by Roxy Sloane
I try to say 'yes', but it comes out as a squeak. His arm is so tight around my neck that I'm having trouble breathing.
Barton throws me in the front seat of a car that looks like standard government-issue. There's a screen in between the front and back seats for prisoner transport. I guess I'm the prisoner right now. I'm just grateful he didn't throw me in the back seat.
But if he's taking off in a helicopter, I'm sure my usefulness will be short-lived. I have to figure out a way to get out of this car. If he takes me to the helicopter, I'm dead anyway.
Barton peels out of the parking lot and heads toward South Beach. He swerves and nearly hits the oncoming cars as he pulls out.
As he careens down the road, anger rises up in me. This man killed my brother, threatened my boyfriend, and kidnapped me at gunpoint. Not to mention everything else he's done.
"So what's your plan? You're going to go to some non-extradition country or some bullshit? Seems a pretty cowardly move to me."
Pain explodes from the side of my face as he hits me with the gun.
"Next time it'll be a bullet in the leg, smart mouth."
I press my lips together. That wasn't my finest moment under pressure, but I want to rip his head off. We're going too fast to dive out of the car, and he'd probably shoot me and run me over.
Movement out the driver's side window draws my attention, and I want to squeal when I see who's driving next to us. Xavier.
He pulls up close and rams into the side of the car. Barton is distracted, looking over his shoulder at Xavier, barely paying attention to the road. He still has one hand on the gun, too. When he's distracted, I can grab the wheel. I can end this.
#
I quickly slip on my seatbelt. We're going so fast that I may not survive what I'm about to do, but this has to end. Barton has his attention on Xavier. The gun is pointed at the windshield, and his other hand loosely holds the steering wheel. It's now or never.
At the same time I reach for the wheel with both hands, I slam into his right arm. He drops the gun, and I'm surprised it doesn't go off. I yank the wheel to the side, hard. The streets are thankfully deserted here, but I still worry what we're going to hit.
Barton struggles with me for control of the wheel, but before he can get a handle on it, Xavier hits him again.
We lose control, and I feel the car's momentum carry it up and over, flipping in mid-air and landing on the roof with a thunderous crash. My only thought as I hang upside down, scanning my body for injuries, is that Barton didn't have his seatbelt on. I'm scared to crane my neck and look for him in case I'm injured, but I see his arm sticking out at an odd angle.
My head feels woozy, but it doesn't feel like I've broken anything. I look out the front window. It's covered in a spider web of breaks from the crash. A form appears in front of me, distorted by the glass. I'd know that body anywhere.
“Nikki, I’m here. Don’t move, okay?”
I look over to Barton. He’s still, but I keep waiting for him to open his eyes and grab me like some movie villain. My head pounds; I’m lightheaded from being upside down. I wiggle my fingers and toes and touch my legs and torso. Everything seems to be working. No broken parts or large wounds that I can feel.
Xavier leaves lots of his own blood on the glass, but manages to pull out the window. He asks if I'm okay. I'm tempted to make a joke at first, but it doesn't come out. Instead, hot tears well up in my eyes.
"I know, baby. I'll get you out of there. Just hang on,” he says.
Sirens sound in the distance, and I know help will be here soon. If Barton's not dead, maybe they'll be able to take him. Maybe there will be some justice. If they're not corrupt, too.
After maneuvering the door and cutting my seatbelt, Xavier is able to pull me out of the car. I feel fine, but he insists on waiting for the paramedics to arrive to confirm that I can move without danger.
Safe in his arms, I ask the most important question I've ever asked. One that has the potential to tear me to pieces or put me back together. "What happened to Eli?" The words come out in a rush. I can't think what I’ll do if the answer is bad.
"He's going to be okay. The ambulance took him to the hospital."
Relief fills every cell of my body. I didn't lose him.
“And you? You’re okay, too?” I ask.
“Now that you’re safe, I’m fine. I want to tear him to pieces for putting you through this.”
A fire engine pulls up first, and one of the men jumps off before it stops. "Is there anyone in the car?"
"Yes. The man who kidnapped my girlfriend and held her at gunpoint."
The fireman looks at him and sees the seriousness on his face. "Okay, we'll take the appropriate measures for a prisoner. Ma’am, we’ll need to check you out.” He addresses Xavier. “Please keep her from moving around. Sometimes shock delays the body’s reaction to injury.”
We watch as the firemen go to work on the car. When they start to pull Barton out of the wreckage, it appears he's dead. Then a low groan comes from inside the car. He's alive.
“I thought he’d die for sure,” Xavier says. “I don’t’ know how I feel about him surviving.”
“At least he can be charged for what he’s done.”
I try not to let hope get the better of me. If nothing else, kidnapping me and shooting Eli should put him away for a long time. But I want him to go down for everything. For every last crime he’s committed.
"Did you get what you needed? Is there enough evidence against him?"
"Yeah. He'll be going to jail for a long time.”
I let out an audible sigh, and a few tears slip down my cheeks. The tension in my body starts to melt like ice.
“You don’t have to worry anymore, Nikki. It's time for him to pay for all the misery he's caused."
Xavier leans down to kiss me. His kiss is soft and warm. When I meet his eyes after, I know it’s over. I’m safe.
For the first time in months, I feel like I’m truly myself again. I have Xavier by my side, my brother is alive, and the people I care about are safe.
"It's hard to believe it's over after everything that's happened the last couple of days." I shake my head and let out a shaky laugh. The whole situation seems ridiculous to me right now, even though there’s nothing funny about it.
“What am I even going to do now that I don’t have any crimes to investigate?”
"Speaking of that, do you need to spy on me for some other drug lord, or can we take that Cayman trip now that our lives aren’t in danger? Your brother can even come along.”
He grins at me playfully, and takes my hand in his as the paramedics walk up to check me out.
I'm never letting go of this hand again.
THE END
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HARD
RYDER
CH. 1
There are two smells in the world I love more than any others: a woman right before sex and this warehouse right before a fight. They’re different, of course. There’s nothing like a naked, wet, waiting woman, the scent of her skin salty with sweat but sweet at the same time, like swimming through an ocean of roses. The warehouse’s odor is far less pleasurable, phantoms of last round’s knocked-out teeth, bruised faces, and aching bones making the air heavy, grimy, stifling, like the smell of fresh dirt. But both are thrilling and unpredictable and make me want to explode.
Even when it was me in the ring a few years ago, my ribs about to get punched, my knuckles about to crash into someone’s cheekbone, the smell of this place would intoxicate me. Facing off with a guy whose sole intention for the next several minutes is to pummel you into submission is as terrifying as it sounds. And as exhilarating. The policy of bare-knuckles brawls is no shirt, no shoes, big problem standing right across from you. But all I had
to do to calm myself was take a big inhale of this warehouse air, let the molecules seep into my lungs, into my bloodstream, and I won every match.
I always win.
So tonight, after Crutcher beats Miller in an upset, a big win for me for sure, when Tyler tells me that some kid is in for $10,000 and has disappeared, I tell him he’s got to have it wrong. “I would never have let Jamie McEntire run up that kind of tab,” I say. “I’ve seen him around. I wouldn’t give him ten dollars, let alone ten thousand.” When I took over running fight night two years ago, I did a little cleanup from the mess my predecessor left. No five- or six- figure debts to people we don’t know, no credit to anyone who’s welched more than once. We may be an underground operation, but there are standards. There’s also a dress code: women in heels, men in collared shirts, and our crowd is the type who likes to drop a lot of money on both. We have security guards. The bartender will call you a cab if you get too drunk. I run a tight ship. Even the police think so. That’s why they don’t hassle me. Sometimes they even take a try in the ring.
Tyler shrugs. “It’s been gradual. Losses on a couple fights, loans to cover him,” he says. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But I double checked the ledger, and it adds up.”
“Fuck me,” I say, and a blond woman in high heels and a dress so tight she must not have exhaled all night turns toward us. She raises an eyebrow at me, smiles like she might take me up on the offer.
And with the way she wraps her mouth around the neck of that beer bottle, keeping her eyes locked on mine as she takes a drink, I might just let her.
Tyler’s voice yanks me back to the problem at hand. “So what do you want to do?” he says. “He’s offered his house as collateral.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t a swap meet.” Sometimes people think that just because I run an illegal fighting circuit and betting ring, I must be dishonest or inattentive to keeping the books, or maybe just dumb. So they try to take advantage of me occasionally. They think I won’t notice or care if they siphon a little cash or don’t pay in full or don’t pay at all, that I’m just a guy who made his money beating the shit out of strangers while debutantes and their dates made their bets. All brawn and no brains. But they’re wrong.
In the ring, I didn’t mind being underestimated. It helped me win. Some spectators think when you look like me, tall, muscular, broad-shouldered, you won’t be agile enough to dodge a right hook. So they bet against you. They don’t realize those muscles aren’t just for showing off to the female members of the crowd—not that I minded when they noticed. Those hard biceps mean you’re strong, and those washboard abs make you quick, and it all adds up to making my bank account big.
But as the boss outside the ring, I can’t have people not take me seriously. The Armani suits I wear on fight nights look damn good on me but they don’t come cheap, so when I loan money I expect to get it back when the handshake said I would. It’s only fair. I’ve got a reputation to protect, not to mention a legitimate business career to support, owning two of Atlanta’s most popular nightclubs, a cocktail lounge, and Altitude, a bar some buddies and I run together. I got to the top flying like a butterfly in the ring, but I stay there because I sting like a bee outside it.
And Jamie McEntire’s about to feel what I mean.
“You know where this kid’s house is?” I say, clapping Tyler on the shoulder. He nods. “Good,” I say. “You’re driving then. Grab Valero and let him know that as soon as this crowd clears, we’re making a visit.”
Tyler leaves, and the woman in the tight dress with the lucky beer bottle approaches. The dip of her neckline is as low as her skirt is short. “Someone should wash your mouth out,” she says.
“Sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities,” I say, smiling. We’re at an underground bare-knuckles fight. Fuck is hardly the most offensive thing she’s been exposed to tonight.
“Not at all,” she says. “I like a man who talks dirty.” She takes a sip from the bottle, tipping it toward me. “Want some?”
I don’t think she just means the beer.
Over her shoulder, behind her in the crowd, I see a guy in a decent-looking grey suit. He’s standing with a few other people but his attention is clearly fixed on her, watching. I tilt the bottle back toward her with my index finger. “Who are you here with?”
“No one special,” she says, taking a step toward me. “Unless you want some company.”
Women. They smell good, they look good, they taste good, but they can be so bad for you.
I’ve been Grey Suit back there. Even in the shadows of the warehouse I can read the look on his face, the narrowed eyes, slightly turned down mouth. He’s a guy who knows that just because he’s the one who’s taking this girl out tonight it doesn’t mean he’s going home with her. Back when I was fighting, my girlfriend at the time used the hours I was knocking guys’ blocks off to get her rocks off. She even slept with some of my opponents, who I beat anyway, but still—I don’t know if she was just bored or mean, didn’t love me or herself or both, but when we broke up two years ago, I swore off relationships. My motto is get in and get out, in all ways possible.
So Tight Dress standing in front of me, just the right size to straddle my lap in the front seat of my Audi, would usually be the perfect ending to a night.
But I can’t abide dishonesty, not even from a one-night stand. Like I said: there are standards.
“Your date’s not doing it for you?” I say, nodding at Grey Suit who’s now standing by the door where people are starting to exit. It must be after two a.m. by now and a weeknight, which means most of these people are six hours away from clocking in at the office tomorrow. Thrill seekers by night, executive decision makers by day, that’s a lot of our audience, and even though I’ve never been able to tolerate living that kind of rigid, conventional lifestyle for myself, their money’s just as good as anyone else’s. They may even have a greater appreciation for the brawls, since bare-knuckles fighting is a far cry from whatever uptight Fortune 500 company or corporate law firm they work at.
She glances at Grey Suit, then turns back to me. “He’s okay,” she says. That pretty mouth of hers widens. Despite the darkness of the warehouse, her teeth gleam like white stones. “But you’re Ryder Cole.” She runs her hand lightly over my arm. “And I’m willing.”
My bicep belies my intention to be behave, contracting instinctively as her fingers linger on my suit sleeve. “To do what?”
“Anything you want.”
I lean close to her. “I want you to go home with the guy that brought you and fuck his brains out like a good girl,” I say. “But you can think about me while you’re doing it.”
I cross to where Tyler waits by the door. Security will close up. We’ve got business to attend to.
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THE BILLIONAIRE BARGAIN
ONE
Is death by lobster tank too merciful?
It’s a serious question. See, my so-called “best friend” Kate has decided that just because she’s happily paired up with the boy of her dreams, it’s her mission to spread the sweet sweet joy of monogamous bliss to all and sundry, but especially to certain people who “are married to their job,” and “going to give themselves an ulcer,” and “it’s just one blind date, Lacey, jeez, you need to loosen up.”
My blind date was so loosened up I was afraid he was going to slide off his chair into a puddle under the table.
“And that’s why I, like, definitely think we should take a like, more s—shur—shurious—serious look at the whole, you know, aliens seeding the Earth with life thing,” he slurred, narrowly missing stabbing the waitress with his fork as he gestured grandly. His other hand came within inches of sending his wine glass flying onto the wall of the cheap Chinese restaurant he had insisted we go to because their crab rangoon was “fucking awesome” (it was not aw
esome. It was a significant distance from awesome. If it had to walk to awesome, it would crumple down from heat exhaustion and be picked at by vultures who would eventually turn up their beaks at it because in case I have not made this terribly clear, this was not great crab rangoon. It tasted like someone had stuffed a fish into a sock and left it out in the rain).
“It’s like…obvious. I mean—where do people fucking shink—think the pyramids came from? The pyramids, man.” He shook his head in a way that he probably thought made him look wise and thoughtful, but actually made it look like he was about to topple into his plate of crab rangoon. “The Illuminati, they don’t want you to, like, know. The truth!”
I stared at the lobster tank in front of me, the crustaceans clicking their claws as if pleading for mercy.
Me too, lobsters. Me too.
“Well, that is certainly an opinion,” I replied. This was about a hundred times more diplomatic than I felt like being, but dammit, this was my first date in over a year, and Kate wouldn’t throw me under the bus this bad, right? This was probably all just a hilarious act this guy put on to weed out the girls who were only into his unkempt surfer good looks? There were probably some secret good qualities of his that I could uncover with time, right? At least the time to finish this very expensive and rapidly-becoming-indispensible drink?
“Certainly an opinion—thassa—thassa helluva—did you like, even listen?”
Okay, either this guy was hiding his good qualities with all the skill and dedication of a highly trained CIA operative, or he was just a douche-bag.
“Look, I’m sorry, we’re probably not going to agree on the aliens thing. Can we talk about something else? What about—”