by Paula Cox
“So what’s it going to be?” Prince asked. He didn’t want to play any more games.
Bennie cocked his head to the side and thought about it. “Fine,” he said at last. “If you win the fight against ‘The Jack,’ I’ll let you and O’Donnell go, and your girl, as well. No repercussions.”
They sealed their pact with a handshake.
Prince walked out of the room on legs that he felt were shaking—although he very much hoped it didn’t show. He found Rick waiting for him at the bar. There was no sign of Johnnie.
“You’re alive,” Rick said. He said it in a sarcastic tone, but his eyes betrayed his genuine relief.
“For now,” Prince said. “Let’s get out of here; we need to talk.”
Rick readily jumped off the bar stool and followed him outside. They each climbed in their cars—neither of them wanted anything to do with motorcycles—and Rick followed Prince back into town and to Lynn’s diner.
Prince ignored the looks they got as they walked inside; he was used to them by now, and he had long stopped trying to convince everyone that even though he was forced to wear the gang’s leather vest with the red Satan on the back, he was not a Devil.
Rick, on the other end, was still somehow affected by the people’s mistrust, and he made a point not to look anyone in the eye as they made their way to a secluded booth.
Lynn herself came over to take their orders, because the waitresses were all afraid of them.
“Good morning, boys,” she said. She greeted them with a bright smile that lit up her plump but pretty face. “What can I get you?”
Lynn had become significantly friendlier towards them, and Prince had long suspected that Alyssa might have had something to do with it. The two women had reconnected after Alyssa had come back to town for her parents’ funeral and were now inseparable. Prince wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Alyssa had confided in Lynn.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee, please,” Prince said politely. “Black.”
“Same here,” Rick said. “And a slice of your apple pie.”
“Sure thing.” Lynn walked away, all swaying full hips and bouncy, wavy golden hair. She wore them cropped to the base of her neck, but they still flowed beautifully.
Prince spied Rick staring after her.
“If I wasn’t gay, I’d probably be very much into her,” Rick said. “No pun intended.”
Prince rolled his eyes.
They waited for their order to arrive, not wanting to risk being overheard if they dived into the conversation right away. Once they were both nursing two steaming mugs and Rick was digging into the apple pie, they could finally get into it.
“So,” Rick said, munching around a large bite. “What happened? What did Bennie say?”
“He offered me a way out.”
Rick’s hazel eyes widened with the same surprise Prince had felt at the time. “He did what?”
Prince nodded. “I know. I was shocked, too. I really thought he would shoot me on the spot.”
“What will you have to do?” Rick asked.
There was no question as to the fact that Bennie’s offer had not come for free.
“I’ll have to fight one last fight,” Prince said. “If I win, I’m out. No repercussions.”
Rick watched him intently. “That’s it?” he said, skeptical. “One more fight?”
“Pretty much.”
Prince all but buried his face in his mug of coffee.
“Bullshit,” Rick spat, and Prince looked sharply up at him. “What are you not telling me?”
“Nothing, that’s it. One more fight.”
Rick heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Prince, you were always an awful liar. Now tell me what it is that Bennie really asked of you.”
Prince took a deep breath. “I have to fight Taylor Jackman.”
Once again, Rick had the same reaction Prince had as he sat in the meeting room with Bennie; he went pale. “Are you shitting me?”
“Nope. He says that if I win, I’ll make the gang a ton of money, and he’ll let me and Alyssa go.” He hesitated. “He’ll let you go, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you, I’m not going to leave you here.”
“So, in order to save us all, you agreed to a fight to the death with a man who’s known for actually liking to kill his adversaries?”
Prince hesitated. “When you put it like that, it sounds very stupid.”
“Because it is!” Rick snapped. “It’s the stupidest thing you could’ve done! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I have to get out of here!” Prince snapped back. “It’s my only chance. If I have to compete against that madman to have a possibility, so be it.”
“‘So be it’?” Rick repeated, incredulous. “Are you out of your freaking mind? There is no way you’re winning this fight. Bennie might as well have just shot you himself.”
It was true; Prince knew it now. The realization came to him with the startling force of lightning in a blue sky. How could he be so stupid? How could he not see it? Bennie didn’t believe that he could win this fight, either. He was only giving him a death sentence, condemning him to die doing what he hated most.
What Bennie didn’t know, however, Prince thought as cold rage mounted within him, was that what he hated most was also what he did best.
“I’ll win this fight,” he said, and he meant it.
Rick caught the genuine confidence in his voice, too. “How can you be so sure? No one has ever won a fight against that beast.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Prince said. “I’ll be that first time.”
Rick watched him carefully. “You’re not a killer, Prince.”
Prince blinked, taken aback. “Uh…yeah, thanks. I know. What does that have to do with anything?”
“The only way you’re winning a fight against Taylor Jackman is if you kill him.”
“I don’t think it’s the only way.”
Rick arched a dark blond eyebrow. “No?” he said. “And pray tell, how else do you plan on defeating that fiend from hell?”
They had seen the man fight once. Even without being in the ring themselves, it had been a horrifying experience.
“I’ll knock him out.”
Rick rolled his eyes. “The man is a mountain,” he said. “There is no way he’s going to just stay down, not while he’s still alive.”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Oh, just kill him, for fuck’s sake!” Rick snapped. “Everyone will be better off without that madman rampaging around the rings.”
Prince stared at his friend, surprised at this vehemence. It was very much unlike Rick. “I cannot kill a man in a fight,” he said. “I will not. You know that.”
“Why not?”
“Because the moment I do, I’m like them,” Prince said. “The moment I kill a man with my bare hands, I’m a savage. Would you do it?”
“Honestly, if it got me out of this so-called life of ours? In a heartbeat.”
Prince was rendered speechless for a moment. He could tell that Rick meant it. He wondered how he had missed it in over eight years of knowing the man, of fighting side by side with him, of struggling together to hold on to a shred of their humanity in an inhumane lifestyle. Rick was desperate, and he wasn’t living. For over eight years, Rick had been just existing, sometimes even barely that, and now he was desperate to live again.
Rick would have done anything to get out. He would have stopped at nothing. Prince could read it on his face as clearly as he could read a book. Where Prince had somehow managed to hold on to his will to live and amount to something better (even though he didn’t always believe that he could), Rick had been dying little by little in front of his very eyes.
No more, Prince vowed to himself. There would be no more of this, even if it killed him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alyssa was nervous. It had been two days since she had gotten the news from
her clinic in Vancouver, and since then she had been constantly feeling like the clock was ticking—which it was. The pressure was mounting within her, and she felt more and more powerless with each day that went by. She lived in a constant state of tension. Her heart was racing constantly within her chest.
Now, Prince had texted her saying that he would come over and that they “needed to talk.” Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good; nothing that was accompanied by the sentence “we need to talk” was ever good. Alyssa had tried to keep herself busy while she waited for him, but eventually she had spent hours glancing repeatedly and obsessively at every clock in the house—the one on the wall in the kitchen, the old grandfather clock in the living room, her wristwatch, the clock on her phone. Time seemed to stretch and pass unbelievably slowly.
When Prince finally rang the doorbell, Alyssa was already waiting for him at the door. She waited a few moments before opening the door, though, so as not to let him know just how anxious she had been. What she saw when she finally did open the door and let him in, however, wasn’t very reassuring at all. Prince’s usually open face was dark, and his green eyes were stormy. He all but pushed past her into the house. There was no greeting kiss, which also contributed to increase her worries.
“We have to talk,” he said, walking to the living room.
Alyssa hurried after him, dumbfounded at his urgency. “You said that.”
“And I meant it.” Prince turned around and watched gravely. “Sit down.”
Too scared to even argue, Alyssa complied and went to sit on the couch, watching as Prince sat down next to her.
“You’re scaring me,” she admitted quietly.
Prince sighed. “I don’t mean to, but it is serious. I thought about not saying anything to you, but the more I thought about it, the more wrong it seemed.”
“You can tell me anything,” Alyssa said sincerely. “In fact, given the situation, I think you shouldn’t hide anything from me that is connected to the Devil’s Fighters.” She hesitated. “Because it is about them, isn’t it?”
“Sort of,” Prince said. He took a deep breath. “I talked with Bennie earlier today.”
Alyssa frowned. Already she didn’t like where this was heading; few names could give her the chills like Bennie Lenday’s. In fact, his name was probably the only one that elicited such a strong, hateful reaction in her. “About…?”
“Us,” he said. “Our predicament. I told him I want out.”
Alyssa’s eyes widened. She felt herself grow very cold inside. She didn’t know much about Bennie Lenday—and she didn’t want to know—but she had the feeling that one of his best fighters planning to split on him wasn’t one of the things that made him happy to hear.
“Why did you do that?” she said, her heart galloping within her chest. “Why would you tell him? I thought we were waiting.”
“That’s the thing, though,” Prince argued, “we don’t have the time to wait anymore.”
As realization hit, Alyssa felt even worse. “You did this because of what I told you about my work?” she asked incredulous. “Prince, you didn’t have to. We’ll find a way—”
“No, we won’t,” Prince interrupted her sharply. “I know that now. Waiting won’t solve anything, it will only get us tangled up further. The circumstances will never be ‘right.’ Maybe your boss giving you a deadline is a blessing in disguise; it made me realize that I have to act now.”
“What do you mean, act?” Alyssa asked carefully. She was very afraid of learning the answer. “What did you do?”
“I have a way out. Bennie offered it to me.”
Alyssa watched him incredulously. “Bennie Lenday offered one of his best fighters a way out of the rings?” she asked skeptically.
“Yes. I have to fight one more fight. If I win, he’ll let me go. And Rick, too.”
“He’ll let you go? Just like that?”
“He gave me his word.”
Prince sounded so confident that Alyssa had to do a double take to make sure she was hearing him right.
She gave a loud, rude snort. “Because Bennie Lenday’s word is so trustworthy,” she said sarcastically.
“As a matter of fact,” Prince said, “it is. He may be a scumbag,” he explained when Alyssa looked at him as if he had just gone mad, “but every time I’ve heard him give someone his word over the years, he’s always kept it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I told you, I’ve seen it happen.”
Alyssa was silent for a few moments, allowing herself some time to let it all sink in. “So if you win this last fight, he’ll let you come with me without any repercussions?”
“That’s right. And Rick, too,” Prince said. “He’s agreed to let him go, as well.”
“And if you lose?”
Prince’s face darkened. Alyssa could tell he was struggling with whether or not to tell her the truth.
“Prince,” she said, pointedly, “what happens if you lose?”
“I’ll die, probably,” he finally admitted. “This fight is to the death.”
Alyssa stared at him. She was hearing the words, but for some reason they weren’t registering. Finally, she blurted out, “No.”
Prince blinked, taken aback. “No?”
“No,” Alyssa repeated. “Absolutely not. You are not getting into a fight to the death. We’ll find another way.”
“There is no other way, Alyssa,” Prince argued. “Don’t you see? If I refuse, they’ll never let me go.”
“And if you do it and you lose, you’ll be killed. Since when do the Devil’s Fighters allow fights to the death, anyway?”
Again, she didn’t know much about the motorcycle gang and their way of life, but she did know that they saw their fighters as a source of income, and therefore they generally tried not to let them get killed. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that some morals might also be involved.
“They don’t,” Prince confirmed. “But this guy, the one I have to fight…he…uh…he’s kind of famous for killing his opponents.”
Alyssa stared at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? You want to fight such a monster?”
“Yes,” Prince said, his face hardening as it always did when his mind was set and he didn’t want to hear arguments against whatever decision he had made. “I have to. No one has ever defeated this guy. If I do, the Devil’s Fighters will get so much money from this fight that they can all retire if they so wish.”
“I see.” Money. It was always about money. And blood. And violence. Alyssa felt sick to her stomach. “No,” she said again. “I’m not going to let you do this, no matter what the stakes are.”
“So what would you suggest?” Prince retorted. “Just run away? They’d hunt us down and kill us before we even reach the border. Even you must know that.”
Alyssa’s eyes flashed. “What’s that supposed to mean, even me?”
“It means that you know nothing of how things work when it comes to dealing with these people. They are far more ruthless that you can even imagine. You think I don’t go against them because I like living like this?”
“Of course not. I never—”
“You think I do it because I’m afraid, because I’m a coward?”
Alyssa was looking at Prince with wide eyes, speechless at his sudden anger. Part of her knew it was pent-up anger, eight years old, rushing forward. But the other part of her wanted to yell back in his face. She took a calming breath, knowing that a screaming match would scarcely work towards solving their problems.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think any of that. I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t,” Prince growled. He had stood up and was towering over her, a tall pillar of barely contained fury. “Don’t say anything. I’m doing this, and that’s final.”
“I can’t let you—”
“I’m not asking for your permission, Alyssa,” he snapped. “This is the first time in eight years that I get the chance to take my life
into my own hands, and I’m not passing it up. You think this is the first fight I’ve taken for us?”
Alyssa frowned, her insides growing even colder. She definitely didn’t like where this was heading. “What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think Bennie let you stay after he threatened to harm you if you didn’t leave town?”
“I…I don’t know,” Alyssa admitted quietly. Truth be told, it was a question she had asked herself a million times, but she was too afraid of the answer. “Why?”
