by JJ Knight
I should've done it before now. I knew better. But I was a little … busy.
“Hands where I can see them,” Mr. T barks.
I hold them up. “We don't carry weapons here. That's not our thing.” I need them to be distracted long enough for me to click my phone. I look away, making sure I project an air of nonchalance. I got out of the situation with The General last night. Certainly I can do it again today.
It's logical that they would return to me when the fights got busted again. I'm not sure Clarissa knew the level of organization behind the fights. But she should have. There's a lot of money involved. They paid Hudson a ton of cash. The way the money was flowing on those betting tables, this is no small operation.
My phone buzzes in my sweatshirt pocket. Both men look at me. I shrug but keep my hands to my sides. Maybe it’s just Clarissa, telling me something else. I really hope Hudson isn’t in trouble of his own.
The high of last night is long gone. I wonder what The General will do if he can prove I busted his fights. Kill me? Do they do that? Are we at that level of organized crime?
If I disappear, Clarissa will obviously be able to put two and two together. And I did call 911 from my phone last night. That was certainly on the record as well.
I didn't check the length of the call. Maybe I brushed against something and killed it before it could even connect properly.
I'm a terrible operative. If I were in a spy movie, I’d be killed off before the opening credits were over.
Except this isn't supposed to be a spy movie. It was supposed to be a simple job. No real dirty work. Just document the fights, so the cops had probable cause to walk into that establishment.
This is so much more.
Chapter 9: Hudson
I text Chloe twice when I'm stopped at a light. There's no response. Panic rises. They've already come for her, I just know it. They figured out where she lives.
I call Colt back.
“I can't get hold of Chloe.”
Colt doesn't even question my fear. “Give me her address.”
I rattle it off and say, “I’m headed there now.”
“You need to wait for reinforcements, bro,” Colt says.
“No way. I'm close and I want to make sure she's okay.” I hang up the phone.
Everyone I personally know, Colt and Parker and even The Cure, are at least a half-hour away. I’m five minutes from her place.
I step on the gas and send the red Ferrari flying down the street. If a cop tries to pull me over, all the better. I will run every red light and lead them straight to Chloe's door. Maybe that'll put a little spook in The General. If nobody’s there, a ticket will seem like a prize in comparison.
It feels like a year before I finally pull into her parking lot. I don't see anything obvious. No limos. No fancy Mercedes. The cars here look like they belong, including her yellow Bug. She made it home, at least.
All this gives me a certain measure of calm. Maybe she's just in the shower. Maybe Colt and company are about to converge just to spot her with her hair wrapped in the towel.
I’m perfectly okay with that.
I jump out of the car. I'm about to slam the door, when I think Let's not go in unprepared. I reach into the back and snatch up a ten-pound hand weight sitting on the floorboard. A heavy piece of metal goes a long way when you have some strength behind it.
I approach the door and squeeze the knob, slowly turning it.
It’s unlocked.
I turn it carefully, so that the movement won’t be noticeable from the other side. I might scare the hell out of the girls if they are alone, but I suspect my best course of action right now is the element of surprise.
When the knob can no longer turn, I suck in a deep breath, and I shove it open with a slam.
I take in everything at once.
Two men. Both fighters. One by the roommate. One by Chloe.
I don't think, just swing the weight against the closest one’s head. He goes down. He should be out cold. He'll need medical attention with a blow like that.
I turn to face the other to find a fist already coming at me.
I bring the weight directly into his gut. I hear the satisfying crunch of a couple ribs, but this guy can take it. His breath rushes out with a whoosh, but that doesn't stop his other fist from slamming straight into my jaw.
One of the girls screams.
I don't have a chance to look. My speed is compromised with this weight in my hand, but it's my best option for shutting him down fast. I swing it around again, but this guy is trained and no longer surprised. He manages to block my blow and twists my arm around into a submission pattern I recognize. I’m too slow with this weight.
I drop it on his foot. This gets a big growl from him. He tries to bring me into an upright hold. I turn out of the pattern, and we wrestle against each other, grunting. Nobody else joins the fray, so there must have been only two of them.
Chloe is no damsel in distress. She scrambles over her coffee table and grabs the hand weight from between us. Good girl. She knows not to let him get it either.
She doesn't just watch the fight, but stays close, her legs spread a little, her knees bent. She looks ferocious.
I break the man’s hold. As soon as I step back, another fist comes at me, but I duck beneath it and turn, bracing my hands together so the elbow I shove into his already broken ribcage will have the maximum impact.
This is more pain than he's used to. He staggers back several steps.
“You want this back?” Chloe shouts. She holds up the weight.
“No, hang on to it.” I glance back at the first guy. He’s still on the ground. “Watch him. Let me know if he comes around.”
“Should I call the cops?”
“Definitely,” I say.
The other guy is trying to shake off his pain. There’s no time to waste. I need to finish him and get these girls out of here.
I send a jab at him that will intentionally miss. When he moves to block it, I grab his shoulders and knee him hard in the same broken ribs. His breath rushes out again, and I have a feeling a rib may have punctured his lung.
He drops to his knees, clutching his chest.
I go in for another blow, but Chloe yells, “Stop! “
She has the phone to her face. She's giving the cops her address.
I stand over the one whose ribs I’ve broken. His breath wheezes in and out.
“Tell them to send an ambulance,” I tell Chloe. I glance back at the first one. He’s not bleeding but he’s bound to have a head injury. “For both of them.”
She nods.
“Don't forget to do your phone zap thing,” I say.
“Don't forget yours,” she says.
Good point. I keep my eye on the wheezing man at my feet as I pull out my phone. With a couple quick swipes, my texts to Chloe are gone, and the video that I took is deleted. It’s probably backed up somewhere, but that's good enough for now.
“The General is on his way,” Chloe says. “That's why they were here. Just to guard us until he got here.”
“Well, that will be interesting,” I say.
“He'll have more reinforcements,” Chloe says.
“No doubt.” I turn to the roommate. “We need to get her out of here, at least.”
“I'm in favor of getting us all out of here,” Chloe says.
“This ain’t over,” I say. “If there’s one thing I know about the underground fight circuit, it’s that you have to finish a job.”
“I don’t think my boss knew quite what she was getting us into,” Chloe says.
“I don’t either.”
In the distance, sirens start to grow close. “Fire truck,” I say. “They’re usually first.”
“What about Zeba?” Chloe asks.
I turn to the girl. “You want to avoid being part of this?”
Her eyes get wide.
“Yeah, let’s get her out of here,” Chloe says. She runs to Zeba’s room, ret
urning with a skirt and sweater.
“Put these on.”
The girl nods numbly, stepping into the skirt and pulling the sweater over her head.
“Shoes by the door,” Chloe says. She picks up a purse from a side table and hands it to her. “I’ll call you when it’s safe to come home. Go to Adeel’s.” She pulls keys from the purse. “Go now.”
The door still stands open. Zeba hurries out.
I remain by the man on the ground.
“You breathing okay?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “Burns like hell.”
“You’ll be all right.”
“Screw this gig,” he says.
He probably didn’t get paid near what it’s worth to do The General’s bidding. And failing will cost him, too.
Chloe stands by the door. “White Cadillac incoming.”
“That sounds like The General’s style. See the fire truck?”
“It’s pulling in, too. They’re trying to figure out where my apartment is.”
I walk over to the man on the ground and nudge his shoulder. His eyes flutter open. “You’re not dead,” I say. “But the cops are almost here.”
He tries to get to his feet, but his balance is way off.
“Concussion, Mr. T,” Chloe calls out to him. “I would chill out. You might have swelling on the brain.” She looks out and waves. “Firemen have seen us. The white Cadillac is retreating.”
“Must have been The General then,” I say.
I set the weight down on the far end of the sofa so it’s not obvious, but not specifically hidden either. I don’t know how this is going to go down.
The fireman rush in. “Who’s injured?”
“They broke in,” Chloe says. “We clobbered them.”
“Why don’t you two step outside?” one of them asks. “We’ll take care of them.”
I put my arm around Chloe, and we wait on the walkway in front of the line of apartment doors.
“Is your life always like this?” I ask her.
“I could ask the same of you,” she says.
We lean over the railing, looking out over the parking lot.
“Nope,” I say. “All the craziness began the night we met.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “I’m guessing this isn’t over. Not if they know who I am.”
“Nope.”
“What do I do?” She looks back at her apartment. Four firemen are inside now, assisting the guys I took down. “Will I have to move?”
“Is Zeba okay to stay with her boyfriend?”
“I guess so.”
“You can stay with me until this blows over.”
“Will it blow over?”
I don’t have an answer for her. This is more than I bargained for, certainly. The first bust didn’t seem to have any repercussions. But this second one seems to have started a war.
Chapter 10: Chloe
The ambulance arrives, and we direct the EMTs into my apartment. Shortly after that, the cops come.
We answer their questions. No, we've never seen them before. Yes, the door was unlocked. Yes, they came in. Yes. Hudson is a fighter and fought back. Apparently the two guys have very long records. We look clean-cut and friendly, so there doesn't seem to be any suspicion against us.
We’re able to stick with the truth without expanding any details that would lead them to the fight rings. I don't have any hope that the police can help us with The General. But they can clean up this mess.
An SUV pulls up in a screech of tires. A woman no bigger than me, in jeans and a T-shirt, jumps out from behind the wheel and runs toward the apartment without even closing the door.
“Hudson! Are you all right?” she calls.
No introduction is needed for me to recognize that this is Hudson's sister. There's too much similarity. Their eyes, their intense expressions, and her training is evident as she races up to the door, arms bent, fists protecting her jaw like someone is going to jump out at her any second.
“I'm fine. I'm fine.”
“Did they come? Where are they?” She pivots, taking in the fire truck, the parking lot, and my open door.
“The ambulance is going to transport them. They weren't enough to take me on,” Hudson says. I sense a hint of pride in his voice. He’s not wrong.
A blond man ambles up. He’s dressed way nicer than Hudson, in khakis and a crisply pressed shirt. “From the looks of things,” he says, gesturing to the flashing lights of the fire truck and ambulance, “you took him on and won. How many did you get?”
“Two.” Hudson says. “I took the first by surprise. Used a hand weight to crack the ribs of the other.”
“Nice,” he says.
“It is not nice!” his sister squeals. “This is a huge mess.” Her eyes fall on me. “Is this the girl? The one causing all the trouble?”
I see I’m not making a very good starting impression on his family. But that's fine. I'm not here for anyone's approval. I push away from the railing and go to peek through the doorway.
Both of the men lie on stretchers now. The cops are questioning both of them. They’re both lucid and talking, at least. I wonder how they’re going to explain this. I assume there’s some sort of code between fighters that they don't rat each other out.
Hudson takes my hand and turns me back to the rail.
“So Colt and Jo, this is Chloe. She’s great and held herself together like a champ during all this. If you're going to say crap about her, just go ahead and leave.”
Jo sighs. “Hello, Chloe. I didn’t expect to meet you like this.”
“Me either,” I say.
Colt's phone buzzes. He glances at it. “Pop wants to know if we need his interference,” he says.
“I thought we were going to blame the organization,” Hudson says.
I whip around at that. “Action for Action?”
“Yes,” Hudson says. “One way to get them off our backs is to insist that you no longer wanted to bust the fight because you’re my girlfriend, but they did it anyway.”
“I don't know if that will work.” Not to mention I'm supposed to get credit for this bust. That was the whole reason I did it. So some random rich people with an ax to grind will support my education.
Colt speaks up. “Well, that's what we’re going to go with for now. This is unacceptable.”
“Who are these guys?” Jo asks. “Can we kick them out of the circuit? Do they only do illegal fights? I will crush their careers right now.”
Colt puts his arm around his wife. “Let's just wait and see how this plays out. They could be trying to intimidate her and nothing else. That's sort of the standard procedure in our world.” He looks over at me. “Welcome to MMA.”
I don't know if I should try to act like any of this is a normal introduction. Should I shake their hands? Greet them? This is Hudson's family, but it’s more of the same. More fighters. More violence. This is some world that they live in. I've been dragged into it because of my work. But I'm not really sure I want any part of it.
One of the police officers, an older man with a bit of a paunch, steps out. “We'll have someone from the department head to the hospital to work out their arrest for trespassing, but we’ll need more information to get them on anything else.” He looks over at me. “Are there any other charges you want to file? Attempted robbery? Sexual assault? Did he hurt you?”
When I hesitate, he adds, “You don't have to decide now. It's just for my notes at the moment. We'll need you all downtown eventually to finalize all this.”
“There aren’t going to be any charges,” Colt says. “It was a simple misunderstanding.”
The officer squints at Colt. “And who are you?”
Colt tilts his head at Hudson. “His brother-in-law. We’re all fighters on the same circuit. There are often misunderstandings between us about how a match should've gone down.”
The officer puts his hand on his hip. “So you mean to tell me that these two guys come in to your
apartment and provoke you enough that you have to defend yourselves to the tune of a concussion and broken ribs, but you don't want to press charges?”
“That's correct,” Colt says.
“I have to hear it from the owner of this apartment.” He looks over at me.
“I'm not sure,” I say. “I don't know that I fully understand the relationship between those men and my boyfriend.”
The officer snaps his notepad shut. “You’ll be contacted to come downtown and straighten this out,” he says. “Be aware that if you don't press charges on them, they can turn around and charge you guys with assault and battery.”
Colt speaks up again. “We’re aware,” he says.
I don't know what game they're playing. And I'm not sure I’m going to participate. But they do know these guys better than I do. So I keep my mouth shut.
The EMTs push past us, rolling the men out. The firemen give us quick nods and head out to their truck.
I look around. Several of our neighbors have come outside to watch the scene. I don't know any of them. I give them a little wave of reassurance.
“What do I do when I get called downtown?” I ask.
“Say no,” Colt says. “If they make too much noise, we’ll send Vanderson with you. Since you two are already acquainted.”
He doesn't say it in a condescending way. Just a simple statement of facts. But I get his point.
The problems I’ve had since taking on this job and meeting Hudson are outrageous. But at the moment I'm sort of grateful that Hudson and I are together. I'd be in a hell of a lot more trouble if I were trying to manage all this without him.
When the police have also loaded up in their car, Jo asks Colt, “What we do with these two? We can't just leave them here in this unprotected apartment.”
“I think we should take them with us,” Colt says. “Not even The General will show up at my doorstep.”
“Hudson, go in and help her pack,” Jo says.
“I can't do that!” I say.
The last thing I want to do is have to live with these people who can't stand me.
Colt expression remain calm and friendly. “You can come and go as you please. We just need to set up some security for you and make sure The General doesn't have any other plans that will catch us by surprise.”