Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  "What's up?" Zan laid down his wrench, swiped one grimy hand across his forehead, and glanced at Cruz. "I got a thing. You square?"

  "We're square." Good, he hadn't forgotten how to make his voice nice and empty. Easy, just like Ace. "Thanks for your help."

  Zan ambled out, and Ace tilted his head with a grin. "He's probably off to tell Dallas that you're about to break all of his artist's fingers, so you've got about five minutes, tops."

  "I'm not going to break your fingers." To prove it, he unclenched his fists. "But I am going to ask you a question, and if you don't answer it without the bullshit, I might break your face."

  Ace's smile slipped away, but he couldn't hold his tongue. He could never hold his damn tongue. "So much for the hugs and hand jobs, eh?"

  Cruz crossed the space between them so fast, the passage was a blur even to him. The world shifted to flashes of sensation--the tensing of his muscles, the relief of movement. Of reaction.

  He slammed into Ace's chest, and the impact drove him back against the wall. Ace didn't fight back, only stared at Cruz from two inches away, his eyes dangerously blank.

  "Why?" Cruz ground out, laying both hands against the wall on either side of Ace's head. "Why did you do that to us? To her?"

  "Hey, that was the deal, right? You promised me you could handle it if I couldn't. You said there'd be someone there for her, no matter what."

  Words whispered in the heat of the moment. A tactical decision. Ace had been paralyzed by the fear of hurting Rachel, and Cruz had told him what he needed to hear. It won't matter. One way or another, she'll be okay.

  He'd said it knowing the most likely alternative was for them to move forward without him. If Rachel had fallen into Ace, Cruz would have let her go. For her happiness, for his--watching the two people he cared most about in the world drift away from him together would have been hellish.

  But not as hellish as watching them fall away alone.

  "It wasn't a deal," Cruz said, fighting his rising anger. "It was a promise."

  Ace shoved at his chest. "Then keep it. Take care of her."

  "If things went wrong, Ace." Cruz shoved back. "Things didn't go wrong. You got scared, or bored, or who the fuck knows. I gave you a chance, and you turned it into an excuse."

  Ace pushed harder this time, with enough force to send Cruz staggering back a few paces. "Are you done with the fucking lecture, brother?"

  Brother. Ace threw the word around like it came free, promising intimacy he would never really feel. Or maybe he did, and that was the first mistake Cruz had made--assuming Ace's usual affections ran shallow, and the glimpses of real emotion Cruz had grasped at had been something more, something just for them.

  Ace loved everyone in the gang just enough to feel real--and no one enough to be real.

  Cruz knew shit about love, but he knew it wasn't abandoning the people who needed you. "You broke her heart." You're breaking mine.

  For a heart-pounding moment he wondered if that was what Ace needed to know. That he wasn't handing over victory to a rival, but leaving two people devastated in his wake. Cruz opened his mouth to tell him, to make himself say the words, no matter how clumsy--

  "Better sooner than later," Ace drawled, a hard, biting edge to his voice. "At least now you know how to fuck her."

  For the first time in his adult life, Cruz lost control of his temper.

  The first punch snapped Ace's chin to the side. The second slammed into his ribs. That was all he got before Ace started fighting back.

  They'd gone at each other once before, in the cage, for an audience. Cruz could barely remember why, except that Rachel had been wounded and Ace had been to blame, and he'd still been a chivalrous knight in his own imagination, slaying dragons for his damsel.

  But it had never been about her. Not in the ring, where they'd pounded each other against the steel cage until anger had led to a simmering tension Cruz barely knew how to process. And not now, when they smashed into each other, too pissed off to fight effectively, slamming each other into walls with the sort of full-body contact that twisted in Cruz's gut.

  He'd wanted Ace there, that night, wanted to fuck him, wanted to hit him, wanted things more inexplicable and indescribable than both. He'd wanted, and wanting had changed everything.

  Knowing what he was losing changed it again.

  There was no finesse in this fight. No rules. Ace got him with a vicious jab to the ribs before barreling into him, carrying Cruz back against the opposite wall with a force that rattled the workbench and jostled a box of screws to the floor.

  Cruz blocked his next swing and shoved away from the wall, winding up to nail Ace again.

  A feminine hand wrapped around his arm, long nails digging into his skin as Lex's face penetrated the haze of his tunnel vision. "All right, knock it off right now before I take a lead pipe to you both! Jesus fucking Christ."

  His hand itched with the need to connect with Ace's face, but if he swung and took Lex with him, he really would be feeling a lead pipe--or Dallas O'Kane's boot on his face. He let her drag him back a step and looked away from Ace's bleeding nose.

  "Santana," Dallas barked. "Cruz is new, but you know the damn rules. You got shit to deal with, you take it to the cage."

  "I didn't--"

  "Shut up. I'm not joking, Ace. Drag your ass to my office, and do not open your damn mouth until I get there."

  After Ace stomped off, Lex growled and smoothed her hair back into place as she faced Cruz. "O'Kanes don't fight each other, not outside those steel bars. We fight, we fall."

  Cruz remained silent, and Dallas leveled a finger at him. "We don't have time for this bullshit, so you listen to what she says, or you're gonna be hauling trash in Three while the guys I can trust deal with this attack. Understood?"

  An ultimatum on obedience, and it was still a struggle to nod. "Understood."

  Dallas turned to Lex. "You got this?"

  "Yeah, I'm on it."

  The leader pivoted and strode after Ace, leaving Cruz to the mercy of Lex's stare. Cruz met her gaze for a few seconds before deliberately dropping his attention to his bruised knuckles. "It won't happen again."

  "Right." She stepped closer, gingerly prodded his split lower lip, and sighed. "Oh, honey. We've got to talk about your methods of coping with grief."

  It hurt like hell, but he refused to wince. "I think that was anger more than grief."

  "Eh, you're full of shit. Sit down." She retrieved a bottle of water from the electric cooler against the wall and handed it to him. "For the lip."

  He didn't even choose to sit, not really. Adrenaline faded, and he let gravity carry him to the sagging couch. "I'll be fine, Lex. I'm more worried about Rachel."

  "You and everybody else." She sank down beside him. "Me? I'm worried about you and Ace."

  Cruz lifted the bottle to his lip and said nothing. What was there to say? Lex knew people from the inside-out, so she probably saw the truth--whether Cruz wanted her to or not.

  Lex rubbed her hands on the legs of her faded jeans. "If there's one person in this gang that I just get, without even having to think about it? It's Ace. So I understand why he'd flip his shit and bug out on you and Rachel. I'm not saying he did the right thing...but I get it. What it really means."

  "That we're not worth the risk?"

  Lex cast a somber look his way. "Not even close. It means he's so crazy in love with you both that it's all he can see--how fucking flawless you guys are. It's not a long way from there to wondering why you'd want to waste your time on someone like him."

  Cruz rubbed a hand against his chest, and it didn't help. That ache was back, worse than before. "I can't tell him if he won't listen."

  "Sound travels faster than a good left hook, last time I checked."

  "The right sounds might." The right words. If he was anything close to flawless, he'd know what those were.

  "Yeah," she agreed, then slapped him on the leg. "That big damn heart of yours? You'll figure i
t out."

  Cruz twisted the top from the water and drained half of it, buying time and gathering courage. There was one question he didn't want to know the answer to--the one that would break his heart with or without Rachel. "What if he only loves her?"

  Lex rose and shoved her hands in her back pockets before turning and fixing Cruz with a thoughtful look. "What if he doesn't?"

  The front door slammed open, crashing back against the wall, and Jasper strode in. "We've got trouble."

  Lex's easy demeanor vanished. "What kind?"

  "Big fucking group of guys smashing their way through the market." His lips pressed into a thin line. "Looks like someone didn't like having his booze blown up."

  "Back office." She jerked her head in that direction and spun to face Cruz, and only the tight set of her shoulders betrayed her sudden tension. "A street brawl. That's straight-up old school. Kind of quaint."

  Not quaint at all in the parts of Eden where Rachel had grown up. It was exactly how her father and their rivals had settled things--man to man, fists and blood. Guns ran too much chance of bringing the military police down on all of them, but a quiet, vicious fight...

  His blood was pumping again, his body alive at the opportunity. To hit something, to vent his anger and hurt and frustration. To have an excuse to bloody his fists and exhaust his body and deaden his heart.

  Cruz flexed his hands and smiled. "You coming with us?"

  "A bunch of shitheads causing trouble in my sector? I wouldn't miss it."

  Dallas

  The people of Sector Four had long memories.

  It had been years since Dallas had faced a real challenge to his authority, even longer since something like this. An honest-to-Christ street fight, and the people of his sector still knew how to get the fuck out of the way. The O'Kanes strode through empty streets on their way to the market, and Dallas could feel the heavy weight of hundreds of eyes.

  Not everyone in Four loved him, but most of them would be rooting for him. The devil they knew.

  This time would be different, and not just because Lex stalked at his side, brass knuckles glinting on her fists. He might regret not fighting her on this point, even though Lex was deadly when she wanted to be, and half the sector knew what Six could do to a man with her fists. Denying the women the right to defend their territory would discredit the ink he'd given them, and it sent a message he couldn't get behind anymore.

  The sector wouldn't change until Dallas changed it. For Lex, he would. For Lex, he'd fight to his dying breath to make a world where she could do anything.

  Today was about keeping the power to make that world happen.

  They heard the crashing and laughter from one street away. Boards breaking, glass shattering--and even if Dallas hadn't been determined to put this bastard down, the waste of it would have tipped him over the edge into rage. A careless bit of destruction could mean the difference between a crafter's survival and starvation. The senseless loss aside, a starving man couldn't pay his dues.

  Stupid. Fucking stupid, and when he broke free of the last building and stepped into the market square, he got a good look at just how destructive some stupid motherfuckers bent on making a point could be. "All right," he shouted, giving it enough force to roll across the empty space. "I'm here. Is one of you fuckheads in charge?"

  The man who strolled around the edge of old man Miller's food stand had red hair and a wiry build. His features were thin, as well, angular and hard, marred by a vicious scar that cut across his right cheek and up through his eyebrow. He carried a battered club in one hand and had two wicked blades strapped to one leg. "That would be me."

  A vaguely familiar face, but that only meant Dallas had seen him somewhere before. Someone he'd met in person or seen in Eden's files--half the sectors fell into that category. He didn't know who, but he could guess at why.

  The whiskey. Nessa's instincts, Ford's business savvy, Dallas's ruthlessness. He'd built an empire--a name--and if this guy couldn't play off it, he'd try to straight-up take it.

  Dallas kept his expression lazy as he quirked an eyebrow. "And you are...?"

  The man swung his club in an equally lazy arc. "The new king of Sector Four."

  Cocky fucking bastard. "Not yet, you're not."

  "His name's Tierney." Cruz stepped up next to Dallas. "Another associate of Liam Riley's."

  Then Rachel's father had a serious personnel problem--one Dallas had already seen coming. Liam's belief in family and blood was noble and all, but constantly overlooking your ambitious, competent employees in favor of screw-up nephews didn't buy a lot of loyalty when other opportunities presented themselves.

  "Former associate. I remember this one," Bren added. "He wanted to branch out into liquor, but Riley shut him down. He pressed the issue, and Liam gave him the boot." He tilted his head and grinned. "And the scar."

  "Smart of Liam," Dallas drawled, putting an extra bit of lazy disdain into the words. "Tierney's not so good at the liquor business, is he?"

  The man tensed. "I worked hard to build it. Years, and you tore it down. Guess I'll have to take yours."

  "Guess you'll have to try," Dallas corrected, reaching out a hand. Lex slapped his club into it, and he hefted it, testing the weight as he gave himself one final moment to second-guess the fight.

  He could have done it fast and dirty, thrown Bren up on a roof with a sniper rifle and come in, guns blazing. Unsporting against a bunch of sorry fuckers armed with bats and knives, but no one had the power to take Dallas to task for picking the safe route of a bully. He didn't owe the chance at bloodshed to anyone, not anymore.

  But guns were dangerous in a brawl. Bullets went wide. Found friends, family. Found innocent bystanders. Kids. This was the risk he took for everything they gave him, the protection his sector's inhabitants bought with their money. O'Kanes lived the comfortable life because they were the ones who would bleed when that life was threatened.

  So it would come down to what it always did. Fists and strength and beating the life out of your enemy, because Sector Four was only safe as long as everyone knew in their guts that Dallas O'Kane was so damn strong, he didn't need the easy path.

  Besides, swinging his club at Tierney's head would be a real, honest-to-God pleasure.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thirty seconds into the fight, Ace wanted to kick back and laugh himself sick. It wasn't like the fight really needed him, not now that Dallas had let Lex off the chain.

  The bastards from Eden couldn't handle ladies kicking their asses.

  It was nice to know he could still feel the urge to laugh. Not much had seemed funny in the past forty-eight hours. But watching Lex duck a punch before swinging to connect with her attacker's baffled face was gold. Pure fucking gold.

  A blow to the shoulder spun him around in time to throw a punch of his own. His brass knuckles weren't as fancy as Lex's--they weren't even his--but they broke bone just as well with enough temper behind them, and Christ knew he had that.

  The fight was chaos. Ugly, fantastic anarchy, and it didn't matter that the O'Kanes had started off slightly outnumbered, not with Cruz and Bren cutting twin paths of destruction through the tangled horde of attackers.

  More than one person broke under Cruz's advance, bolting for an exit only to be smacked down by Flash or Zan. One idiot ran toward Six, and Ace tried to remember his first sight of her--a tiny brunette with skinny arms and a sharp, delicate face. If you'd never seen her in the cage, maybe she looked like an easy target.

  She let the poor bastard take a swing at her before executing a block that turned into a throw, and then she was on him, her knee at the small of his back, her knife at his throat, her contained fury burning so bright the next man pivoted and ran back toward Cruz.

  He got his face pounded, too.

  A fucking garbage can sailed through the air, narrowly missing a man striding toward Lex's back, his features set with fury, as it clattered to the ground. Emma swept it up and used the heavy metal can
's momentum to her advantage, cracking it into the side of the man's head.

  That was his girl.

  One of the guys Bren had left in his wake tried to roll to his knees. Ace booted him back to the pavement and snatched the knife out of the sheath strapped to his thigh, coming up in time to sink it into the shoulder of someone hauling back to punch him.

  The man screamed with pain, lashing out fast enough to catch Ace aside the head. His ears still ringing, Ace got in two more punches before a third finally laid the man out. He spun toward the sound of Flash's furious shout and came face-to-face with someone familiar.

  Skinny Pete, Rachel had called him. The bastard who'd been so close to her family he'd taken her to school. A virtual uncle, someone who should have had the sense to be loyal.

  He didn't look so loyal now, sneering at Ace, blood dripping from a busted nose and a cut on his temple. "O'Kane collects trash." He spat blood at his feet. "Even little whore boys."

  There'd never been a time when those words had stung. He felt more moral conflict over selling his art than he ever had selling his body--but someone from Eden would never understand.

  So he smiled. "Someone's mad they couldn't afford me, huh?"

  Skinny Pete snapped his arm out to his side, low toward the ground, opening a wicked-looking telescoping baton. "Rumor's out about you and Liam's girl. That kinda thing doesn't stay secret for long."

  "I don't listen to rumors." Without taking his eyes from Pete, Ace swooped and wrenched the bloody knife out of the unmoving man's shoulder. "They're almost never right."

  The fucker was fast. A flick of his wrist, and pain exploded across Ace's unprotected side--searing at first, followed by a dull ache that throbbed in his ribs.

  He wasn't messing around, so Ace didn't either. Ignoring the pain, he pushed forward, slashing at Pete's ribs. The other man twisted, leaving the knife to slice through his shirt. The man raised his arm again, but only as a distraction. He swung a punch that glanced off Ace's jaw and knocked his teeth together painfully.

  Fuck, he'd had enough of being punched in the face today.