The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1)

by Elizabeth Stephens

  “Some dickwad stole Charlie’s bike at the foster home, so I went to get it back. He was thirteen and a hell of a lot bigger, but something in me snapped. I don’t even remember what happened during the fight – just the before and after. Taking that first hit to the cheek and then waking up with blood on my hands. Kid had two missing teeth.”

  His eyes grow distant and a small smile plays at the edge of his mouth. The expression is one I understand in its entirety: the stinging guilt-free surge of bloodlust, and the surrender to it. It’s a part of him as much as it is a part of me and suddenly I’m beginning to think that Knox and I have more in common than I’d thought.

  We’re not the only two in the diner, and the loud table of drunks seated two booths behind him should have been distracting, but looking at him, I’m able to block it all out. “He was actually in a boxing class for troubled youth,” he continues, “and when his coach saw what happened to him, he came to find me. Enlisted me into his practice. I’ve been boxing ever since, some MMA on the side. I even tried jujitsu, karate, krav maga. Anything I can, that lets me hit something.”

  I smile at that. Can’t remember ever smiling so much. Can’t remember the last time I smiled… “Me too.”

  He leans even further forward then and drops his tone so that I have to lean forward to hear him. “You know what? I bet you’re a better fighter than your brother.”

  “Of course I’m a better fighter than my brother. I practice. He’s a slob.”

  Knox laughs and it’s a contagious thing. I feel unsettled by it, but not displeased. “So,” he says, drawing out the word in a way that claims my attention. He’s looking down at the table, drawing slow patterns on the outside of his glass with his thumb. Dragging the edge of his finger along the rim of his glass, he wipes cream away, then licks it free with his tongue.

  “So.” I clear my throat and as I sit up straighter so does he.

  Then the strangest thing happens: a schoolboy pink hue surfaces in his cheeks. “I saw you talking to Dixon earlier.” He doesn’t say more than that and I’m left waiting.

  “Yeah. And?”

  “Did he ask you out or something?”

  Dios fucking mio. My jaw drops and Knox looks away from me quickly, massages his neck, burns an even more brilliant pink. “No,” I snort, just a touch o’ class. “Definitely not.”

  “I figured as much. Not really his style.” His voice is calm, but there’s a funny twitch in his cheek.

  “What’s not? Dating?”

  “He doesn’t trust women. He’s more of a fuck ‘em and leave ‘em type.”

  “Well then I guess we’ve got something in common.”

  Knox’s frown doesn’t suit his face and I wonder what I’ve said this time. “So what were you talking about?” He’s no longer asking and I know that I’m treading a very fine line though what I don’t know is why or how we got to this point.

  I shake my head, chewing thoughtfully on another bite of pumpkin pie. My favorite kind, even if the pudding part is too sweet and the crust is too dry. “I had to collect my winnings.”

  “Winnings?”

  “Don’t look so surprised.”

  He sucks in a breath through his teeth and looks away, giving me a nice bright glimpse of a welt I hadn’t noticed near his left temple. Other than that, he’d sustained less damage in the ring than I had outside of it. I wonder if he thinks I’m weak. A cold stone sinks in my stomach. “You bet I’d win?”

  “Like I said before, he might be my brother, but I’m not an idiot. It was a pretty easy bet.”

  “Damn,” he says. When he meets my gaze, his eyes are bright as hell and it has nothing to do with the fluorescents overhead and their reflection in his gaze, which is clear enough to see myself in. I look beat, and he’s still sitting there staring at me like I’m a regular girl, the kind you take on a date and hold doors for and defend against assholes. But I don’t need his help or protection from him or anyone. “How much did you win?”

  I shrug. “Nothing, turns out.” When his eyebrow lifts and half of his smile dips, I answer the question he hasn’t asked out loud. “Spade took it. Pulled it out of my bra before you showed up.”

  I take another sip of my coffee, wishing the whiskey were stronger so I wouldn’t be so hurt by the sudden fierce expression on Knox’s face. He thinks I’m weak. Must be. And if I truly weren’t I’d have been able to defend myself better. Instead I needed him, and in more ways than one. I fucking fainted…carajo…

  Knox looks away. “Fucker has an issue with women, huh?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or is it just you?”

  “It’s especially me – how about that?”

  “Sick fuck,” Knox mutters. “Call me if he ever gives you grief.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  His gaze stabs into mine like toothpicks to the retinas and the expression contaminates my coffee. It’s sour next time I bring it to my lips. “Call me.”

  I lean back away from him, but the bench has me caged. “Fine,” I curse, “I don’t want to talk about that culero anymore.”

  A few moments of silence pass between us and I think about just fucking off and finding my own way home until all at once, he clears his throat. “How old were you when you started fighting?” His genuine interest makes the rock in my stomach sink further. If he keeps heading down this road, soon I’ll be shitting blood.

  “I don’t remember,” I say quietly.

  “Well where were you? You’re not from here, or I’d have seen you before two weeks ago.” His fingers drum over the pocked metal between us.

  “Christ, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Why does it even matter?” I drop my fork and it clatters against another empty plate. “I go where Padre drags Mario. I hardly like the bastard, but I’ve got to take care of him.”

  “Why?”

  “Hijo de tu puta madre.” I slide towards the booth’s exit, but he props his boot up in my seat.

  “That’s not very nice,” he says, all calm. It maddens me and I punch my fingers back through my hair, wishing I could reach across the table and strangle him. “You don’t tend to get very close to people, do you?”

  I wince again, as if struck, and I swear I hear him hiss very lightly under his breath when I show him my injured cheek. “No. No point in investing in that kind of shit. My dad will be dead soon, me and Mario along with him.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because when you’re poor in the cartel you die young. And my dad’s made sure we’ve stayed broke ever since I was born. Since before I was born.”

  “I thought your dad was some big shot.”

  I laugh, though there’s no pleasure in it. None at all. “What gave you that ridiculous idea?”

  Knox shrugs, scratches his chin, drinks more coffee. “Rumors of a reputation travel though I suppose my brothers and I don’t deal with too many cartel men so we haven’t given it much attention. But what about that ugly mother fucker? He’s got a Russian brand. Mafia?”

  I nod my assent, though if anyone were in earshot, I could be killed for doing less. It’s obvious who he is or rather, what, but no one speaks of it. That’s how Loredo likes everything: obviously discreet and perfectly evil.

  “If he can afford a guy like that then he must be doing okay.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Spade or my dad or anyone.” There’s heat on my tongue that doesn’t go unnoticed.

  Knox sits up straighter and nods once. “Fine. Then we’ll start with the easy stuff.” He tries to relax again against his seat, but the atmosphere hangs like a starched blanket around us. “What’s your favorite color?”

  I try to help him relieve the tension, but my thoughts are scrambled. My favorite color. My favorite color? I think of the colors that bring me pleasure: red, blood stains on a tee shirt; black, the color of nothing when I close my eyes; purple, but
only when it’s got green or yellow in it because then it reminds me of a healing bruise; pink, the color of the inside of a scar. “I don’t know,” I huff, keeping my eyes closed.

  He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I wonder when he eventually gets up and leaves if he’ll even bother giving me a ride home. I could probably walk from here, but it’ll be cold. “My favorite color’s amber.”

  I lift my gaze, but my eyelids weigh tons. Slowly, I blink. “What?”

  “Jurassic Park is the first movie I can remember seeing – at least all the way through. I liked the way the bug looked trapped in that orange rock. My foster mom, Marguerite, told me it was amber, explained how tree sap fossilized over thousands of years and made it look like that. She said it was rare. I did a ton of research on it after that and started saving up all my cash so I could buy a piece. Had almost enough for a tiny bead too, but Marguerite beat me to it. She didn’t have much but that Christmas, I got a gift – just one bead of amber on a string.” He shakes his head and stares down at his glass, and in the way he speaks so tenderly, I understand he’s offering something to me.

  “Not six months later, a sixteen year old kid took it from me. I tried to fight him, but he was too big. Beat the shit out of me, and put me in the hospital. And of all the years I’ve been in the game, that’s the only fight I really remember.”

  I feel trapped, and though it isn’t the first time I’ve been caged, it’s the first time the bars have been made out of kindness. He’s watching me work my lips, struggling to find something adequate to say in response. I don’t, but what I do blurt out is, “More.”

  “Excuse me, darling?” he smirks.

  “Will you tell me more?”

  He grins. And he does. He talks until morning’s first rays peek in through the crooked blinds and I listen to stories about his brothers, his businesses, his childhood, his dead mom, clinging to his words as his voice rubs me raw. I’m so engrossed, I don’t notice exhaustion hit until he laughs at how many times I yawn.

  He stands and, laying his hand on the back of my neck, I am warm as he leads me out into the cold. The sky is lavender, each cloud colored in with the most spectacular pink. But around their edges, there’s a darkening where the lavender and the pink meet. Amber.

  Wrapping his tee shirt tight around my legs, which clench together on top of the freezing leather, I lean into him. He doesn’t push me away, but lifts his arm around my shoulders and turns on the heaters. They blast against my face, tasting of dust from disuse. Amber, eucalyptus, sweat and blood too. Home. I imagine that this is what home is like.

  Knox

  I’m an idiot. That’s all I can think as I brace my hands on either side of the sink and lean onto my arms. My head hangs low so I don’t have to look in the mirror, but when I open my eyes I see the horror on my chest in living color. This black button up is fucking ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the aftershave I’m wearing, or the Rolex.

  The guys have been giving me grief all week. Calling me all kinds of ludicrous things – recalcitrant, distrait, aloof – and in all the vocabulary that would have made Marguerite a proud English teacher and an even prouder mother. Shit, throughout the past week I’d forgotten to do half the things Dixon told me to. I don’t know why I’m thinking about her on such a perpetual goddamn loop.

  Mer. Plumeria.

  She features in the darkness at night, hair splayed across my pillow, taking up more than her fair share of my bed. When I wake up, punching through the darkness to the light, my dick is hard as a Louisville Slugger and worse than that, I’m strangely lonely. Never felt so lonely all my goddamn life.

  I’d half considered challenging Dixon on the no-women-allowed-in-the-pad-period policy, but in trying to formulate counterarguments to what he’d surely say I come up with nothing. I know nothing about the girl though she knows everything about me. And the way she’d listened to every single thing I’d said like she’d never been more fascinated…a girl couldn’t make that up, could she?

  Fuck, what couldn’t a girl lie about? I groan towards the ceiling. Such a moron. If Dixon only knew the shit I’d told her, he’d skin me alive. Shit nobody was supposed to know outside of the family – about our clubs, properties, and business – and she’s in the cartel no less. But with her sleepy gaze watching me so gratefully as I spoke, it had been impossible to stop. And now I’m standing here in a tricked out outfit planning on going to a backwoods barn to hit on the bartender. Fuck me. I straighten up and undo the top button, then let my hand drop. Fuck it.

  Without giving myself the chance to back out, I flip the lights, grab my jacket and head to the living room. My plan is to pass through it and into the garage quickly enough that the guys won’t see or stop me. There’s a fight on. Should be easy enough. But the moment I step out of the hallway, Charlie says, “Thought you left already.” Turning, he glances at me from over the top of the couch. “Holy shit. No wonder you took so long.”

  His dark eyes pass over my outfit once, then he barks out a laugh that makes my pulse throb and my vision flash red. “You look like a beauty queen. I’d have thought you’d want to get there early tonight.” My other brothers turn to look, and all but Aiden snigger under their breaths. Dixon switches the TV off and they stand together, reaching for jackets and keys.

  I frown, confused as fuck. “What the hell are y’all doing?”

  “Waiting for your slow ass,” Dixon crows, flipping the collar of his black leather jacket and smoothing it down. He’s wearing a tee shirt beneath, and so are the others. I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen a guy in a button up before at the barn and another wash of nausea guts me.

  “Why are y’all going tonight? We’re not fighting.”

  It’s Charlie who says, “Just because we’re not in love with the girl like you are, doesn’t mean we don’t want to see history being made.” He starts for the door, but Dixon grabs his arm at the elbow.

  “He doesn’t know.” Dixon’s eyes widen and a slow, carnivorous grin spreads across his face.

  “Uh oh,” Clifton murmurs.

  Charlie slaps his leg and howls, like a caricature I’m about to erase. I can feel the heat building up in my blood and I demand that someone tell me what is going on, but Charlie turns to Dixon and begs, “Please let me tell him. Call it a Christmas present.”

  “Jesus, Charlie…”

  “Tell me what?”

  “It’s Mer…” So much as her name in Charlie’s mouth makes my whole body shudder. I take a threatening step forward and Dixon holds up a hand. He isn’t smiling anymore. “You’re getting too volatile, brother, over a girl you barely even know.”

  “If that Russian bastard touched her I swear to god…”

  “Knox, nothing happened,” Clifton intervenes, “Ollie didn’t call you about the fight is all.”

  “I’m starting to see why,” Charlie mumbles.

  “Out with it, Charlie,” I shout, “What about the fight?”

  “It’s Mer!”

  “What’s Mer?” I run my hand back over my head roughly, feeling hot all over and too constrained by this goddamn button up and the pressure of all of my brothers staring at me like I’m some sort of zoo animal.

  “The fighter!” Charlie throws out his arms, color rising in his cheeks. He’s a Native, with inky black hair, taunting lips and a muscular, but wiry build. He’s got a short temper, and I’m lucky he isn’t as good a fighter as I am because the look he flashes me is pure fire. “Mer is fighting tonight.”

  My right knee turns to cardboard and my lungs threaten collapse. “Who?”

  “Mer! Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with this man?” He throws out his arm and takes a turn of the room. “You really gonna make me repeat it again?”

  “Fuck. Who is she fighting?”

  Charlie smiles sheepishly and chuckles once. “Oh. Yeah, about that…”

  “Ollie said it was hard to find someone who could stack up relatively eve
nly in terms of weight and even harder to find a guy willing to do it,” Dixon cuts in, voice, like his gaze: cold. “He had to go with Tyler.”

  “Tyler is a fucking rapist.”

  “He was never convicted,” Clifton finishes with a small, apologetic shrug. He doesn’t meet my gaze, but I see his expression without understanding it. He seems to be smiling softly.

  “Dixon, you selfish fuck.” The temperature in the room plummets and I know I’ve crossed a line, but I don’t step back from it. Not when I’m as juiced as I am. The only person in the house allowed to authorize something like this without consent from any of the rest of us is Dixon. He did this.

  Dixon straightens and takes a step towards me – he doesn’t fight in the ring often, but when he does, he fights mean. Not that it would have mattered much in this moment. I’m juiced enough to really fucking hurt something. “What did you say to me?”

  Aiden stands slowly from the couch and I know that if Aiden comes at me, someone’s going to end up in the hospital – likely me – and I can’t afford to miss Mer’s fight. The bit of my brain that’s still functioning tells me to leave and I obey. I find my keys, my car, and the highway and am lost in the darkness until sounds begin to radiate along the horizon. Lights come next. I swing into the parking lot so fast gravel scatters beneath the wheels. The first bite of autumn eats into me because I forgot a coat, but as soon as I get to the door I remember why I don’t need it.

  The barn is as full as it’s ever been – fuller even. I have to nail one guy’s spleen and possibly break another kid’s knee in order to carve a path through the bodies. They’re densely packed together and if so much as one single person lights up in here, more than two hundred living souls are headed straight for the grave, mine and Mer’s among them.

  The bell emits a quiet ding and the throngs roar. I curse and force my way forward until the perimeter of the ring comes into view. From where I am, I can just make out two distinct shapes shifting in and out of focus in the center of the pit. My chest pulls in air in long draughts, like I’m drowning and I’m reminded of the way she’d called for me out in the field. She’d been drowning then too, and I understand in one small shattering moment that there’s a different woman hiding inside Mer’s brittle outer shell. Plumeria. Mer might be able to take care of herself, but it’s Plumeria that I don’t want to see hurt.