by Wilde, Kati
Another Rider would know both. But no fucking way did one of my brothers betray me. That I’m sure of. I have no clue who it was, though.
There’s someone who might know. I glance to my right, where Cherry’s checking in with Crash, who isn’t fighting tonight either. That tumor’s got his balance fucked but somehow he and Cherry spun it as an ear infection. She did right by him on that. But it’s the very fucking least she can do after using her pussy as bait to capture him and Handlebar.
Now she’s going to do right by me. “Cherry.”
Surprise rounds her red lips as she glances over. Probably because I haven’t said a word to her in days. Now the expression tightens into a bright, wary smile when she makes her way to me.
“How are you feeling, Stone?”
The cheery note in her voice grates right over my teeth. “Sit the fuck down.”
They left a few feet of room between each fighter—maybe to prevent us from killing each other before we get into the Cage. Cherry hesitates a moment before sitting gingerly on the bench between me and Crash.
Not because she’s following the order, I realize. But because they’re getting started. A big, bearded asshole wearing an Iron Blood kutte and a president’s patch steps into the Cage, begins walking the perimeter while calling out the rules to the fighters chained to the benches.
The rules are simple. Get into the Cage when your name is called, or they put a bullet in your head. If one fighter isn’t dead by the end of the fifteen-minute time limit, both fighters get bullets in their heads.
So I can’t look forward to a Hunger Games ending. Defiantly refusing to fight won’t end in victory.
You fight and you kill, or you die. That’s it.
This part must not be broadcast, because the Iron Blood’s prez is showing his face. I appreciate that. Gives me a good look at one of the bastards I need to kill as soon as I’m out of here. Rattler. But I don’t know yet if he’s the one I really want.
As Rattler leaves the Cage, I ask Cherry in a low voice, “Who went after Anna?”
She steals a glance at my face before returning her gaze to the ring. The guards aren’t paying much attention to any of us on the benches—they’re focused on the Cage. Probably will stay focused on it unless we cause some kind of commotion.
Still, her pleasant expression never wavers and her response is as quiet as mine. “The Iron Blood.”
I figured that. “Which one?”
“What did he look like?”
“Never saw his face.” Just my sister’s.
In the Cage, some fucker in a fancy tuxedo and wearing a green nylon mask starts talking into a microphone. A goddamn emcee, as if we’re in a real fighting ring—and that mask is probably so they can digitally overlay his face with any image they want. He’s not talking to us but to the bastards out there tuning in and placing their wagers on the fighters’ lives, so I ignore him and focus on Cherry again.
“Did you recognize the voice?” Threatening to rape Anna. Threatening to kill her.
That rot in my gut spreads.
Cherry bites her lip before whispering, “He sounded like Chef…maybe? He’s the enforcer.”
Same as what I am for the Hellfire Riders. The man who gets shit done. But I sure as fuck don’t rape and kill women.
“How’d they know who I was?”
Her hands are folded on her lap—fingertips picking at that short hem of her dress. The only tense, nervous gesture I’ve seen her make amid all her pleasant blandness. Now she spreads those hands in a faint “I don’t know” gesture.
Maybe that’s true. “Who picked me out as your target?”
She goes still, her gaze darting to my face. “I already told you.”
The hell she did. “When?”
“When we were leaving the bar.”
Fucking memory gaps. “Tell me again.”
She shakes her head. Her gaze blindly returns to the Cage. “You didn’t believe me. And you were…angry.”
I remember that. Being pissed off at her. And that flash of her looking up at me, fear darkening her emerald eyes. “Tell me again.”
Her fingers begin worrying her hem again. “It was that guy you were with. You said he was your brother.”
Gunner? She’s going to try to tell me Gunner did this?
No surprise I was pissed at her that night. I’m pissed off now.
“Don’t you fucking lie to me.”
“I’m not,” she whispers fiercely. “He was at a house with us earlier that same day—”
“Bullshit. Gunner was with me all fucking day.”
“Then what do you want me to say? I saw him. And I couldn’t exactly mistake his face for someone else’s!”
Oh…fuck. Oh holy fuck.
Not Gunner, but one of his brothers. They’re all as pretty as he is. They’re also hard to tell apart. And the poor bastard grew up in a motorcycle club that was more like a cult. His family’s been trying to get him to come home for a while.
Problem is, Gunner doesn’t like them much. The other problem is…me. The man he’d rather call his brother.
So what was his family’s plan? Solve one problem by getting me out of the way—but make it look like they had nothing to do with my disappearance, so that Gunner wouldn’t go home and kill them all?
Cherry glances at me again. Maybe sees the realization on my face. “You believe me this time?”
Yeah. Though it’s not Gunner. Instead I’ve got four of his brothers to choose from. Not the oldest. He’s in prison and will be for a while. So probably the second one—who’s also prez of their motorcycle club.
Strawman. He’s got a few years on Gunner, but anyone could mix them up. It’s easy to believe Cherry did.
She’s gone rigid in her seat, staring past me with fear glassing her emerald eyes. Farther down, they’re unchaining Hatchet. The Eighty-Eight Henchmen’s eagle and death head are tattooed on his back. White nationalist symbols are inked all over his torso.
Fucking trash. It’ll be no loss if he doesn’t walk back out.
I don’t recognize his opponent. Some poor bastard from another stable. They push Hatchet into the Cage with him and snap the door closed.
A small noise has me glancing back at Cherry. Her face is completely white. Her fingers are shaking—though she rolls them into tight fists when she notices me looking at her.
I remember what she said about seeing fights. That she prefers the ones in movies and not real life.
I’d prefer a movie to this shit, too. Because there’s nothing entertaining about watching two desperate men beating each other to death. A bell rings and they start circling, sizing each other up. Shouts erupt from the benches, all the fighters rooting for the man on their side. Except there’s no sides, because we’re all on the same one—under the boot of the bosses. Papa and whoever owns their stables.
I haven’t met Papa yet. Don’t care to. Except to see the face of another fucker I’m going to kill.
“What do you know about Papa?”
Eyes glued to the fight, lips pressed tight, Cherry doesn’t answer.
“How much is he paying you?”
That gets her attention. Barely. She shoots me a distracted frown before looking back at the Cage. “What?”
“What are they paying you?”
This time disbelief fills her sideways glance. “You think I signed up for this?”
“Maybe. Maybe you get off on this shit. The blood, the killing.” Some people do, and they pay a million to see it. “Maybe you enjoy watching a man take a beating.”
A beating like Hatchet’s taking now. He and his opponent are fairly evenly matched in height and weight, but I’ve seen a lot of fights. After a minute, I’d have put my money on Hatchet. He’s a bit faster, a bit smarter. But he also seems to be holding back, as if waiting for the other bastard to tire himself out, and that decision just caught him some hurt. He reels into the chain link fence, spitting blood.
With her fists cle
nched in front of her lips, Cherry watches with her whole body trembling, looking like a woman on the verge of screaming.
Yeah, she’s not here for the blood. “Who’ve they got on you?”
In the Cage, Hatchet has finally turned on the juice, feet and fists flying. She shudders and closes her eyes, relief smoothing her face.
“Cherry.” I shouldn’t even care. But I can’t stop myself from asking. “Who’ve they got on you? Parents, sisters…kids?”
Her eyes open again. She’s still staring into the Cage, where Hatchet’s got the guy in a headlock. Game over. But I don’t know if she’s seeing anything. That emerald is dull and her voice is hollow as she says quietly, “No one. I don’t have any family.”
“So you’re following orders to save your own skin?”
Hands folded in her lap again, she nods.
“So you save your own skin, and just don’t give a shit about anyone else’s.” Like my sister’s. And Christ, this fucking rot in my chest hurts. “Fair enough.”
She shoots me a glance full of green fire. But just a glance, then she’s watching the fight again. There’s no smile on her face as Hatchet puts the guy into a sleeper hold. Instead she looks stricken when he tightens his arm and knocks the poor bastard out cold.
No blood. No broken bones. Hatchet’s killing the other man in about the nicest way possible. Squeeze just right, and the chokehold puts an opponent to sleep within seconds. Then it starves him of oxygen, and he doesn’t wake up. So he dies quietly, painlessly.
But dying takes a while. And it goes silent around the Cage while it happens. Cherry’s not looking anymore. Her eyes are closed again, her breath shuddering like she’s silently crying.
Hell, maybe she fucked the guy who just died. Maybe she’s losing a boyfriend or some shit.
Hatchet lets go of the body and heads for the Cage’s door, spitting more blood. The masked emcee starts jabbering away as a couple of guards drag the dead fighter out and toss him into the corner of the warehouse.
Cherry gets to her feet—then stops when Hatchet snarls at her, “Back off, female. Just get me a towel.”
The guards do that. She sits again, spine straight, chin high. Then her head whips around when I ask her, “Did you dangle bait for that neo-Nazi trash, too? Maybe flash him your pussy while telling him how much you admire Hitler?”
She looks horrified—then pissed. “No!” she snaps. “I didn’t.”
I laugh. Because that’s fucking rich. She’s angry now? “Do you ever feel even a little guilt over what happens to the men you lure here?”
For a moment, she stares at me like I’ve slapped her, her emerald eyes big and wounded. And…fuck. I can’t stand the sight of her. But that sick rot inside me burns and aches when she looks at me like that.
But those big, haunted eyes fooled me once. Never again.
Harshly I tell her, “You fucking owe me. And one day, I’ll collect.”
Her chest heaves as she stares back at me. Her soft lips tremble before she firms them again—and nods.
Then she turns away from me, scooting closer to Crash. I don’t like that any better.
Don’t want her near me. Don’t want her anywhere else.
Flack is up next. Sitting beside Crash, Cherry appears so damn tiny. They’re whispering together while the emcee does his thing. A word here and there reaches me. Something about chocolate candy and the control booth. And something that makes Crash silently laugh so hard the entire bench shakes. He gives her a thumbs-up, then the bell rings and they go quiet.
Flack loses after a long, bloody battle. From one of the other benches comes the sound of puking. Jeers follow. But probably every fighter over there is grateful for that vomit because it gives them something to look at besides the broken body in the Cage. He’s dragged out and tossed on top of the other corpse. Like they’re nothing but pieces of dog shit.
Then the guards begin to unchain Handlebar. Fuck. Tension sews steel wires through the muscles of my back.
I glance over at Crash. The big man’s jaw is locked, eyes fixed on his partner—his hand crushing Cherry’s. She doesn’t make a sound, but the pointed heel of her left shoe twists against the floor, like she’s trying to bear the pain of that tight grip by stabbing the concrete.
“Ease up, brother.”
Crash scowls at me, eyes blazing, then seems to realize what he’s doing to her fingers. His hold lets up and she pats his hand like it’s all right. Trying to make this easier for him.
Nothing will make it easy. Not a soft hand, not a single word. Still I tell him, “He’s got this.”
“Yeah, he does,” Crash agrees, then lifts his chin in an encouraging nod when Handlebar glances back at him through the chain link fence.
Handlebar will get through this. He’s got fists like sledgehammers.
Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to watch him walk into the Cage. Never has been easy, no matter how many times I’ve seen a brother walk into a situation that might get him killed, and I’ve got no way to help him. In the Marines, it happened all the goddamn time. As a Hellfire Rider, not so often, because I’m usually right there in the fray—but often enough that I never lost the taste of hating it.
I barely look at the other guy beyond sizing him up and getting a sense of his fighting style. Trying to see him as a person will just fuck a man up. I’ve killed a lot of people in my time. But I don’t regret any of them. Either they were a danger to the country I’d sworn to protect or a danger to the people I care about, which made them the bad guys.
The guy in the Cage with Handlebar, though…I’ve got no issue with him. Handlebar likely doesn’t, either. Fuck, maybe the guy’s the same as Handlebar or me—maybe with a partner on one of the other benches, or a sister at home who’ll be raped if he doesn’t fight.
Can’t think of that. Can’t think about how Handlebar’s opponent has been given no real choice. The guy’s trying to kill a brother. So he has to be the one who dies.
But there’s nothing good about it when Handlebar wins. Except that my brother’s still alive. That is a thing to celebrate. There’s nothing but relief in me when he snaps that neck.
This whole goddamn situation, though—it’s just sick, sick shit. All my life, there’s been lines I don’t cross. Don’t hurt kids, women, animals. Don’t hurt anyone who hasn’t threatened me or mine. Only go after the bad guys.
The Cage shoves a man across every line he’s ever drawn. Makes him fight with no honor. With no dignity. With no real victory.
And I figure there’s two ways to die in that Cage. Either you lose and are killed by another man, or you win and it kills the man you were.
The man that Handlebar is hasn’t been killed yet. But the Cage just gave him a hell of a beating. That’s likely why Handlebar doesn’t do a damn thing after winning, doesn’t look our way or even pump his bloodied fist, despite the adrenaline that has to be racing through his veins. He just returns to the bench and stares at the ground.
I glance at Crash, who knows Handlebar best. “He all right?”
“He will be tomorrow,” he says. “But you say anything to him now and he’ll rip your head off.”
That must be why Cherry doesn’t make a move to go clean up Handlebar’s cuts and scrapes. She does after Airbag is done—after he practically has to crawl out of the Cage. That fight went down to the wire, and looking at him, I’d say he needs a hospital. Not a nurse in a tiny skirt. But I have to give her credit. As she works on Airbag, then on Log Cabin, she’s as good as any field medic I’ve ever seen—at least for the injuries that I can see. She patches up what’s bleeding, splints any broken bones. Anything worse gets handed over to the doc in the morning, Crash tells me.
Then I hear him say, “Thank fucking Christ.” His attention’s on the next fighter they’re unchaining—the giant they call Tusk. I’ve barely seen him, never talked to him. But I remember Handlebar saying to kill him if we can.
Maybe someone else is about to get
that chance. “You think he’ll go down?”
Crash shrugs. “All I know is, they always save him for last.”
Which means this shit’s about over. And must mean Tusk is the main show here, the one the online audience is waiting to see fight—and a hefty part of the reason they spent all that money to watch.
As they lead Tusk toward the Cage’s entrance, Cherry backs away from the benches, putting a hell of a lot of distance between them. The smile on her face never wavers but her wary gaze doesn’t stray from his hulking form for a second. Not even when shouts begin rising from the other side of the ring.
“Get in there, you fucking pussy!”
“You can take that sick bastard!”
“You’re going to let these motherfuckers win?”
Because Tusk’s opponent is refusing to go in. Christ. They jeered when someone puked but these insults are different. They’re encouraging him.
I’d be shouting the same damn thing. If you’re going to go down, then at least go down fighting.
But Crash shakes his head. “I don’t blame him. If I didn’t think I could beat Tusk, I’d take the bullet.”
No one’s taking a bullet. A raucous cheer breaks out when Tusk’s opponent finally heads into the Cage. A big guy. Solid. Not as massive as Tusk, but close. No slouch in the ring, either. The emcee calls him Draft—and says he’s already got six wins under his belt.
Tusk has eight wins. So that’s why this is the main event. They’ve got two heavyweights who’ve already proved themselves. And tonight, one will die.
The bookie taking bets must be jizzing in his pants from excitement.
“This shit’s about to get real ugly,” Crash mutters as Cherry comes back to sit between us again.
Closer to him.
And the ugly shit is what’s in my head, my chest. I shouldn’t give a fuck where she sits.
Jaw clenched, I stare ahead into the ring as the fight starts. Not seeing a damn thing.
Until Tusk bites a big chunk out of Draft’s cheek.
Oh, fuck no.
Fuck no.
There are no rules in the Cage. But there are still rules. And unless you’re real fucking desperate, you never take a bite out of someone during a fight.
