I shivered.
“None of that shit,” he said in a low voice. “Head high, can’t have you looking weak, El. Eyes straight. Remember you did just pull a knife on me.”
I smirked.
“There it is,” he encouraged with a tilt of his lips just as we made our way around another building and another.
“How do you even know where you’re going?”
“The Spot,” he said in a bored voice. “Rumor has it — and know that the rumor came directly from the source — the mafia held a guy here once, beaten, nearly killed. It became a sort of urban legend. It’s not on the campus map, so unless you know where to go, you won’t find it.” We rounded another corner. “Chase said it was well hidden.”
“You told Chase?” I found that hard to believe.
“Hell no, I asked him if there was anywhere I could take a body and he laughed and said, The Spot.”
I nodded. “Makes sense, though a bit disconcerting that he’d just give you a drop off point.”
“Oh, he offered to help too,” Dante said in an amused voice.
I tried not to tremble at how easily he talked about death.
It had surrounded me for the last three years.
It still petrified me.
The smell of blood.
The stench of a rotting corpse.
Or the nightmare that I would one day be next if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted.
Every night, at midnight.
Cinderella was chased by her prince when the clock struck.
And I willingly gave my body to mine — fighting got you killed.
“See that,” Dante nodded his head. “Up ahead, the flicker of light, The Spot supposedly is directly to the left, which means…”
A few people made their way toward the building coming from the opposite direction. Nobody seemed surprised to see us.
Whispers and murmurs turned into laughter which turned into shouting and the sound of bone hitting bone.
Nausea hit full force as the smell of blood filled the air.
A guy in a leather jacket and a beanie looked me over, then Dante. “You here for tryouts?”
Dante nodded.
“You got dental records?”
I looked down.
Dante laughed. “Nah, man.”
“Well that was easy.” The guy cracked his fingers. “No cops. No snitches. No cameras.”
Dante held out his arms while the guy quickly patted him down. Obviously not finding the knife hidden in his jacket.
I grimaced while he turned his eyes to me.
“I’ll do it,” Dante said gruffly. “You can watch.”
“But—”
“I said,” Dante stood head to head to him. “I’ll do it.”
The guy held out his hands. “Whatever man, I don’t want trouble.”
“No. You really don’t.” Dante sneered then turned his hard gaze to me, I tried to keep my eyes straight ahead, tried to keep myself indifferent as he slowly ran his bruised hands down the front of my body, his knuckles almost felt… soft as they grazed the skin of my stomach and then, his hands were beneath my shirt. His jaw flexed as he ran his fingers across my bra, and then very strategically shoved a knife into my right cup and winked.
Cold metal hit my nipple just enough to make me sway toward him, I had no idea why. My body typically didn’t respond to a man’s touch.
Not anymore.
I’d been broken too much by it — to ever want it again.
And yet, when Dante ran his rough hands down my skinny jeans.
When he cupped my ass and then very slowly ran fingers down the back of my thighs, I could almost imagine a world where it would feel good.
So. Good.
And then his fingers were gone.
“’Bout time.” The guy sneered. “Or did you want to do a body cavity search too?”
“I’m game if you are.” Dante winked at me.
I scowled. Even though I found my cheeks heating with embarrassment.
“Pretty.” The guy seemed to finally notice me, and his brown eyes lit up as he focused in on my chest. I shuddered.
“Mine,” Dante all but barked at the guy, then jerked me through the door, nearly detaching my arm from its socket.
The metal door shut behind us, sealing us in.
It wasn’t what I expected.
It was about fifty times worse.
“Breathe through your nose,” Dante said under his breath, tugging me closer to his body as we weaved through the large crowd. “Don’t close your eyes.”
Five chairs were lifted up onto a platform like freaking thrones over the small blood caked circle in the center.
One crown.
And bleeding stars surrounding it, was etched on the cement.
And on each of the four cement walls surrounding us.
Bloody hand prints.
With RIP written over them in marker.
Dante turned his head toward mine and kissed me softly on the mouth, I wasn’t expecting it.
I clung to his shirt while his lips moved nimbly over mine, softly caressing my cheek and then meeting my ear. “Speak to no one.” He kissed my neck again then whispered in my other ear. “I’m serious, El. Keep your eyes forward,” Another kiss. “Head up.” His mouth fused against mine, I gasped as his tongue slid past my bottom lip, licking me up like I was better than pie, better than vanilla. “Don’t worry. I don’t lose.”
He broke away from me just as the talking around us died down.
I still clung to his hand.
My body shook as the five guys from earlier today sat casually on their thrones of blood, their fake power, with their Russian tattoos and seemingly good looks.
It was like looking at a fake god, an imposter.
While holding the hand of Zeus.
Pride filled me as one of the guys peeled off his black T-shirt revealing more tats on his chest, ones that left nothing to the imagination of his parentage.
The guy was Russian.
“I’m never shocked.” The guy sneered. “And yet, here you are? Isn’t that one of the rules? No Abandonatos?”
Dante released my hand, jerked off his jacket, then peeled the shirt from his body. “Good thing I’m a Nicolasi, then, huh?”
He dropped his shirt to the floor.
I tried to hide my shock at his perfect body.
But it was humanly impossible not to stare, not to look at the divots of muscle that bulged around his core or the way that bruises marred his dark skin making him look that much more dangerous than the guy standing behind him. The word Nicolasi was written in dark font over his shoulders, and below it, a black raven holding steal knuckles in one claw and a book in the other claw.
Whispers buzzed and grew into a frenzy as the guy sneered. “That’s just a tattoo… I want to see how you bleed.”
Dante grinned like he was having the time of his life. “You first.”
One of the other guys stood and held out his hands. “Silence,” His cold blue eyes fell to me, I remembered the way they raked over me in the classroom. “My brother Ike, it seems, will be first.”
Ike walked into the blood-caked circle and stood in the middle of the crown his chin high, his nostrils flaring.
“Rules,” the guy said before the lights flicked off and a spotlight fell to both Dante and Ike. “Last man standing wins — and if you are the loser, you must forfeit your life — it’s up to the winner to decide if he’ll let you have it. But remember, once you’ve fought in here and lost — you will be marked and be forced to owe us one favor — that is, if you’re still breathing.” He laughed and then said in a low voice. “Begin.”
I locked eyes with Dante.
Only to find his arrogant smile slip.
And a mask of cold brutality take its place.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dante
IKE WAS ABOUT to have a very bad night.
Followed by an equally bad day where both of his eyes were g
oing to swell shut.
The right was already starting to seal, the skin puffing out above his cheekbone like an allergic reaction to my fist.
I grinned at him, then ducked as he tried to land another blow.
His fists moved in slow motion past my face again and again, I kneed him in the stomach, followed through with my right elbow, and slammed my hand against his nose, the jarring sound of cartilage breaking only fueled the flames.
And finally.
I was calm.
Awareness washed over me as I waited for his next step.
It was sluggish, every movement full of pain as he lazily charged toward my body and tried to toss me onto my ass.
I was too big for him to try to lift off the ground, but I let him try, and when he jerked away, I could barely see the white of his eyes from swelling. Blood dripped down his lip.
Right hook, right hook, pound, pound.
His head cracked backward as a tooth fell onto the cement floor, dripping in blood and then his body staggered after it, blood and sweat splattered like a mist into the air.
Chest heaving, I walked over his body, ready to help him up, ready to ask for my favor, the one owed to me. Something about the way these guys operated made me think that I was going to need a hell of a lot more in order to uncover whatever Nixon and Chase thought was going on in this place.
They sent me in blind and said to figure out my own shit.
This was the only way I knew how.
Even though I promised my sister I wouldn’t fight.
In my book, it was the only way to get answers.
I held out my hand.
Ike looked up at it, a look of disgust marred his face, as one of the guys slowly walked down the stairs, like this was his castle, his freaking temple, and everyone participating, his subjects.
“Shh,” someone said to my left. “Andrei’s going to say something.”
And just like that, the room fell into a hush.
I glanced back at El.
Her face was white.
Her eyes flickered with recognition and then she locked eyes with me, pleading for… something.
Andrei held up his thumb, people gasped, then the three guys behind him stepped forward and did the same.
People waited like they were gods.
And then Andrei glanced down at Ike. “Sorry, brother. You have outlived your usefulness—” He looked ready to say something else, but instead he lifted his blond hair and straightened his shoulders, then turned his thumb downward.
His friends followed.
And the rest of the room surrounding me did the same.
My heart raced.
“Kill,” Andrei said so simply, so softly that I knew I had to have heard him wrong. I had no problem with killing — none whatsoever.
But this… this was a kid, he was my age, he was—
Someone walked through the crowd.
A gun was placed on a red pillow with a P embroidered.
El looked ready to puke.
I didn’t need to do the math to know who this guy was related to.
Russian.
Petrov.
The family her bastard of a husband used to work for.
If they recognized her and found out that she didn’t really belong to me, belong to us at least not yet — we were done.
I needed all the focus on me.
On this.
I quickly picked up the gun, no hesitation; hesitation got you on the other end of that gun.
I pulled off the safety and fired two rounds directly into Ike’s chest, then one more in his head.
I walked over, picked up my discarded T-shirt, and wiped my prints off of the weapon, then slowly walked toward Andrei.
When we were face to face, I sidestepped him, amongst gasps and whispers.
And fucking sat on his throne.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
El
HIS KILLING WAS swift.
Ruthless.
His fists fast as they pounded out the rage that burned inside him. I’d never been so terrified of anyone in my entire life — of what they were capable of.
I saw his darkness.
And I had no choice but to keep watching.
Not once did I think he was going to lose.
And when their leader glanced over the crowd with an amused glint in his eyes, it hit me. Maybe it was the way the light shadowed his face, or maybe my brain just wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
He wasn’t just a Petrov.
He was the last remaining heir.
Andrei Petrov.
One of the most deadly Russian gangs I’d ever encountered, one of the same men who my “husband” had worked for — had bled for, had killed for.
Andrei was the youngest of the Petrov children.
He liked to watch people set themselves on fire and burn.
Which begged the question what the ever-loving hell was he doing at Eagle Elite? When he had contacts all over the world.
He was twenty-one.
He liked blood.
It was all I could gather from when my husband would come to my bed at midnight and use my body.
One time he said damn it Andrei, getting involved with them.
I assumed “them” was another family.
Maybe it was the school.
I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Because no longer was I safe.
No longer was I just trying to make it through a school day, and suddenly I was reminded of the stupid Game of Thrones commercial.
Enemies in the East.
Enemies to the West.
Enemies to the North.
Enemies to the South.
That was my life.
Enemies in my house.
Enemies in my bed.
Enemies vying for my heart.
Enemies ready to steal my soul.
Dante shot him three times.
I didn’t blink.
I needed to see it.
To remind myself that he was the very monster I had been fighting my entire life. NO matter what, I would not allow myself to get close.
And if I did — it would be a ruse, a ruse so that I could feel my hands around his throat while I watched the life leave his body.
The only out was in.
He was going to force my hand.
Because I wanted to be free.
Of all of this.
The choking fear of loss surrounded me.
All I had left to fight for was me.
The idea of me.
The idea of life my parents blessed me with.
To live beyond the murder, the money, the drugs, the family name.
I escaped.
I was captured.
Set free.
Captured again.
I would not lose.
He sat on a throne of power.
A throne of lies.
He glanced over at me, his expression blank. I nodded my head at him once, and waited while Ike’s body was dragged across the bloody cement floor, his red stained palm print pressed against the wall, and RIP with a date written over top of it.
People celebrated.
They cheered like we were in Rome and this was our Coliseum. I barely had time to run out of the place before I puked my guts into the bushes. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand before something touched my back.
I jerked away.
Chase sighed and offered me his shirt, peeling it off his body without question, waiting for me to gag into it and wipe my face.
“You saw?” I asked.
“He basically told me where he was going. Dante doesn’t do shit like that on accident, I think he was worried something would happen to you.”
I snorted and wiped my mouth again, his shirt was soft, it smelled like detergent, it smelled normal. “Does that look like a guy who’s worried about who lives or dies?”
Chase hesitated for a second then grunted. “He made an impossible decision. The only way
he was walking out of there with you by his side was shooting that gun. You do realize that right?”
“I refuse to believe that was the only way.”
“Trust me,” Chase leaned in closer as people started walking out of The Spot. “You live this life long enough and you learn to study every single exit, every single face, every single option — I watched the entire thing, I would have done the same, except I probably would have gotten my ass kicked a lot more, kid can fight.”
“Kid?” I repeated.
“Fine, the man can fight?” Chase offered with a wink.
“Don’t tease, don’t… not when someone’s dead.”
Chase shrugged. “That someone, you’re feeling so heartbroken over, had a rap sheet longer than Phoenix’s black folder stack. He killed his last girlfriend for cheating on him… sells drugs to the student body, and is selling a street drug eighty times stronger than heroine… people have been dying, it’s only fair that he should too.”
I gulped and then argued, I had to. “Human life is human life.”
Chase’s eyes fell. “Keep that innocence as long as you fucking can, El. It’s the thing we love the most about you.”
“I’m not innocent.”
“And yet here we stand.” He smirked. “Arguing over the slain monster.”
The door jerked open.
Dante strolled out.
Took one look at us and kept walking.
Chase followed in silence, I fell into step beside him.
Five black SUV’s waited.
Chase opened the door to one.
I got in.
Dante followed.
“El,” Dante licked his lips. “We should talk—”
“I’m all talked out,” I hissed.
He reached for me.
I jerked away. “Touch me again and I’m using the knife you stashed in my bra.”
Chase’s eyes met mine from the rearview mirror. “Nice… you stashed a knife in her bra? Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Probably because I’m a Nicolasi and own a brain… Abandonato,” Dante finished in a teasing tone.
How could they joke?
Someone was dead!
His handprint on the wall!
I crossed my arms.
One wrong didn’t make a right.
Several wrongs didn’t either.
There was no line.
It was blurred between right and wrong.
Enrage (Eagle Elite #8) Page 6