Better When He's Bad
Page 13

I sent Dovie a text in the middle of the week to let her know I hadn’t made any progress, but considering she now thought I was out to harm her brother, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear anything back. I was pissed at myself that her snub poked under my normally thick skin like a splinter. It wasn’t my way to try and convince her that I needed Race to explain what he had done to me before deciding how to feel about it. I wasn’t the explaining or justifying-my-actions type, plus the guy had always had my back, no questions asked. There had to be an explanation as to why he had set me up, an explanation behind the bitterest betrayal I had ever experienced in my fairly young life, and it needed to come from him and be delivered man to man. I might very well have to murder him if his answer wasn’t up to par, but I knew Race. He spent so much time trying to save me, there was no way he would have just watched me burn.
Before I knew it, it was Friday and I had to show up at Nassir’s club for the fight. I hadn’t been in a knock-down, drag-out, blood-splattering, dirty-as-hell fight since the first year I was locked up. Once you put down all the guys who were bigger than you out of sheer desperation, they stopped trying to take you down a peg. In fact, they stopped trying to mess with you at all. There were always scuffles and dustups, that was going to happen with a bunch of violent men locked up together, but fighting for my life or my pride wasn’t something I’d had to do in a long time. Fighting for a paycheck wasn’t something I had done since I was a teenager. I hoped I could still take a beating and bounce back enough to function the next day.
I was smoking like a chimney. Full of nervous energy I would never admit to. Nassir’s had turned from an electric house party to a hollowed-out fight club. Instead of trendy kids filtering in from the Hill and the university looking for a good time, it was now packed to the rafters with men and women looking for an animalistic and gory show. I didn’t want to know what the odds were. I had caught just a glimpse of the other guy when he rolled in with his entourage, and there was no denying he was a monster. He probably had a good inch on me, but was leaner and more cut. I had a thick, bulky build that came from cheap prison equipment. This guy looked like he had a trainer and a team of people whose sole purpose was to make him a fighting machine.
“Nervous?” Nassir’s smooth voice scraped across my already frayed nerves as I looked down at the bare circle someone had drawn on the center of the factory floor with red spray paint. No ring. No pads. Nothing but fists and blood. It was a brutal way to make a buck.
“No.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. He was holding a tumbler of Scotch that was older than me and watching me with unfathomable eyes.
“I’m surprised you agreed to do it. Seventy-five hundred is a fair chunk of change and I know you squirreled away most of what Novak paid you. You can’t be hurting for cash. I thought maybe it was to save face in front of the redhead, but then you showed alone.”
“I don’t have to save face for anyone.”
“Ahhh . . . but she was different. I’ve been around a long time, Bax. My primary job is to instantly read and judge people. There was something more to her than one of your typical tramps.”
I gave him a dark look and opened and flexed my hands mechanically. I had never been much of a drinker because of my mom, but right now I was wishing I had a bottle of tequila and a dark room all to myself to get myself psyched up in. I wrapped my hands around the linked chain railing and watched the crowd below mill about. More than half wanted my head cracked open, and the rest didn’t care who won as long as they got their payout at the end of the night. It made my stomach hurt. I didn’t want this scene to be what my life looked like anymore, but I doubted I would ever fully be rid of it.
“She’s important to someone who’s important to me. That makes her different.”
“It’s more than that. A man like you—put him in a cage for long enough, and he either becomes domesticated or regresses to all wild animal. You went in wild, so that means all there was for you to do was be tamed. Your edge is gone, Baxter. I can see it, and if I can see it, that means Novak is going to see it and exploit it. You need to be careful.”
His words wormed under my skin and made my blood throb in my head. Without thinking about it, I grabbed the tumbler out of his hand and sent it sailing over the open railing to the crowded floor below. I watched as it shattered on the ground, sending glass and expensive liquor in every direction and splattering the crowd. Nassir clicked his tongue at me and squeezed me on my shoulder.
“See what I mean? Before, you would have just ignored me. Good luck, my friend. Normally I wouldn’t think you’d need it, but tonight I am not sure that is the case.”
He turned toward the steps. “You have ten minutes, I suggest you use it to get your head in the game.”
I blew out a heavy breath and hung my head. I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I saw stars behind my lids. It galled me, but Nassir was right. I wanted out before getting locked up. Doing time had just solidified that living my life like I had nine lives and was bulletproof was getting old and just made me feel foolish. When I pried my eyes open, the first thing they landed on was a shock of orange-and-red curls moving through the frantic and frenzied crowd. I blinked because I thought I was hallucinating, but sure enough, she turned to look up, and our eyes locked. A girl with a stylish blond bob put a hand on her shoulder and yelled something in her ear and she nodded, never looking away from me.
I hadn’t seen her in a week, since Tuesday morning, but it felt like longer. Like her skin was paler, her eyes were smokier, her freckles more prominent across her pert little nose, and like she wasn’t sure what she was doing here either. Her friend grabbed her elbow and pulled her out of the way as the other guy suddenly bounded into the center of the circle.
A loud roar from the crowd went up and he started screaming like a lunatic. Shit, I bet he was hopped up on something. There was no other way to explain the bulging veins and wild-eyed look he was sporting. He ripped his black T-shirt off and threw it into the crowd, getting everyone even more whipped up. He had on cargo pants and black smudges of something under each eye like this was some kind of combat mission. I felt my night get ten times longer.
Grumbling under my breath and wondering why Dovie was here, I went down the stairs and headed for where I had last seen her. I didn’t need to look very hard because she waylaid me as soon as my booted feet hit the main level. I took off my hoodie, fished out my cigarettes, and handed them all over to her without saying a word. Her friend was gaping at me and looking me up and down, but I was ensnared in that forest-green gaze.
“I got a text saying if you were fighting, Race was bound to be here. They even sent the code to get in that crazy purple door.”
Her hands clutched around my hoodie as I shook my head. “He’s not going to be here. It’s a setup. They want you here so I’ll be distracted and that Hulk has a chance to cave my skull in.”
Her eyes got big. “Benny?”
I shrugged. “Novak. That’s way too smart for Benny.” It bugged me to no end that I was actually happy to see her. I really liked the stubborn tilt of her chin and the messy waves of her endless hair. I pulled my shirt off over my head by the collar and handed her that as well. I saw her gaze drop to my chest then dart right back up. She might think I was scum and question my motives, but she was hot for me, no doubt about it.
“You need to stay out of the way. The crowd goes nuts. There’s no ref, no rules, and things get ugly fast. If someone bet a lot of money on me and I lose, it’s not just the other fighter who wants to kick my ass. Be smart. If you feel the crowd turn, get the f**k out of Dodge, or better yet, haul ass outta here now.”
She folded my stuff against her chest and gave the blonde a searching look. The other girl shrugged and looked back at me.
“It’s your call, Dove. I told you something about that text didn’t seem right.”
Her head snapped back in my direction. “Is it safer for you if I go?”
I didn’t get to tell her “hell yes” it was better for me if she left because Nassir appeared by my side.
“Time to roll, lover boy.”
I gave Dovie one last look and stepped around her into the crowd. I rubbed my hands briskly over my shaved head and tried to shut down the noise and the smell of sweat and anticipation. I brushed off pats on the back and high fives and growled at Nassir, “What’s that guy jacked up on?”
He shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Clean fight, my ass.”
“Did you really expect anything else?”
Not from him.
“Keep an eye on the girl, Nassir. If anything happens to her in your house, I’m holding you personally responsible.”
There were only a few people between me and the raw circle.
“You better make sure you make it out the victor if you want to ensure her safety.”
I gave him a dirty look and he just offered that perfectly crafted smile at me. I wanted to punch him, but just then there was a roar worthy of the Serengeti. The last of the barrier between me and my opponent ducked out of the way and I was hit with the equivalent of a human bulldozer. I smacked into the cement hard enough to have my ears ringing and to have Big Bird dancing an Irish jig above my head. I grunted when I felt heavy jabs on either side of my ribs, but it was hard to hear anything above the shouts of the crowd and the bellowing breath of my attacker in my face.
I got a hand around his throat and shoved him up and off of me, not to the ground, but far enough away that I could throw myself up to my feet. He wasted no time in lunging at me again, only this time I was ready for him, and caught him across the middle with a well-placed knee that had him buckling over. He was strong, but the narcotics were making him frantic, not able to predict my next move, so I felt no remorse in clipping him hard across the side of the face while he was hunched over. A spray of blood out of his mouth followed the blow, and angry gasps and shouts from the crowd echoed off the rafters.
I jumped back as he suddenly surged upward and rammed the crown of his head right into my unprotected gut. That hurt. The wind whooshed out of my lungs and blackness started to tinge the edge of my vision. It set me off-kilter enough that I didn’t rally enough to block his next punch, which split my cheek clean open. I tasted my own blood in the aftermath and it made me furious.
He swung a wild kick at my legs and missed. I grabbed one of his arms and wrenched it up behind his back. I cranked on it just hard enough to hear a loud pop and let it go. I didn’t want to break it, but jacking up one of his hands would save me more of those brutal body blows. I spit out a mouthful of blood and gasped as his free arm suddenly snaked around my neck. I don’t know how he got that kind of leverage, but he sure as hell was using it to his advantage. He squeezed and squeezed and I clawed at his skin until it was slippery with blood. I couldn’t breathe. He was straight choking me out.
Right before it was all said and done, I threw my head back as hard as I could because I could hear him snorting out breath in my ear. Luckily I had a superhard head, because even over the screaming crowd and the blood rushing in my ears, I heard the thin bones in his nose snap and the furious howl that followed. The second nose in as many weeks that I had broken, only this guy wasn’t Benny. He was juiced up and out for my blood. I jumped back as he barreled, unwieldy, toward me. My head hurt, my ribs had to be bruised, and the rusty taste of blood from my face and my newly reopened lip cut was filling my mouth. Someone in the crowd threw a beer bottle in the circle and it shattered at my feet. I guess maybe I should’ve thought first before tossing that glass over the railing.
I dodged him once, and then once again, and landed a solid blow to his knee with a kick on his last pass. I was getting tired, but he had chemical fuel to keep him going, even though his face looked like raw meat and his dislocated wrist was hanging at a weird angle at the end of his arm. It needed to end . . . like now. I was trying to put together the best way to make that happen, pinpoint his weakness, when he bent down and pulled something out of the side of his boot. I swore loudly and took an involuntary step back when the switchblade flicked open. The sight of the weapon literally made the crowd erupt. More glass and liquid I didn’t want to try and identify rained down on us. This wasn’t going to go well for me.