natasha climb onto the ring and tie the cloth around Riot’s arm, then gesture toward us.
What in the world?
He straightens, looking up, and a spotlight swings to bathe us in blinding light. Ellen lifts our entwined hands, and the crowd goes wild.
But all my attention is on the ring. On Riot’s wide-eyed gaze, the smile pulling on his lips. On the Crusher, at the fury and disbelief written all over his face.
“You gave him a token,” I whisper. “What is this, a medieval tournament?”
“That’s what it is to him. To Crusher. An old game of power.”
“Jesus, Ellen, what have you done? The Crusher is pissed out of his mind. He’ll kill Riot!”
“No, he won’t. See,” she explains as the spotlight swings away, leaving us in darkness so sudden I think I’ve gone blind, “this is a game of focus. And now I’ve taken it away from him.”
“Riot didn’t want me here.”
“Riot doesn’t know what he needs,” Ellen mutters.
“Why is the Crusher so furious?” I ask as we sit back down. “Who are you anyway?”
“He didn’t expect me here. I’ve never come to any of his matches, even though he always invites me. Now I’ve come, and not for him. In one moment, he felt all the elation and all the disappointment in the world. See,” she goes on, her voice detached, clinical, “I’ve just crushed him, crushed his spirit. Crushed the Crusher.”
So not funny. “Why would you know how the Crusher’s mind works?”
“Because I know my son.”
Oh shit. “The Crusher’s your son.” Of course. “And you’ve been backing his opponent.” Something bitter spills in my mouth. “Paying him to pet his hair. Why?”
“I already told you. Riot is the son I would have wanted. Clay...The Crusher, he killed Markus to get my attention. He fights for my attention, whereas Riot has always fought to survive in a bad life. I loved Clay’s father. Sergei was a kind man. But he took Clay away from me because I had...problems.” She waves a hand. “With drugs. I was young, and beautiful, and wanted to have fun. He spoilt Clay, made him think he’s the center of the universe, introduced him to this violent, bloody sport and then died of a heart attack.”
God. “And now what?”
“Now the crowd knows Riot has my protection, making it more difficult for the bastards of the club to hurt him on purpose or be unfair again. They know my bet is on him. And we will watch as Riot teaches Clay a lesson normally learned on the mean streets where he grew up.”
“What sort of lesson?”
“A lesson in love and compassion.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Riot
Need to get my A-game on. Being here, facing the Crusher, is bad enough, and my concentration was shattered to bits when I was shoved into the wall in the lockers room, then punched off my feet and kicked around until I tasted blood.
Then a girl came in to the ring and tied a scarf around my biceps, pointed at a platform, and there were Pax and Ellen.
She’s here. Hell, they’re both here, the two women I care for.
Need to focus on the fight. Shut everything else out.
I don’t get the chance.
The Crusher barrels into me with a yell, throwing me down. What the fuck? The referee hasn’t announced the start of the match yet, the second whistle hasn’t sounded, the crowd hasn’t settled.
My back hits the floor with a thud, all the air leaving my lungs, and I look up, dazed, at his enraged face.
“You die tonight, Riot,” he snarls, and he’s so much like a bad caricature of a villain, with his crazed eyes and scarred cheek, that I’d laugh if I could draw breath. “I end you.”
I bend my knee, jam it into his crotch and twist, throwing him off. “Not if I end you,” I tell him, wheezing, clambering with some difficulty to my feet. The old injury in my thigh hurts like a bitch.
Fuck, the number they did on me in the locker room is slowing me down.
The referee is whistling now, and shouting something to the Crusher in Russian. His face darkens as he rolls to his feet, then he’s on me again, throwing a punch to my stomach that doubles me over.
Shit. I don’t remember him being so angry last time. He’d been controlled and lethal. Now he’s like a speeding
train gone off the tracks.
The referee gets between us, blowing madly on his whistle, shoving the Crusher in the chest. The crowd boos—the referee for stopping us or the Crusher for attacking me before the official beginning of the match, that’s anyone’s guess.
“Stand back,” the referee is now shouting, a small, squirrely man in a bright yellow jacket. “No attacking before the whistle.”
The Crusher spreads his legs and lowers his head like a bull about to charge.
Jesus. Bad form, Crusher. Cold anger is welling inside me, too, remembering how he put me in hospital, how he killed Markus. Brutally. Unnecessarily.
But my anger is tempered with the warmth spreading in my chest from seeing Pax and Ellen. A calm spreads inside me.
I’m gonna do this.
I know Crusher’s moves. He’s strong, but predictable. A crusher, as his nickname suggests. He likes to tackle his opponent to the floor, and goes for the windpipe.
Need to avoid that at any cost.
Need a counter-attack plan. It’s been on my mind all day—as I walked away from Pax like a thief, as I fed the boys, as I trained at the gym and as I watched the videos from the Crusher’s last couple of fights.
Last time I thought I could handle him like I did every other opponent. My strength is my speed and my punches. I have a great upper cut.
He knew it. He’s no fool. He studied me back then, more than I studied him.
But like I said: I’ve changed. He doesn’t know me anymore. I’m changing my strategy. Plus, he’s angry, vibrating with it like an over-tight chord.
So let’s play this tune, brother. Let’s dance this dance. You’re confused and angry, while I’m certain of what I want in my life.
I’m fucking ready.
***
My plan isn’t going so well. Fucking Crusher got me twice in the ribs and Jesus fuck, that hurt so bad I thought I’d cry like a baby. Breathing hurts. My leg burns. My head throbs.
Come on, Riot. Get your shit together.
He throws another punch. I block it, step back, and he keeps coming on. I limp to the side. Can’t let him get too close and tackle me.
He twists and delivers an upper cut to my jaw. I turn, catch a glancing blow to the side of my head that makes me see stars.