by K. M. Scott
My sister’s warning that Ryder was there to be with one of us sounded pretty hollow as I listened to my father basically say I didn’t have to even bother with the guy. Maybe he was to be a stud for Janelle. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with that.
I did as my father commanded and kissed him goodnight before telling him I loved him. As he gave me one of those rare kind smiles of his, I asked, “Daddy, do you think you’ll ever find my mother?”
As if my question had caught him off guard, he continued to smile sweetly and answered, “I promise I will keep looking for her, honey. Now off you go.”
It wasn’t much, but then again, my father never gave me much in the way of the truth.
Chapter Three
Ryder
As much as I thought not being able to be with either of Robert’s daughters would be the easiest part of living at his house, it didn’t take long for me to realize I’d been wrong. Janelle wanted nothing to do with me, but Serena appeared intensely interested in everything about me.
Or at least it seemed like that since every time I turned around she was somewhere nearby looking at me like I was some butterfly under glass. I liked that the sadness in her eyes that had been there the first night was gone, but it had been replaced by a look of curiosity I had a feeling would end up getting both of us in trouble at some point.
The first week at the Erickson house went by quickly since I preoccupied myself with getting a feel for the place and avoiding practically everyone, for the most part. My new boss informed me the day after bringing me here that my next fight would be nearly two weeks later, a luxury I’d never had before with Floyd, so that left me time on my hands.
My mother used to say idle hands were the Devil’s workshop, which seemed to be truer than I’d ever known by the end of that first week as Serena dogged me practically everywhere I went in the house. I saw her peeking around corners outside the pool in the morning when I went for a swim, through the window of the door to the workout room as I lifted each afternoon, and even near my bedroom a few times as I returned from talking to Robert at night.
I had no idea what she wanted or if she thought she was being sly about it, but I couldn’t deny I was curious. The problem was that was exactly what I shouldn’t be.
Finally, the day before my next fight, I caught her right near my room after listening to her father repeatedly remind me of how important it was to win for him. Frustrated and a little nervous about going back to The Pit in less than twenty-four hours, I let my curiosity get the best of me and snuck up behind her as she spied on the door to my room.
“See anything interesting?”
Serena spun around and stared up at me with wide eyes full of fear. “I…I wasn’t spying on you, if that’s what you think.”
“That’s exactly what I think. Why have you been following me since I got here? Did your father ask you to keep an eye on me and report back to him?”
Whatever fear she felt evaporated, replaced by confusion at my questions. “No, my father would never ask me to do that. In fact, I think he’d rather if I never spoke to you at all.”
She was right. It was better if that’s exactly what happened. Moving around her to go into my room, I said, “Sounds like a good idea.”
I opened the door but Serena stopped me with a touch of her hand on my arm. “I just want to know about you since you live in my house. That’s it. My father said to think of you as family, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Looking down at where her fingers touched me, I felt my skin grow hot. I lifted my head to see her staring at me with that look of vulnerability she wore that first night when she asked her father about whoever he hadn’t found for her and my chest tightened.
“So you want me to be your big brother?” I teased.
“You’re not much older than I am, Ryder, so you wouldn’t be my big anything, and it feels weird thinking of any grown man I just met a few days ago as my brother. Maybe we could just be friends.”
I let my gaze wander up from her tanned bare feet and legs to her too-short cutoffs and had a feeling this was the moment I’d live to regret if I made the wrong choice.
And then I made it anyway.
“Friends, huh? Okay, but something tells me we have very little in common to be friends.”
The obvious truth seemed to strike her as we stood in the doorway to my bedroom, but she just smiled in a way that made her dark eyes light up. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try, right?”
“Sure.”
I wasn’t sure at all that I should even be talking to her, much less discussing us being anything to one another there on the threshold of my bedroom.
Still smiling, Serena held out her hand to shake mine. “Hi, I’m Serena Erickson. I live here. Nice to meet you.”
I took her hand in mine and shook it. “I’m Ryder. Nice to meet you too, Serena.”
As her hand slid out of my hold, she looked around me. “Do you like your room? It can get a little noisy down here sometimes.”
“It’s okay. Probably the nicest room I’ve ever had, come to think of it.”
She took a step toward me and then walked right into the room. I followed her and watched as she examined the place like she’d never been there before.
After looking into the bathroom, she turned around to face me. “Do you know this is the first time I’ve been in this room? I’ve lived in this house all my life and I’ve never once come in here. Weird, huh?”
I had a feeling she planned to stay for a while, so I sat down on the bed, hoping to reclaim some kind of ownership of the room. “Yeah, pretty weird.”
My gaze slid down her body as she stood in the bathroom doorway. Like the first time I met her, she wore cut-off shorts that were too short, a t-shirt, and no shoes. “Do you always walk around barefoot?”
Serena nodded. “Always. I have a thing with shoes,” she said in a quiet voice.
“That’s different,” I said as she slowly walked toward my bed and sat down on the edge. “Most girls can’t get enough shoes.”
She turned her body toward me and brought her feet up onto my bed in front of her. Slowly, she ran her hands down her legs until they touched her ankles, and I noticed how clean her feet were considering she never seemed to wear shoes.
I thought about saying something about that, but staring down at her feet, she said, “When I was seven, this guy kidnapped me to get ransom money from my father. He had this thing with shoes. He loved them. The whole time he had me, he made me wear these dresses like dolls wear and every dress had a different pair of shoes I had to wear.”
Her voice grew smaller with each word as I sat horrified at what she said. “Oh. I didn’t know.”
Serena looked up from her feet and smiled. “I know. I just wanted to explain why I never wear shoes.”
“Was it awful?” I asked, feeling more morbidly curious than anything else.
She shook her head. “He didn’t do anything to me, if that’s what you’re asking. I was at his house for three days, and the whole time he waited for my father to pay the money he wanted, he treated me like I was a doll. But he didn’t undress me or anything like that. He just kept me tied to a chair and every couple hours he’d bring a new outfit and shoes and walk me to the bathroom. Then he’d tie me up again in the new clothes and shoes and give me something to eat.”
The way she talked about something that must have been terrifying for a little girl felt distant, like she hadn’t actually lived through it or been affected by it. But the fact that she never wore shoes showed it had done something to her.
“Well, I wouldn’t wear shoes after that either, I guess.”
Her eyes opened wide, like she was surprised at what I said, and her body relaxed. “So how long are you staying here, Ryder?”
“I don’t know. I guess that’s up to your father.”
I waited for her to ask me what I was doing there, even though Robert had said no one would, but she never did. A
s we began to talk about things like the shrubs trimmed into animal shapes and how much I liked the pool and workout room, I had a sense she didn’t care why I was there.
She just seemed to like that I was. And as much as I knew I shouldn’t, I liked that.
* * *
Robert tapped me on the arm as the car rolled to a stop outside the warehouse, tearing me out of my head. I preferred to be alone before fighting, but since he was for all intents and purposes my owner, I had little choice but to let him be around while I got my mind in the right place for the match.
“Are you ready?” he asked in a way that signaled impatience.
“I will be.”
He stared at me with those dark eyes of his and nodded. “Good. You’ve had two weeks to get ready. I’m putting good money down on you tonight.”
I wanted to ask if there was anything such as bad money, but now wasn’t the time for being a smart ass. “You’ll get what you want. I know how this goes.”
That I’d spent the night before talking with one of the two people he’d explicitly forbidden me from being with said otherwise, but I wasn’t going to think about that. Now I needed to get my head in the game before I got it crushed in by some superstar wannabe.
“Aren’t you curious to know who you’ll be fighting?” he asked as I leaned toward the door to get out.
Shaking my head, I looked back at him. “Nope. I’ll know all I need to know about him the minute he’s standing in front of me.”
Robert let out a laugh like I’d said something funny. “You are one cocky son of a bitch, son. Well, I guess we’ll see if that’s true.”
“I guess we will.”
He followed behind me as I walked into the building I’d called home until two weeks before. That time away made the place seem different. The smells were the same, dirty and dank. It looked the same as it had when I left last time, all rusted metal and busted concrete. The sound of the crowd screaming as the two fighters in front of them did their thing sounded the same.
But it just felt different there now.
Robert slapped me hard on the back, pulling me out of my study of my old home. “I’ll see you after you’re done. One word of advice. Keep moving.”
He left me standing outside the dressing room wondering what the hell he meant by that. I’d see soon enough, so I headed in and hung my hoodie and pants up on a nail barely clinging to the strip of plywood on the far wall. The toilet in the corner of the room was free, so I took a piss and got myself ready for when Floyd called my name.
Ten minutes later, he bellowed, “Ryder Rhodes and Luke Mason! You’re up!”
I strode out to the center of the main room of The Pit and waited to see who I’d be fighting. After another couple minutes, he hadn’t showed and the crowd began getting restless, so Floyd yelled his name again and we all waited as I wondered if tonight would be a bust. Then from the changing room came someone I’d never run into on the fight scene before.
Fuck, this guy was huge. Robert’s advice to keep moving finally made real sense. The guy lumbered toward where I stood and came to a stop. Very few people lumbered, but that’s exactly what it looked like when he walked, like his limbs weighed too much for his body to handle. Even a few yards away, he towered over me, but it wasn’t just his height. This Luke guy looked like he belonged in some bizarre car pulling competition, not the Baltimore underground fighting circuit.
Floyd rattled off the basics that pretty much added up to there were no real rules and the one who gave up first lost and then he backed out of the ring to let us at it. Unlike Mr. Grimace a couple weeks before, this guy came right at me. No playacting tough from him.
I got past him and dodged the first shot, but his second came fast and connected square with my eye. He looked disappointed, so I guessed he’d been aiming to break my jaw or my nose. Either way, he hit hard and for a second I couldn’t even get out of my own way as he pummeled me over and over in the face and my bum shoulder. I staggered back away from him hoping to catch my breath, and he turned toward the crowd to enjoy their love for his attack on me. Luckily, the cheers of the crowd distracted him long enough for me to get my wits back, so when he stopped preening for the fans, I was ready for him.
At least I thought I was.
He charged me like a fucking bull and I was holding a red cape. Fuck, the guy was jacked up! I caught him on the cheek like I had with the guy two weeks before, but this time I did no damage. He shook it off like it was nothing and hit me with a right and then a left, sending me flying to the ground. I landed hard on my ass and knew if I didn’t get up right then, the fight was over. He’d jump on me and pound me into dust.
So I was the one who did the jumping and scrambled to my feet in time for him to connect with my right shoulder one more time. That nearly took my breath away he hit me so hard. Backing up, I tried to shake off the pain as I got my shit together. If I didn’t start doing some damage now, he was going to beat me and fucking good.
Quickly, I figured out what his weakness could be. He was big, but that wasn’t always as great as it sounded. Bigger often meant slower, so I had to use that to my advantage.
Time to get those feet of mine moving.
I didn’t generally like to dance around since the crowd saw it as avoiding getting hit. They didn’t care if I got the piss knocked out of me, but I did. He came at me again, but this time I zigged and zagged left and right and jammed my elbow into the back of his head as he passed me. My bone slammed into his skull, sending him to the ground.
And that was my chance.
While he struggled to get back up on his feet, I pummeled his sides with kidney blows. He doubled over, and I jumped on him. My fists crushed his jaw and anything else I could find to slam them into until he fell onto the ground and curled up to protect himself. I didn’t stop my attack, but then I saw that familiar two fingers signal as he surrendered.
The deafening sound of the crowd roaring its delight at my win made adrenaline race through me, and I stood to raise my arms in victory as Floyd came toward me to officially pronounce me the winner. I’d fought harder guys before, but for some reason, this win felt better than any other one.
“Ryder Rhodes is the winner!” he yelled to the crowd, which cheered even louder.
Floyd smiled at me and in my ear said, “You must be living right with Mr. Erickson, son. Good job.”
I thanked him and looked out to see my new boss giving me that crocodile smile from the back of the crowd. He had every reason to grin. If he’d put down the kind of money I thought he did, I’d just won him a shitload more.
Ten minutes later, I sat in the dressing room as other fighters congratulated me on my undefeated run while the pain in my shoulder made it feel as if someone was jackhammering into the bone. I was going to need more than two weeks to recover if I kept having to go up against behemoths.
Erickson appeared in the doorway and waved me out to leave. I did my best to hide how hurt I was, knowing I was only useful to him if I could win. Chuckling, he slapped me on the back and sent waves of pain tearing through my shoulder.
“You did good. I didn’t think you’d be able to handle that guy.”
“Yeah, he was something else,” I mumbled as we walked toward his car.
Stopping, he turned to look at me and chuckled again. “Where did that trademark cockiness go? You won, remember?”
The pain radiating across my back and down my arm made celebrating my success difficult, but I didn’t want him to know how hurt I was so I forced myself to smile. “I wasn’t sure you liked that cockiness, so I figured I’d try to tone it down a bit.”
Erickson opened the car door and stood waiting for me to get in. “No need. You have every right to be cocky. You were a junkyard dog out there tonight. You’re as good as I heard you were and as good as you think you are. In fact, I think tonight you should treat yourself to something. What do you say to a little entertainment good enough for an undefeated champion?”
&
nbsp; I had no idea what he meant by that, but all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath for hours and then talk to Serena. When he closed the door and told the driver to take us to someplace called The Red Velvet Room, I had a feeling I’d get to enjoy neither.
Chapter Four
Serena
For three days, Ryder avoided me. I waited by his room to see him, but he never seemed to come out. Not for a swim, or to work out, or even to talk to my father. I began to wonder if he’d disappeared into the night like my mother.
By the fourth day, I was bound and determined to find out why he suddenly wasn’t around. When I heard my father leave the house just before midnight to go visit his current girlfriend, I tiptoed down to Ryder’s room, and as my heart slammed against my ribs, I knocked on his door. While I waited, my mind conjured up a thousand reasons why he may have left the house not even a month after moving in, but whatever had caused him to change, I wanted to know why.
He didn’t answer my first knock, so I knocked again, this time a little harder. When he didn’t answer that time either, I thought about forgetting the whole thing. My curiosity got the better of me, though, and I turned the doorknob and found it unlocked. Whether or not it was a sign I should go inside, I took it as one and quietly opened the door to find Ryder’s room empty.
What had happened to him?
From the bathroom, I heard a noise like a moan. It hit me like a bolt of lightning and made me freeze in place where I stood. Was he in there with someone?
I didn’t know if I should continue, but I needed to know if he was in there and what he was doing, so I willed my feet to move and quietly walked over to the door to listen for any more noises. He moaned again, deeper than the first time, but it didn’t seem like a sound of pleasure.
