by S W Vaughn
“Ga—” He stopped, disgusted, and took the man’s hand. Through clenched teeth he said, “Angel.”
Lonzo laughed. “So you are, and you look the part, my friend. Especially that grinning mug of yours. Very angelic.”
“Yeah. Right.” He cooled off a little, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Lonzo broke the silence. “So, you came to train?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t let me stand in your way.” The man stepped aside and swept an arm toward the bag he’d just vacated.
Gabriel flexed his hands and glanced at the fresh white gauze wrapping them. Doc would kill him if he tore his knuckles up again, but he felt he owed this Lonzo guy something for barging in on him.
He stepped into position and struck one of the fighting stances Sol had shown him. This is Apollo, Jenner, Father. This is Marcus-Fucking-Slade.
The last visualization spurred him into action. His fists were a blur, battering the unforgiving material. Blossoms of bright crimson burst on the gauze, but he barely noticed. The room dissolved, and the bag became Slade. Cringing before him. Shuddering with every blow.
“Hey … hey! Angel!”
The hated name jerked him back to reality, and to the discovery that he’d found a way to focus, to channel his rage into something productive. Though his hands throbbed and his shoulders and arms burned with exertion, he felt good. Better than he had since the day he’d been inducted into hell.
“I think you won, man.”
He turned to find Lonzo staring at him with mingled humor and awe. A muted rushing sound like distant rapids whispered behind him. He’d torn the bag open. Sand poured from the vertical split in the black material and formed a growing anthill on the concrete floor.
Lonzo cocked his head to one side. “Come spar with me.”
Nodding, Gabriel followed the fighter to the ring. They clambered in on opposite sides and stood facing each other. Lonzo said, “We don’t have a bell, so I’ll just say when. Uno, dos, vamenos!”
Lonzo flashed forward, lobbed a fist toward him. He ducked, tried for a leg sweep, but the backlash of Lonzo’s swing caught him on the side of the head. He missed the other man’s feet by an inch and rebounded to dance back out of reach.
Lonzo advanced on him. This time he was ready, and when his opponent swung, Gabriel caught his arm and jerked him forward. He bent a knee and lashed out with his other leg in one fluid motion.
Surprise infused Lonzo’s face as he fell and landed on the mat with a solid thump. He held a hand up to call a halt, grimaced, and stood.
“Ouch,” he said with a grin. “Of course, if this was a real match it’d be far from over, you know. I just wanted to try your style on for size. C’mon, let’s grab a seat.”
Lonzo vaulted to the floor and headed for one of the benches, where a towel lay carelessly draped over wooden slats. He picked it up, slung it around his neck, and mopped the sweat from his face, waiting to be joined.
When they were both seated, Lonzo said, “So what’s your real name?”
“Angel.” Damn you, Jenner.
“Okay, if you insist. Where you from, Angel?”
“Around.” He’d already been warned not to spread the story of his captivity to the other residents of the House. It might upset them, he’d inferred with ironic bitterness. They couldn't have anyone upset. Oh, no.
“A man of few words. I respect that.” Lonzo leaned back against the wall. His hands tugged lightly on the ends of the towel. “It’s okay. I can do enough talking for the both of us,” he said. “I’m from Brooklyn, so I should be in Mendez’s House. But I can’t stand the bastard, so I came here.”
“Mendez? You mean Diego Mendez?”
Lonzo sent him a strange look. “Uh, yeah. That one. Head of Prometheus? Big-time drug lord and general murderous thug … any of this ringin’ a bell?”
Gabriel’s fists clenched. Diego was part of the organization. Christ. The thugs who’d been with him, Nails and Kaiser, must be fighters. Attempting to sound casual, he said, “So we fight people from this guy’s place, then?”
“What?” Disbelief bordering on shock colored Lonzo’s voice. “Don’t you know anything about this outfit? How the hell did you get in here, mijo?”
He shrugged.
Lonzo shook his head. “All right, look. There are five Houses — one for each borough. We’re Ulysses. You did know that, right?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He thought he’d heard Doc mention it before.
“Okay. Then there’s Prometheus in Brooklyn — Mendez. Staten Island is Pandora, run by the Haradas. They’re old, rich and Japanese. Got a real mansion on a private island, deal in upscale escorts and traditional-style stuff. Their fighters are tough.” Lonzo paused and looked at him. “You follow?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Dionysus is in Queens, and the head … uh, man there is Dell, Dell Ramone. He makes a good-looking woman. And then there’s Wolff.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Wolff?”
“Captain Wolff. He’s a cop. All his boys are. They don’t run girls, obviously. House Orion doesn’t enter many matches either. They’re just around to make sure things stay quiet.”
“And they’re from the Bronx?”
Lonzo grinned. “You got it.”
Cold settled into Gabriel’s bones. This was big business. Huge business. A corporation of crime with branches in every borough, protected by the cops. How was he ever going to get out of this?
At last he said, “What about the star?”
“That was Wolff’s idea. Five houses, five colors. There are pins and signs and graffiti all over the city, and people either know what it means or they don’t. Since the symbol is innocent enough, no one that doesn’t know bothers to poke into it. Oh, and by the way. We’re the black point.”
From Lonzo, he learned that an outside interest handled the betting — odds determination, placing and payout. The ‘accountant’ and the hosting House received percentages of each night’s take, and fighters could earn anywhere from a thousand dollars to half a million for each match, depending on whether or not they won.
It wasn’t hard to figure out the attraction to voluntary competition.
Slade paid his fighters a base commission of a grand per match, win or lose, plus a percentage of any winnings. Somehow, Gabriel doubted he would receive as much as the others.
Chapter 16
The night of his first fight, Gabriel woke from a rare dreamless sleep to familiar words delivered in a voice he’d hoped never to hear again.
“Hello, angel.”
Heart racing, he bolted from the floor, half-expecting to find himself tied down. He wasn’t. His vision adjusted slowly to wakefulness. The slight figure stood a few feet away, dressed in his usual robe-and-smirk combination. What the hell had he done to bring Jenner here?
“Relax. I only wanted to wish you luck tonight,” Jenner said. He stepped forward, stopped and seemed to remember something. “Oh, yes. And to tell you not to worry about your lovely sister. I will take good care of her while you are gone.”
“You son of a bitch.” An icy weight formed in the pit of his stomach and sent tendrils of cold through him. “You lay one finger on her and I’ll…”
“You will what?” Jenner’s right hand flew up.
Gabriel flinched.
With a predatory grin, Jenner reached back and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear.
He held his ground as the other man advanced on him, though his stomach churned and rolled. Jenner stopped inches from him.
“I heard you screaming the other night.” The voice dropped to a whisper. “I have decided I enjoy the sound, and sometime soon I wish to hear it again.”
“You won’t.” Defiance tightened his voice.
Jenner smiled benevolently. “We shall see, angel.”
“Yes. We will.” Calm descended, and he returned the smile with a cold, calculating one of his own.
Jenner recovered quickly and withdrew, with his habitual leer intact. Had that brief shock had even been there, or had he merely imagined it?
“Well,” the lieutenant said. “You have certainly progressed faster than I believed possible.” The arrogant satisfaction stamped on Jenner’s face nearly proved Gabriel’s undoing. His arms practically jerked in longing to wrap his hands around the worm’s throat. “I never expected to have you reformed before your first fight. However, you are ready.”
More than you know. As Jenner walked out, Gabriel savored his contempt. Nursed it. Fed on it.
He would turn their world upside down and leave it in shambles.
An hour after his confrontation with Jenner, Gabriel arrived at Beatz. An innocuous name for a nightclub indistinguishable from any other on the streets of New York. Garbed in flashing, sputtering neon, the club huddled between a topless bar and a building that might once have been warehouse space, but now loomed abandoned and boarded shut. A line had formed before the doors of the club.
Stuck between Sol and Apollo, handcuffed, with a jacket thrown over his arms to hide his prisoner status, he embraced the five blocks between the Marquis-Grant and Beatz. He savored every frigid March breath of New York air as though it would be his last. Despite the horrific idea of attempting to beat another man unconscious, a thread of hesitant anticipation pulsed through his taut nerves.
He’d been given new clothes for the fight. Gone were the loose-fitting garments that marked the first months of his captivity. Now he wore the uniform of Ulysses: black boots laced up to mid-calf over form-fitting black pants, a black tank top, and a long-sleeved linen shirt, open at the front, also black.
There had also been new rules handed down that he was supposed to follow in addition to the two laws of the organization. Slade insisted on entertainment along with winning, and ordered him to draw out the match as long as possible. And as testament to his forced name, he had to fight shirtless so everyone could see his tattoo.
They reached the entrance and pushed through a throng of people waiting for admittance without sparing a glance at the protestors they cut in front of. At the door, a bouncer nearly as large as the twins nodded them through. Apollo steered Gabriel by the elbow into a darkened din of music and noise, grinding bodies and sweat.
A discreet door beyond the bar led to a nest of rooms in the rear of the building, where insulated walls and heavy carpeting swallowed the cacophony of sound from the nightclub. Silence reigned in an elevator at the end of a hall.
The car descended smoothly. They walked through a deserted basement to a hallway hidden in shadow, and up a flight of stairs. At the top, double steel doors stood waiting — a concealed entrance to the deserted building they had passed outside.
These doors opened on a different brand of clamor. Beyond Sol’s looming bulk, hundreds of people milled around in a vast room of cement and steel beams, under the harsh glow of the running lights set into the ceiling. Occasional shouts rang out above the roar of conversation. The bulk of the chatter came from a stadium-style vending window across the room, where bets were being placed.
In the center of the arena, four chain-link walls that stopped just short of the ceiling closed in a raised platform—a fighting cage. Tables, prime seating, encircled the ring.
Apollo led him through the crowd to one of the tables, to Slade, who was seated and deep in conversation with a striking light-skinned black woman in sequined purple. The woman looked up and flashed a dazzling smile, showing flawless teeth. Apollo shoved him into the chair opposite Slade.
“You must be Angel.” The woman spoke husky and deep, as though she’d been chain-smoking for decades. The slight motion at her throat suggested this was Dell Ramone of Dionysus. She extended a hand across the table, affording him a look at the cascade of elegant silver bracelets encircling her wrist, and said, “Pleasure to meet you.”
He glanced down at his cuffed hands, still concealed by the jacket. Slade cleared his throat. Dell shrugged, lowered her hand and turned the smile back on.
“The pleasure is mine, ma’am,” Gabriel said with a slight nod.
She gaped at him, and then burst into a throaty chuckle. “Call me Dell, sugar. There is no ‘ma’am’ at this table.” Still laughing, she turned to Slade. “You really think your Angel is gonna beat my Eddie? Why, he’s nothing but skin and bones.”
“Oh, I think he may surprise you.” Slade directed his gaze to Gabriel. “It’s amazing what one can accomplish, given the proper motivation.”
His jaw clenched in mute fury. Dell loosed another round of hearty laughter. “How delightful!” She clapped her hands with a jingle of jewelry. “I do love surprises.” She grinned, but then her gaze focused on something beyond their table. The buoyantly flirtatious woman disappeared, and a snarling panther took her place.
“Just who in the hell does he think he is?” Dell turned and called over her shoulder, “Ania!”
A compact, unsmiling woman with close-cropped blond hair materialized soundlessly behind Dell, hands clasped behind her back. Without looking at the woman, Dell said, “Mendez is over there messing with Sammie. Go tell him to keep his slimy paws off my girl.”
Ania nodded and melted into the crowd, and Dell’s smile banished the panther. “Duty calls. So tell me, Marcus, when can I invite your Angel to my place for a conjugal visit?”
Slade offered an amused smirk. “Insatiable as ever. Sorry, Dell, but Angel is not for sale. Or rent, for that matter.”
“Aw. But he’s so cute! Oh, well — you can’t blame me for trying. See you at the races, sugar.” Dell rose with stately elegance and blew a kiss across the table to him before disappearing in the same manner as Ania.
An involuntary shudder traveled the length of Gabriel’s spine as he realized just how close he’d been to becoming another man’s sex toy.
“Relax, young one. Prostitution is not part of our deal, and I’m a man of my word,” Slade said.
Relax. Yeah, right.
Tense minutes passed without conversation. The crowd roared around them. A dozen plans for escape rose and fell in his mind, yet he could feel Apollo behind him, daring him to make the wrong move. He stayed seated.
At last Slade glanced at his watch and rose from his chair. “Come on. Time to go.”
Go where? He stood and tried to ignore his thudding heart. Slade walked toward the cage. When Gabriel hesitated, Apollo gave him a rough shove forward and he barely avoided crashing into the table. He strode after his captor, his body tense with self-restraint.
They circled to the opposite side of the ring and stopped before a distorted extension of the cage. It was lower than the rest of the structure, equipped with a door of steel rods connected by more chain-link. Within this recessed enclosure, a handful of men stood, or sat on one of the wooden benches placed around the interior perimeter. A few shadow-boxed with concentration etched on their hard faces.
Slade faced him again. “You’ll wait here until your match. You’re up last.” The keys were already in his hand. He jerked the jacket away, tossed it to Apollo, and unlocked the cuffs. “Remember your instructions.” Slade swung the door to the pen open. “Do not disappoint me, Angel. You know what will happen if you do.”
Gabriel walked into the fighter’s area, and the door clattered shut behind him.
Inside, three wooden steps led down to a dirt floor littered with cigarette butts and shards of broken bottles. He stopped at the bottom of the short flight and scanned the competition. No one glanced his way, though several appeared engaged in friendly conversation. He tried to guess which of the fighters might be Eddie. Then a familiar face surfaced on a bench opposite him: Lonzo.
The fighter noticed him at the same time and waved him over with a boyish grin. Gabriel skirted around a shadow-boxer, making his way to the bench to take a seat.
“Hey.” Lonzo
produced a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke?”
“Thanks.” He extracted one and handed the rest back to Lonzo, who was ready with a light. He inhaled deeply, leaned back and closed his eyes, and let it out slow. The small luxury of smoking had to sustain him. He had no other source of available pleasures.
Lonzo lit up and took a deep pull. “Nervous?”
“Yeah. Which one’s Eddie?”
“He’s not here yet.” Lonzo scanned the room and settled his gaze on the shadow-boxer Gabriel had passed on the way in. “See that guy?” he asked, inclining his head toward the fighter.
“Yes.”
“I’m fighting him. Tiger, from House Pandora. Man, I hate those gavrons.”
Gabriel nodded, unsure how to respond. Finally he said, “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Lonzo grinned through a cloud of smoke. “I hear the odds on you are way long. Makes for good cash, if you win.”
“Great. I’m overwhelmed by Slade’s confidence in me.”
Lonzo chuckled. “He doesn’t post the odds. He just bets ’em. He probably put up a big chunk of cash on you, too. Hell, I would, if fighters were allowed to bet.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Hey, we gotta stick together. Besides, I—”
“Don’t I know you?” a new voice cut in.
A lumbering form stood in front of them, staring at him. Lonzo squinted up at the speaker. “What you want, ese? We’re talking. Take a hike.”
Gabriel gripped the bench as he recognized Kaiser. One of Diego’s thugs. “Er, no,” he said, hoping the thug was as stupid as he’d seemed in the bar. “I don’t think so.”
Kaiser blinked. “Yeah, I do. You’re that kid.” He turned toward the front of the enclosure and shouted, “Hey, Cortez! C’mere.”
Cortez? Jesus, he should’ve known the man was with Mendez. And he definitely wasn’t stupid.
Gabriel tensed and glanced around the pen. He wasn’t supposed to leave it. He’d just have to hope the fighters weren’t allowed to start the fun before the main event.
Lonzo’s brow furrowed. “That kid? What’s he talkin’ about? I thought you said you didn’t know anyone from Prometheus.”