Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  Resignation. Challenge. They wouldn’t have gone together without Jas’s words hanging in the air, words that amounted to a statement of acceptance. Finn was the new guy now, and Dallas didn’t know whether he liked it or not. Maybe Dallas knew something Jasper didn’t. Something Finn’s gut had been telling him all along.

  His escape from Five had been too easy.

  Finn watched Dallas, but the man’s face gave nothing else away. He was the king now, the lazy, confident leader of Sector Four, and he smiled as he waved Finn up into the cage. “Don’t hold back. Bren’ll just make you pay for it later.”

  “I never hold back,” Finn replied, letting the words fall like a warning. “Not anymore.”

  Dallas inclined his head once. Understanding. “Get in there and make Trix proud.”

  Nothing else to do but climb into the circle of steel and concrete and get ready to bleed.

  Bren shed his shirt and tossed it out the open cage door. A brunette waiting on the other side of the bars caught it with a scowl. “Don’t let him hit anything important,” she called out as the door clanged shut. “I got plans for you tonight.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetness.” Bren stretched his back and arms, moving with deceptive laziness. “This is a clean fight.”

  “It better be,” she muttered, shooting Finn a glare that made him wonder if she’d be the next one into the cage to pound on his face. She probably would be, because that was the truth about Sector Four he couldn’t afford to forget—the women were as deadly as the men.

  Even Trix. Hell, for him, especially Trix. He could see her from here, her red hair standing out amongst the blondes and brunettes clustered around her on the couches. He flexed his arms, feeling the gentle ache that warned him he had to go easy after this. He’d been abusing his body more than usual, which was saying something.

  But tonight was for Trix, even if she’d never believe it. So he shook his arms and met Bren’s gaze with a smile. “Let’s do this.”

  There was no music, but the sound of stomping feet and shouted encouragement filled the cavernous warehouse. He and Bren circled one another, but only for the span of a few pounding heartbeats.

  Then Bren lunged, driving straight toward his midsection.

  Finn wrenched his body to the side, turning a powerful punch into a glancing blow that still drove a grunt from him. Bren had the muscles and bulk Finn had always associated with someone strong but slow, but the fucker recovered with a speed that would make an acrobat envious.

  In the streets, Finn wouldn’t have messed with someone like him, not with his bare hands. Maybe with a bullet to the back of the head, if it had to be done. Quick and neat, because fists were for intimidating people, and there was nothing to be gained from trying to scare someone you were planning to kill.

  In the time it took that thought to form, Bren had circled around and swung again, opening the split Jas had left on Finn’s lip and giving him another taste of his own blood.

  Fuck. Focus. He shook off the pain, ignored it the way he had his whole damn life. He punched this time, driving for that slab of rock Bren called a jaw.

  Bren took the hit. His head snapped back, but he shook off the blow with a bloody grin that looked anything but dismayed.

  The crazy bastard was having fun.

  Finn felt his own mouth curving up in response almost in spite of himself. Energy zipped through him, riding the realization that nothing about this was life or death. Just two guys taking a few swings, accepting the pain as the price of being alive and relishing the knowledge that the stakes were low.

  It was like putting down a weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. His next punch went wide as Bren twirled out of the way, nimble as a dancer, but Finn was moving faster now, too. He avoided a jab and went for the other man’s midsection, catching him with his shoulder and driving him back against the cage bars.

  Bren’s chest heaved, and it took Finn several terrifying seconds to realize he was laughing. “That is fucking creepy, man.”

  “Who cares?” Bren shook him off amidst the roar of catcalls and encouragement. “You’re in O’Kane territory now. We do what we want, and fuck whoever doesn’t like it.”

  Now there was a motto he could get behind. One he could embrace wholeheartedly, because he’d been living by it his whole damn life already.

  We do what we want, and fuck whoever doesn’t like it.

  Bren’s laughter was contagious. Grinning like he was as crazy as the rest of them, Finn swung around and punched his new friend in the teeth.

  It took almost five minutes for Trix’s jaw to unclench enough for her to speak. “They look like they’re having fun.”

  “Well, Bren probably is,” Rachel mused, swirling the whiskey in her glass. “You know, getting pounded on?”

  She made it sound so filthy, and Nessa laughed, nudging Rachel with an elbow. “He better not like it too much. Six gets possessive.”

  They were trying so hard, and Trix had to blink away tears. There was no mistaking the intention behind Jasper’s bold, outspoken bet, or Dallas’s pep talk before the fight.

  As far as the crowd gathered in the warehouse tonight was concerned, Finn was a brand-new O’Kane, hanging out with his friends, a breath shy of getting his ink.

  An ache of longing twisted in her chest, and she reached for Rachel’s whiskey, gulping it down to brace herself.

  Rachel chuckled. “Help yourself.”

  “Forget the whiskey.” Nessa leaned over the edge of the couch and came up with an unlabeled bottle. “I brought this for you and your man, Trix. Celebrate his first fight night.”

  If it didn’t have a label, it had to be from one of her tiny premium batches, the stuff you couldn’t buy. “Thanks, Nessa.”

  Nessa smiled and squeezed Trix’s hand. “Bring him around the warehouse some time, huh? If he’s gonna stay in Four, he needs to know his liquors.”

  “You bet.” Still struggling to maintain her composure, Trix turned her attention back to the cage.

  The men were grappling now, slicked with sweat and even a little blood. She watched as Finn slammed Bren against the side of the cage and broke away, getting enough space to take another swing at Bren’s jaw. Bren let it land and returned it, driving a fist into Finn’s gut so hard they ended up against the opposite side of the cage.

  Finn was grinning like Trix had never seen before, his face alight with pleasure as he took advantage of Bren’s momentary hesitation to land a solid left to the jaw.

  Bren fell to his knees. A hush rippled over the crowd, obliterated by protests and cheers when he reached out and slammed his hand on the concrete beside him.

  Rachel stared, openmouthed. “Bren tapped out. I don’t fucking believe it.”

  “I do,” a new voice said. Noelle dropped to the arm of the couch and squeezed Trix’s shoulder. “Jas and Bren know what they’re doing.”

  Jas was showing acceptance by making sure everyone saw him put his money on Finn. Bren was acknowledging that he’d fight him and yield, because he was worthy of the concession.

  Not-so-tiny gestures, and they screamed almost as loudly as ink.

  In the cage, Finn swiped blood from his lip and held out a hand, offering Bren help he didn’t need to climb to his feet. The man took it anyway, grinning as he rose.

  Trix was halfway to the cage by the time Dallas opened the door, and she didn’t stop until she was inside, stumbling into the circle of Finn’s arms.

  “Hey, hey.” Finn caught her with one arm around her waist and used the other hand to tilt her head back. “I’m still in one piece.”

  “You’re bleeding. Again.” But, in her heart, she knew this time was different. He wasn’t bleeding because of her family, but with them.

  “Only a little,” he rumbled. He smiled, and winced when it tugged at his split lip. “My knuckles are worse. That bastard’s face is like a rock.”

  “That’s why people don’t hit Bren,” she said through a laugh. “Rook
ie mistake.”

  “I’ll remember that next time.” Finn rubbed his thumb along her jaw. “That girlfriend of his isn’t gonna knife me, is she?”

  “Better stick close to me, just to be safe.”

  His hand slid to her lower back, pressing her hips to his. “How close?”

  Before she could answer, Dallas slammed a hand against the side of the cage. “All right, Trix, make way for the next show. Unless you want to be the next show.”

  She grasped Finn’s hand, turned, and stopped short. Mad stood in the open doorway, tension lining his body in stark contrast to his casual posture. “My turn.”

  Mad didn’t want to show tacit approval by facing Finn in the cage. He wanted to beat the hell out of him, exact some measure of vengeance for everything that had happened to Jade. But if Trix protested, said any goddamn thing at all, it would be a statement of weakness—not hers, but Finn’s, and he couldn’t fucking afford it.

  He never could.

  She squeezed his hand harder, and Finn stroked a soothing thumb over the back of her hand. When he spoke, the words were light. Lazy. “Sounds fun. Bren let me off too easy anyway.”

  “Okay.” She had to edge past Mad, and she couldn’t resist stomping one boot down on the bridge of his bare foot.

  Mad didn’t flinch.

  Dallas swung the cage door shut with a clang and slung an arm across Trix’s shoulders as the men within began to circle. “Better to get it out now, love. Clear the air.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “You know Mad better than that,” Dallas chided. “He’s worried. About Jade and about you. It’s not making him very smart right now, but it means he’ll get over it.”

  Under normal circumstances, she’d have agreed in a heartbeat. Mad was one of the most decent people she’d ever met, with a solid, unshakable code of honor that made Dallas’s look lax sometimes.

  But these circumstances were anything but normal. “Would you feel that way if he had hurt Lex, even if he hadn’t wanted to?”

  Inside the cage, Mad took his first punch, moving with lethal speed. He connected solidly with Finn’s jaw, snapping his head around, but Finn shook it off and swung back.

  Dallas tightened a hand on Trix’s shoulder and turned her away from the fight. His eyes were deadly serious, his expression unusually grim. “Honey, I feel that way because he hurt you.”

  She had never explained, never talked to anyone about her life in Five. “He’s the only reason I’m not dead, Dallas.”

  “And that’s the only reason he’s not dead.” Dallas sighed and pulled her into a loose hug. “You’re too new to remember, but this is how it goes, darling. You think the boys were eager to hug Bren when he first showed up? A goddamn MP in the heart of our compound? Everything we hated and fought against.”

  The dull thud of fist hitting flesh behind her made her wince, even as the rest of the gathered crowd cheered. “It’s still hard to watch.”

  “Because you think it’s hurting him.” Dallas shook his head. “Some people have a darkness in them. They don’t want it, don’t want to give in to it. But it comes out, one way or another, and it feels good to let it out. Ask Six sometime why she keeps climbing into the cage. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have shit to prove. But it feels good to let it out without hurting anyone who isn’t asking to get hurt.”

  She’d never know if this was what Finn wanted, not really. Even if it wasn’t, he’d hide it from her, just like everything else.

  The cage rattled loudly, metal scraping metal as two bodies thudded against it a few feet away from her. She turned in time to see Finn slam Mad into the steel mesh, and he wasn’t smiling this time.

  Neither was Mad.

  He wasn’t holding back, either. With a quick twist of his body, he broke Finn’s hold and jerked him off balance, sending him staggering back with a rough punch to the gut. Finn regained his balance and straightened, but he didn’t advance on Mad.

  So Mad punched him again, driving Finn to his knees.

  And Finn let him.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “He might need this, but I can’t watch it, Dallas.”

  Dallas didn’t answer. His brow furrowed as he watched Finn climb to his feet and hold both hands out to his sides.

  When Finn spoke, his words carried beneath the shouts of the crowd, digging hooks into Trix’s heart. “Here I am, Maddox. Whatever debt I owe, you keep collecting until it’s paid.”

  Mad flexed his fingers, his face twisted with anger. “Stop fucking around and fight.”

  “If that’s what you want.” Finn shrugged and took another halfhearted swing. Mad slapped it away and drilled Finn again.

  “Stop it.” Another whisper, one she knew was too low for Mad to hear, but that was okay. It wasn’t meant for him, anyway.

  “I don’t have to,” Dallas said, looping his arm around her shoulders. “Finn’s got this.”

  The words sounded ridiculous as she watched Finn drag himself to his feet and hold out his hands. Mad growled and shoved him. “Fucking fight.”

  “You don’t want a fight,” Finn replied, his hands still loose at his sides. “You want some righteous vengeance. So take it.”

  Mad trembled, and his chest heaved as he clenched his fists. But he didn’t move, and Trix realized that he couldn’t. It went against that code of his to beat on a man who wouldn’t fight back, and she watched as he spun and shoved the cage door open with such force it rebounded and slammed into his shoulder on his way out.

  Dallas squeezed Trix’s shoulders. “Go kiss some bruises, darling. I’ll deal with Mad.”

  At first, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She felt raw, exposed, like one false step or word could cut her, and that sort of vulnerability scared the hell out of her.

  Then Finn looked at her with the same rawness, as if he wasn’t sure of his welcome, and she held out her hand.

  Ignoring the shouts of the crowd, he stepped from the cage and slid his hand into hers. “Wanna get out of here?”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “Yeah, I do.”

  Finn let her lug him back to her rooms. He let her examine the cuts and bruises, let her clean the blood from his face and hands with a warm washcloth. But when she reached for the med-gel, he caught her wrist in a steely grip and shook his head. “Let it be.”

  She thought about the darkness Dallas had mentioned and sighed. “Why?”

  “Because it’s nothing.” He dragged her closer, until she stood between his knees. “If you want to kiss everything better, I won’t argue. But if you want me to stay here, you can’t be so damn worried all the time. This is still some soft living.”

  “I’m not worried about the fighting, Finn.” Her lungs burned as she fought to breathe. “I’m scared, okay? I don’t know what it means. Because you keep saying you don’t give a damn what anyone here thinks of you, so maybe you’re self-destructing, and I can’t even tell.”

  “Hey.” He used his grip on her wrist to press her palm to his bare chest, over his heart. “Feel that?”

  Her fingers curled hungrily, as if she could capture the quick, reassuring thump of his heartbeat and hold on to it.

  “That’s me waking up, doll.” His palm slid up her arm, all the way to her shoulder, where he brushed his thumb over the sensitive spot on her throat where her pulse raced just beneath the skin. “Dallas O’Kane isn’t a saint. He’s a sinner like all the rest of us. A dark man with violence in his heart.”

  She tried to pull away and his fingers tightened, curling like steel around the back of her neck. “He’s a sinner,” Finn said again. Lower. More dangerous. “But he made a choice, didn’t he? He does bad things to bad people. I don’t have a hope in hell of being a saint, but maybe I can make a choice, too.”

  Mac Fleming had attracted violent men to his organization, but even the ones who didn’t start out that way had sometimes embraced the opportunity to indulge their darker urges. There was no one with the power to stop them
, no one who cared as long as the job got done.

  Finn was different. Every day she’d known him, he had defied Mac’s authority. Some of those rebellions had been tiny, but others had skated the edge of what Sector Five’s leader would tolerate.

  Still, every day, he’d fought.

  “You made your choice a long time ago,” she murmured. “I know you did, Finn. I was there.”

  “I made a choice not to be as evil as Mac told me to be.” He tilted her chin up, baring her throat. Even watching him lean in didn’t prepare her for the heat of his mouth over her pulse, his teeth scraping a dangerous counterpoint to the tease of his tongue. “Now I can make a different one—to be as good as my lover believes I can be.”

  His touch sparked the same heat as always. It swirled together with her anger and fear until the battling emotions coalesced into something as dark and dangerous as the look in his eyes. “Only the truth from now on, no matter what.”

  “The truth? Sometimes I like to fight. And win.” He closed his teeth on her skin again, streaking fire through her. “Sometimes I like to take.”

  She could barely breathe, much less speak, but she managed to whisper, “Show me.”

  He moved fast, flowing to his feet, crowding her space. His hands landed on her shoulders, and he spun her in a dizzy circle, stopping her when she faced the bed. “Put your hands on it.”

  Her hands sank into the mattress, and she anchored herself by clenching her fingers in the coverlet.

  He gripped her hips first. His fingertips found the edge of skin between her jeans and her corset, blazing heat along them. “You’re the only person in any damn sector that I’ve never wanted to hurt. Not in my darkest fucking fantasies.”

  He had never been able to stand the sight of her in pain, even when it was necessary. Inevitable. “I know that.”

  “But I always wanted this.” Warm fingers traced around her side to tug open the button on her jeans. “You. Under my hands.”

  Trix shivered.

  Her zipper rasped, but he didn’t tug her pants down. Instead he stroked upwards, fingers tracing the chains crisscrossing the front of her corset. “Is that where you want to be?”