by West, Dahlia
It was all show—theatrics designed to increase betting and thus North’s percentage. After all, Jonah noted, he was still wearing gloves and so was Meathead. Despite the expensive boots and diamond rings, North had figured out that fighters couldn’t throw punches with broken hands, and no punches meant no payday.
Jonah wasn’t all that surprised that North had considered it. He was, after all, the money man.
A flash of lightning outside made the portable lights flicker for a moment. Seconds later, thunder rumbled, loud and long, shaking the glass windows of the warehouse.
The crowd was re-energized, undeterred by the storm raging outside. They’d paid good money to see a storm inside this ridiculous cage.
Jonah was prepared to give it to them.
For the right price.
North came up to him, looking slightly irritated.
Jonah tightened his wraps as he listened to the man grumble.
“So, this asshole,” he said, sliding a sharp look across the industrial space.
Jonah followed his gaze to see Meathead jumping up and down on the balls of his feet, working his shoulders in a warm-up. Jonah frowned at North.
North sighed. “I know. I know. But he’s fucking pestering me. And he won’t shut up. And who the fuck knows where he got almost a thousand dollars, but he shoved it in my hand and told me to put him in rotation. With you.” North rolled his eyes. “I just don’t get how these dumbasses can’t let shit go. But, anyway, tune him up a little, give the crowd a good show, and I’ll slip you an extra five percent. I’ve got another guy lined up from St. Louis tonight. Consider this beefcake your warm-up. Okay?”
Jonah wrinkled his nose in distaste. But 5% was 5% and he could convince himself it was a bonus. After all, he was here for the money. He’d play into North’s three-ring circus one last time. For Sienna’s sake. Tonight’s fight would be his last. After this, he’d only strap on his gloves at Chappie’s where he wouldn’t get paid, but he’d still feel that rush of stepping into a ring and battling it out with another fighter.
He was a little disappointed, actually, that his last fight was with Meathead. Jonah would’ve preferred a less hollow victory. He stepped up to the cage and waited for one of North’s lackeys to open it up. The man held the door wide and Jonah ducked inside. Meathead gave him a gap-toothed grin and Jonah tried to hide his own smile.
Behind him, the lackey closed the gate with an audible bang. The crowd cheered and someone threw a bottle at the chain link. It didn’t break on impact, but it did when it hit the concrete floor. Within seconds, two men had scooped up the asshole who’d thrown it and dragged him toward the exit.
North stood beside the cage door and shouted loudly. The man didn’t even need a microphone. His voice rivaled the thunder outside. “Don’t fuck with me in my own house!” he told the crowd.
As Jonah watched the man doing his own version of crowd control, his eyes skipped past the man and then his heart skipped a beat. Maybe even two.
Standing on the edge of the gathered spectators was a familiar face.
Emilio caught his gaze and scowled back at him.
Jonah frowned. He wasn’t sure what the guy was doing here, but it was clear he hadn’t placed any bets. He looked pretty pissed off.
North clapped his hands once and turned to Jonah and the Meathead. “All right, gentlemen!” North’s smile was flashy with teeth that were a little too white and a little too sharp. “Ready to bleed?”
The crowd roared and the Meathead advanced. Jonah was momentarily distracted by Emilio’s presence on the sidelines. He didn’t quite dodge out of the way fast enough to avoid getting hit by Meathead’s first punch. Jonah made a valiant effort, though. He twisted his head and torso at the last second, pushing backward on the balls of his feet.
The shot connected with his jaw, though, glancing off and whipping Jonah’s head around.
The hit was hard.
Too hard.
Way too hard.
Jonah forgot all about Emilio.
Before Jonah could get his feet under him, a second blow came crashing down. Pain exploded behind his right eye. As he spun into the chain link, blood trickled down, obscuring his view.
Meathead charged and Jonah had enough of his wits about him to dodge the incoming behemoth. He darted out of the way and Meathead bounced off the fence.
Jonah went in for a jab to the stomach, keeping so close that Meathead’s haymakers couldn’t do too much damage to his face. It left him open for body blows, though, and Meathead returned Jonah’s torso blow with one of his own.
More pain radiated out from the contact point and Jonah had to jump back, out of reach, to recover. They stalked each other around the edge of the cage. Jonah’s eyes—well, his good one anyway—darted to North, whose face was unreadable. It was impossible to tell if the man had arranged this beat-down. With most bets on Jonah, North would make a killing off Meathead’s win.
With no one to trust, Jonah went back to trusting the one person he knew he could always count on—himself. He side-stepped Meathead’s next rush, only catching a glancing blow to the ribs again. It still hurt, but Jonah ignored it. He spun on the ball of his foot and caught Meathead in his big-ass, meaty head, right behind the ear.
Meathead tripped into the chain link and went down on one knee. Jonah dove in and delivered one more blow to his head before skipping away as Meathead struggled to his feet.
The dance continued until Meathead, in a Neanderthal rage, rushed toward Jonah like a freight train. They both collided and with Meathead’s momentum, they bounced off the fence and tumbled onto the floor.
Jonah was caught in a flailing mass of legs and arms and potentially deadly fists as he tried to pry himself away from his opponent. A knee hit him in the back, though, and knocked the wind out of him.
It was a dirty move but one North had allowed before. The man was here to stage a spectacle, after all.
As Jonah slammed back down onto the concrete, he opened his eyes. His vision swam, blackening and then clearing slowly. When he could focus, he wished to God he hadn’t. In that moment, Jonah Stark would have given anything not to see what was right in front of him. Or who. In the crowd, clawing at Emilio’s arm…was Sienna.
On Emilio’s other side, less hysterical at the grisly scene but still looking grim, stood Ava.
Once again, distraction was Jonah’s own worst enemy. Meathead delivered a crushing punch to the back of his head. Jonah put his hands on the floor and rolled. Meathead caught him again, though, this time in the side. Jonah kicked out hard and caught Meathead somewhere, anywhere. It didn’t matter, really. It bought Jonah just enough time to crawl out of range. He made it to the side of the cage and struggled to his feet. Meathead was on him again, though, and caught him in the jaw.
At this point, Jonah had already had enough. Wave after wave of pain made him desperate and fearful. He had to get out of this fucking ring. Or win this fight. A dark realization cut through the groggy haze of his brain. He might not survive if he didn’t. He turned away from Meathead, exposing his left flank, an unfortunate necessity.
Meathead honed in on the target offered him and began pummeling Jonah’s ribs and back with wild abandon. Jonah felt the crunch of bone rather than hearing it above the noise of the crowd.
Jonah gritted his teeth against the sharp bursts of pain that rained down on him. His hands scrambled, frantic and unsteady. He ripped off one glove, then the second, and threw them on the floor.
The renewed roar of the bloodthirsty crowd rivaled the pounding of his own blood rushing in Jonah’s ears. His fingers, now freed from their own leather cages, gripped the chain link and yanked himself out of the reach of the Meathead.
Jonah pivoted, raising his fists, and threw out a vicious jab.
It was hard to tell who bellowed louder, Meathead or North somewhere off to the side. Jonah had crossed the line, fighting way too dirty, apparently, for the money man’s approval. Jonah was beyond caring
, though.
“Get in there!” North shouted.
In his peripheral vision, Jonah saw two henchmen pulling frantically at the chains locking the cage door.
Meathead either didn’t see or didn’t care that the fight was seconds from being stopped. He moved in anyway, cocking his arm for another jab.
Jonah pushed off the fencing with his back foot and surged toward Meathead, fists flying.
Blow after blow landed, hard and accurate.
Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.
When he didn’t go down immediately, Jonah caught him in the throat, not hard enough to kill him, maybe, but hard enough to interrupt his breathing.
Meathead became suddenly more concerned with breathing than with breaking Jonah’s bones. He clawed at his throat, gasping and wheezing.
Jonah raised his foot and sent a vicious kick straight into Meathead’s torso. The knuckle-dragger went flying backward, slamming into the chain-link fencing and rattling it hard.
By now the door was open and men were surging in. They grabbed Jonah by the arms, holding him firmly. North stepped into the cage and stalked toward them. He stepped over Meathead, who was still fighting for air. He grabbed a fist full of Jonah’s hair with one hand and raised a fist with the other.
In the portable spotlights, brass glinted off the larger man’s knuckles.
North was so close to Jonah that Jonah could feel hot breath on his own face. “Boy, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here. First you’re taking a dive, then you’re taking your gloves off, but if you think you can fuck me—”
Jonah swallowed hard, tasting blood. “Plaster,” he whispered through labored breaths.
North hesitated. “What?!”
Jonah couldn’t repeat the word, though. His jaw hurt too badly and his lips were torn and swollen.
North must have sussed it out, though, because he stepped back and pointed to Meathead on the floor. “Stand. Him. Up,” he growled.
The two henchmen abandoned Jonah, who had to grab at the chain link to keep from hitting the floor himself. They hauled Meathead up off the concrete floor and held him while North tore off one of his gloves.
Jonah clawed his way across the cage, toward the door, toward Sienna. He had to get her out of here, get her safe, get her home.
As he reached the door, North bellowed and the windows practically reverberated from the sound. “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”
Jonah didn’t look back. He didn’t care what they did to that asshole. Whatever it was, he deserved worse. He stumbled through the cage and into Sienna’s arms. She was sobbing and pulling at him. She, alone, couldn’t hold him up, though, so Emilio stepped in and shouldered most of Jonah’s weight.
“Jonah!” Sienna cried above the roar of the crowd. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God! What do we do?” she asked Ava and Emilio. “What do we do?”
“We gotta get out of here,” Emilio replied. “Now. Right now. I heard sirens earlier. They could already be here.”
Jonah understood the danger and nodded as best he could.
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital!” Sienna cried.
“No,” Jonah said roughly. “No hospital.”
“But you have to go!”
Emilio slid an arm around Jonah’s waist and moved toward the large doors. “Let’s get him away from here first.”
They took a few steps before a blurry figure shimmered into Jonah’s view.
Meathead’s girl smirked at them. “Look at you now, you sorry sonofabitch.”
“Who are you?” Sienna demanded.
The girl cast her a shitty glance. “No one. Just the girl your boyfriend used as a punching bag.”
Ava’s mouth dropped open, but Sienna’s eyes flashed angrily. She stepped forward, away from Jonah and toward the girl. “That’s a lie!” she snapped. “Jonah would never do anything like that. Ever! You’re full of shit!”
The girl laughed. “Fine. Don’t believe me. At least he can’t hit you. He’s nothing but a bag of meat now that Sean took care of him, just like I asked him to. He’s all yours, sweetie.”
“You bitch!” Sienna screamed and her fist shot out.
Jonah didn’t get a good look with his left eye nearly swollen shut, but the right cross he saw did him proud.
The girl went sprawling ass-over-teakettle.
Sienna charged her, but Emilio darted forward, leaving Jonah slumped against Ava. Emilio grabbed Sienna around the waist and pulled her back. “Whoa, whoa! We got places to be, chica. She’s down. She’s done. Knockout,” he declared. “It was fucking beautiful.”
“Hey!” someone shouted from a few feet away. Meathead’s friend was moving in fast.
Jonah righted himself and tried to push Ava out of the way.
She wouldn’t budge, though.
Just before the guy reached them, a hulking figure stepped in between. North cocked his head and glared at the guy who just a second ago was planning on finishing Jonah off. The look was ice cold, predatory. If Jonah ever thought this guy was just a money man, he’d clearly been dead fucking wrong.
The guy stopped, balked, and scrambled backward.
“Jesus,” Ava whispered.
North turned to face them fully and Ava actually moved closer to Jonah. “Is he gonna kill us?” she asked quietly.
North rolled his eyes at her, though, and held out his hand. “Take this. For the emergency room. Don’t answer too many questions. If anyone asks, a car hit you. You didn’t get the plate number.” He looked Jonah up and down and shook his head. “You look it, anyway.” His mouth tightened and he shook his head. “Why didn’t you stop the fight?”
Jonah rolled his tongue in his mouth, wondering if he could speak. “I—”
But North held up his palm. “Forget it. I know. Young, dumb, and full of cum.” He gave Sienna a smirk.
She gasped and huddled against Emilio.
North shook his head and clucked his tongue. “I told you about that girl.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Maria’s bar was busy, as usual, on Friday night, though Jonah avoided the patrons as much as he possibly could whenever he stopped by. He could get in legally these days, which didn’t matter much, since he never ordered a drink anyway.
He stood off to the side and used his considerable height to look over the crowd of people dancing on the polished wooden floor. Knowing he’d never find who he was looking for there, he instead trained his eyes to the collection of pool tables toward the back. Scattered around them were tables and chairs and Jonah squinted into the relative darkness until he saw a familiar face.
He threaded his way past cowboys and rednecks, men in boots and women in short skirts. A few girls smiled at him, one tried to block his way, but he sidestepped her easily and kept moving. That was the thing about life Jonah had recently come to learn from his time in the boxing ring: Keep moving, always keep moving.
He emerged on the other side of the teeming crowd and walked up to a table where only one man sat. Without being invited, Jonah pulled out a chair and slid into it.
The man across from him was large—larger than Jonah, even. His dark hair was so short it was practically shaved. Even in the dark his diamond rings flashed, though you’d be a fool to try and steal one. Large muscles rippled underneath a tight black T-shirt. Jonah didn’t bother to look under the table, but he knew the man sported twelve-hundred-dollar Tony Lamas.
His was an intimidating presence, to be sure, but Jonah knew better. This man never threw punches—in or out of the ring. He was just a money man, Jonah had figured out. He’d probably never lifted anything heavier than a beer in his life. He probably juiced to get those muscles.
Still, if you wanted to bout, this was the man you had to see first.
“North,” said Jonah, nodding to him as he sat down.
“Stark.” North’s voice was a low rumble, a rolling timbre that moved like a tidal wave through the air. North’s voice was the only reason Jonah wasn’t completely sold on
the juicing theory. If the guy took steroids, it was a kind Jonah had never heard of.
Jonah took the entry fee out of his pocket and slid it across the table.
North palmed it with a smile and lifted his beer again. “Purnell Road. You know it?”
Jonah shook his head. “I can find it.”
“557. Near the train yards. Tomorrow night.”
And thus ended the conversation. In nearly four months, Jonah and North never had much more to say to each other than that. Just as Jonah was about to slide back his chair and leave, a scuffle broke out on the dance floor several feet away.
North smirked and clucked his tongue. “Assholes,” he said. “At least you’re smart enough to get paid for it. Right?”
Jonah was about to agree when the small crowd parted and his breath caught in his chest. A bewildered and clearly frightened Sienna stood among them in the center, eyes wide and mouth gaping at the two men.
North must have recognized that something was wrong. He turned his head and followed Jonah’s gaze. A low groan rumbled in his throat. “Entire empires have collapsed over a piece of pussy, boy. And it’s never, ever worth it.” He peered closer at Sienna. “Gotta say, that one’s not bad, though. Take my advice, bend her over the sink in the bathroom, bang one out, and be on your way. Don’t nut in her, though. Not unless you want all your hard-earned winnings to go to child support.”
Jonah was long past hearing anything North had said. He pushed back his chair and rounded the table.
“Boy,” said North, rising from his own seat and stepping in Jonah’s path. “You get yourself arrested, that’s your problem.” He leaned in close, blocking Jonah’s view of the dance floor.
Jonah had to force himself to meet the man’s gaze.
In a low voice, North said, “You mention my name to the cops, to try and get yourself off, it’ll be the last word you ever say. Feel me?”
Jonah steeled himself and met North’s gaze head on. “Got it,” he said through clenched teeth.
North stepped aside. “Well, go on, then. I guess I was young, dumb, and full of cum once, too.”