by Piper Rayne
“Would Nadine really turn the both of you in?”
He shrugs. “Nadine’s a Lexington. It’s in her nature.”
“So what are you going to do?”
He cocks a brow and after a moment he answers. “My brother is in over his head, has been for a long time. Everyone in the family knows about his penchant for stealing from the family trust to fuel his addictions, most of us choose to turn a blind eye. I’ve been covering for him for as long as I can remember. He’ll have to curtail his addiction or face the consequences.”
That doesn’t even sound like a punishment.
“What about Nadine?”
Alexei frowns. “My sister is complicated. I’m surprised she’s gone to all this trouble to arrange a coup, but it’s not outside of her capabilities. I’ve no idea why she involved you in all of this. There must be a reason.”
“Maybe she’s feeling lonely?”
Alexei snorts. “I told you, she’s a snake.”
At the far end of the vault tunnel, a shaft of light illuminates a couple of old storage room doors. One of the doors has a security guard outside of it. He stands when he sees us but says nothing. Alexei goes to the door and opens it to reveal a cage.
At first the cell looks empty, but then a figure gets to his feet and emerges from the shadows.
It’s not Dylan.
An older, more gray and lined version of my brother steps out into the light, his dark-shining eyes widening with recognition.
A ache forms in my throat closing over to the point where I can’t quite speak. “Dad?” I manage to say, my voice barely a whisper.
“Grace? Gracie? Is that... is that really you?” His voice cracks as he takes a few steps toward me, but I save him the trouble and head straight into his open arms. Inside my chest my heart is going crazy. Wild thoughts race through my mind. How is this fucking possible?
“It’s me,” I say, finding my voice, tears streaming. “I—I thought you were dead.”
“I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
I hug the one person I thought I’d lost forever. The scent of him is so familiar it hurts. This is what home feels like.
“Mom is going to kill you,” I sniff. A wash of conflicting emotions collide within me.
“Then I can’t wait to see her.” He chuckles, a deep rumble reminding me of old times when I was still a kid and my dad was still my hero. Laughter bubbles in my throat but all that comes out is a sob.
“As much as I love a good reunion, I have a fight to get to,” a languid voice interrupts.
The world and all of its harsh reality comes crashing back.
I glance over at Alexei, not quite understanding. “What about Dylan? Where’s my brother?”
Confusion mixed with annoyance settles on the his face. “How would I know where your brother is?”
“You said you had my brother, Dylan Hunter?”
He exhales and shakes his head. “I said nothing of the sort. I promised you a Hunter and here you have one.”
“What have you done to my son?” my father growls, stepping between me and Alexei.
The older twin rolls his eyes. “I’m afraid that is a question for my brother. Now, are we done here? I kept my end of the deal not to fight your lover.” He holds out his hand.
Dad looks at me. “Deal? Lover?”
I take the key, the flash drive, and the brooch I found on the clinic floor out of my pocket and hand them to Alexei, and then I glance at my father, cheeks flushing as I answer him. “Darius is fighting Elias, Dad.”
“Was fighting. I doubt they’re still at it,” Alexei snorts, pocketing Nadine’s brooch, further proof she was the one who broke into the clinic.
“What do you mean? The fight has just started?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? Elias had the glass on his gloves coated in poison. One too many scratches and he’ll go down like a tonne of bricks. Your lover’s probably dead by now.”
In the middle of the metal octagon, I see them both. Darius is on his knees, swaying, trying to stand. Elias looks up as we enter. A devilish smile creeping on to his twisted face.
The sight of Darius bloodied and broken fills me with panic.
No, no, no, no...
I’m running to the ring before my dad can stop me. As the bell dings, I push past the ref and the fight officials into the cage through the open metal door, getting to Darius first.
I reach him and take his arm, propping him up. A glance at the score tells me he’s lasted eight rounds already. Since this is a death match and there are no round limits. Each fighter carries on until they physically can’t. For Darius to last this long and be cut all over is a miracle.
I help get him cage-side just as the cutmen arrive, one of them grabs Darius’s other side and together we move him to the blue corner. If they look surprised to see me, they don’t react, I’m not usually on the floor. I’m just a physician, and also a woman. I don’t belong here. But I glare at them and they get on with re-wrapping Darius’s fists and applying the ice-cold enswell, while I get on with checking his vitals.
Darius might be alive but he’s no longer responding. I shouldn’t have trusted the Twins. Darius warned me this would happen. He came to this fight knowing he would die.
A sob sticks at the back of my throat.
“Darius!” I tap his face, trying to get him to wake up.
Darius, please!
He groans and opens one eye.
“Rae. You’re here...” He breaks into a smile. “I thought I’d lost you.” I’m not expecting him to reach for me, but he does, pulling me down for a kiss. The metallic taste of blood mingles with the essence of him. He kisses me like there’s a hurricane after us, like the world is ending, like there’s no tomorrow. Kissing him feels like coming home.
I push him away and stare into the bright blue of his eyes. I can see that in the way he’s focusing on me, he’s fighting the injuries and the poison, albeit very slowly.
I pull a vial and a packaged needle out of my pocket. “No buts, you need to let me give you a shot now.”
He shakes his head. “No drugs. I need to fight.”
“Dammit, Darius Reyes, shut the fuck up and do as I say. You’ve been poisoned. You’re dying. The shot is the antidote.”
He shakes his head again. “No. It’s too late for me. Rae, you need to save yourself.”
“Darius,” I say to him as I hold his face in my hands. “Let me do this.”
When he doesn’t respond, I crouch down and ready his arm for the needle in order to give him the cocktail of drugs I had to quickly prepare in the clinic. I’ve no idea if it will work. After Alexei told me about the poison, I demanded he tell me what it was so I could counter it. Then I ran as fast as I could to the clinic to find what I could to make an antidote, praying I wouldn’t be too late.
I hope I’m not.
“Are you really an angel?” he slurs.
I roll my eyes and lean into kiss him again, and then place my forehead on his, my tears mingling with his sweat and blood. The cutmen have already backed away, leaving us alone in the blue corner with a million pairs of eyes watching. Ring girls parade above us, showing the next round number. The countdown between the extended round ticks down. We have less than a minute to do this.
“Please Darius, can I give you the antidote?” My voice is close to breaking as I ask him.
Finally, he nods.
I plunge the needle into his arm, shooting the mixture from the vial into his veins. A brief smile tugs at his lips as he stares at me, eyes still unfocused, and then he starts to fall sideways. I grab him and hold on to him, hugging and clinging onto him at the same time.
“Darius!”
After a few seconds, he starts hugging me back. “Rae, I need to tell you something,” he mumbles in my ear.
“Shhhh. Tell me after the fight, okay?” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks. It’s not working. It should have worked straight away.
I take his face in my
hands again, looking into his eyes like I’m trying to see into his soul.
“Darius Reyes, if you don’t come back to me right now, there will be consequences.”
He fixes his attention on me, barely.
“You need to fight!” I practically shout at him.
Something ignites inside of him and he straightens. “Fuck the fight,” he slurs. “If I’m dying I want to taste you one last time.”
I nod, heart ripping in two as he pulls me onto his lap, burying his face in the crook of my neck, taking a long breath as though breathing me in. A rumble in his throat has my heart beating too fast. He drops sweet kisses along my neck until I’m moaning softly, wanting him. If I’m not careful, I’m going to pass out just from the swell of emotions I feel. I’m like a rag doll, falling to pieces, part of me floating off somewhere in my head, the other half unable to breathe. I can’t lose him. Not after I’ve found him again. Not like this.
His teeth graze my skin, making me whimper. Entwining my fingers through his, he puts his lips on the flesh of my neck and glides along until his mouth claims mine in a kiss.
I close my eyes, shutting the arena and everyone around us out.
As blood pounds in my ears, air rushes from my lungs as he takes my breath, until I feel like I’m being shattered into a thousand little pieces. His tongue is velvet on mine, his lips perfectly soft. I take in citrusy musk and the taste of him. I moan into his mouth and he growls, tightening his hold, keeping me upright with strong arms. All I can feel is his energy bleeding into me, taking and giving at the same time.
Finally, after a lifetime of holding on, he lets me go.“Shit, Rae. Are you ok?”
Somewhere in the distance a bell rings. I feel faint. Like I’m falling.
A bell… The fight!
My eyes snap open and I draw in a breath, clenching my fists as I cling on to him. He lifts me and carries me over to the octagon entrance, and hands me to one of the fight officials waiting outside. There’s blood everywhere. I didn’t put pressure where I jabbed him with the needle, to staunch the flow. His arm is running with blood. But Darius doesn’t care. He brushes something soft off my face—my hair—and leans down to kiss my forehead.
“Rae? Can you hear me?”
Darius isn’t dead. He’s alive. The antidote worked!
I nod in a daze. “Yes, I can hear you…” I close my eyes and then open them. The hurt of almost losing him was too unbearable. Poor Darius is looking at me like I’m dying. I’m not, and neither is he. He’s standing, more alert than he was two minutes ago despite his arm soaked in blood.
“Tell me, what can I do?”
I move my head, shaking it, tears clouding my vision. I look into his own eyes and can’t help but notice how pale and blue they are, like the reflection of the sky on a lake of ice.
“Go, fight,” I manage to say. I’ll be fine now.
“Thank you.” He kisses me one last time and disappears, the cage door closing shut.
“Rae!” I raise my head to see Darius smiling at me through the bars. “I love you!” He shouts over the crowd.
My eyes water, and I can’t help the corner of my lips curling into a smile.
“Try not to kill him!” I shout back. As much as I’d love to see Elias go down permanently, I gave Alexei my fucking word.
“Can you walk, Ma’am?” I nod, still beaming like an idiot as the official helps me over to one of the folding chairs cage-side.
The loudness of the arena comes back in a whoosh, and my eyes draw to Darius in the center of the ring.
As long as Elias doesn’t get a blow in, Darius will be fine.
Darius will be fine. The way he’s pummeling the younger twin, he’s not going to let him. There’s a warmth to my chest I’ve never felt before. A feeling of being able to tear down walls and run marathons. A desire that threatens to consume me whole. A need that shatters all that matters into oblivion. The rawness of it pulls me awake, alert and alive as if for the very first time.
And I realize, it’s not need or desire—it’s love.
16
Darius
Memories surface.
Memories of Rae in my eyes when I was a younger, more light-hearted Darius. I’m with her brother, Hunter, talking in the kitchen while she steals in for a midnight snack. I’m on the porch with her father when she comes home after school.
All these memories I have of her from a time before, when I wasn’t a killer, fill my head as the connection between the past and present begins to heal. Lately, I’m starting to remember. It’s little things. A touch, a taste, a smell…
Cassius Hunter, watching me in the cage with his daughter, was all it took to bring more memories back and clear away some of the heavy fog I’ve been living under for the longest time.
As Elias falls from my signature knock-out, just like everyone else has done before him, I feel Rae’s attention on me, and it feels like I’m standing on top of a mountain.
Her strength, her love, has returned me to the world of the living, woken me out of a bad dream, brought me back to life. As the pieces of my world that were broken reform and become whole again, I see not only the past but a future with the one person I’ve known all of my years growing up—Grace “Rae” Hunter—aka, the love of my life.
17
Rae
Epilogue
The crowd, already wild, exploded into a frenzy after Darius won. Then it all happened so fast, or at least it felt that way. Snatches of it are all I really remember…
Darius, holding the title belt in the air as the ref and officials stood next to him, grinning at me, while behind him Elias lay sprawled on the mat unconscious. Alexei disappearing from the viewing box.
And my mother and father running into each other’s arms outside the arena.
When Elias beat Dylan within an inch of his life, he assumed she’d fold. He assumed wrong. Mother has been planning this revenge for years. I had already called and told her where I was. Zac was outside as soon as the fight was over, his men ready to tear this place apart.
Bets were paid and lost, lives were taken. Eventually, The Pit closed down. Sponsors pulled out and rumors circulated that Alexei took everything that night and is now in hiding from both the club’s debtors and his own family.
I’ve heard from Nadine that Elias is no longer this side of the Atlantic. His family called him home to face the music and atone for what he did to his family’s fortune. Nadine took over Purgatory and has turned it into a roaring twenties speakeasy and burlesque club. She keeps in touch from time to time, gossiping about her family, but I still don’t trust her.
My dad, once we got him home, filled us in on what happened that night when he and Darius went to the club all those years ago. There was no negotiation. Darius and my father were jumped at the club. Cassius was almost killed by the Twins, that part was true, but he survived. When he woke up, he was locked in a cell in the vaults of the club. Darius was there too, unconscious and in a coma, until Elias came and took Darius away.
My brother is still missing. Strangely, a copy of all the evidence surrounding the missing fighters and how they were sold in the black market arrived in the post one day, from Russia. No note, but I have a feeling it’s from Alexei. Darius and I are using it to track down what happened to all the fighters who survived but disappeared soon after losing in the Pit. Darius is going to help me take the case to the Russian mafia who might be able to shed some light on the people Elias was dealing with, so I have hope we’ll find Dylan soon, or at least what happened to him.
Still, I’ve asked Nadine if she can ask around. I’ve even written to the Russian address in case it is Alexei who sent me the evidence. Darius says the Lexingtons aren’t to be trusted especially Alexei, but I’ll take all the help I can get.
Darius no longer fights and works at my father’s shipping yard. He’s yet to gain back all of his memories and the trust of the family. Even though I know in my heart he didn’t betray us. Mom says he’
s going to have to earn it the hard way. We’re allowed to date, but only because my dad convinced my mom that Darius is a good guy after he came round to the idea of us, his daughter and his right-hand-man, together.
The house phone rings just as I’m walking out the door to pick Darius up from the shipping yard for our date tonight. The evening is warm, so I’m wearing a summer dress with a denim jacket and a pair of kitten-heeled sandals. Darius loves me in heels but this is as high as I’ll ever go, especially now.
“Hello?” I answer, checking my bag to make sure I have my keys.
“Grace Hunter, I presume?”
I stop moving as soon as I hear his crisp, clear voice down the other end of the line. “Alexei?”
“You’re probably wondering why I’m calling you. Well, I’ve found your brother. He’s alive.”
Relief floods through my body. I sag against the doorframe. “How did you—?”
“I’m sending you the address of where he’s staying to your phone. Don’t leave his rescue too long. He’s not in the best shape. I’m not sure how much longer he’ll last.”
I close my eyes and then open them, drawing in a deep breath. Is Darius right? Should I not trust him?
“Why are you helping me?”
“We made a deal. Your brother for mine. A Lexington never goes back on his word.”
“How do I know this isn’t some kind of trap?”
He sighs. “You don’t. Look, I’ll be gone when you get here. I’ve paid off the club who bought him from my brother. If anyone has an issue with you taking him home, tell them the Black Rook sent you.” He hangs up.
Paid off the club who bought him? What the hell happened to my brother?
Darius offered to drive me to the address in Boston. I’m nervous about the whole thing, but I’m also hopeful. Occasionally, thoughts, emotions, and bouts of unease assail me that aren’t helping and I have to calm myself down.
