Grudge Match

by Jessica Gadziala

  Truly, I didn't want to watch. I certainly didn't want to see Ross getting hurt.

  But it was proving impossible to look away.

  I was seeing a different side of him right then, a rougher side, a side he left mostly in his past, but was clearly still a part of him.

  His movements were methodical, practiced, controlled, while Kenny got more and more sporadic, clumsy, and frantic by the moment.

  "Christ, how long has he been fighting?" one of the men from Hex asked, shaking his head, clearly impressed.

  "Since fifteen," I heard myself answer, immediately feeling my stomach plummet, realizing what I had done as all their heads swiveled to look at me, curious.

  "Please forget I said that," I implored. "He told me that in confidence. Please..."

  "Won't say shit," Pagan said, shrugging. "Not our business."

  I watched with a pit in my stomach as Ross took several shots, making his lip break open, making his head snap hard to one side, hard enough that I had memories of him telling me about how my brain slammed against my skull, making me pass out, worrying for a second that that might be his fate as well.

  But he came back harder, stronger, taking Kenny's ground from him as he retreated, then pounding into his face, his midsection.

  My heart was slamming so hard that it was somehow nauseating, making my skin feel clammy and goosebumpy, something about how vicious this was getting causing me to genuinely wonder if I might get sick.

  There was just so, so much blood.

  Kenny's sure.

  But Ross' as well.

  How much longer could this go on?

  How many fists could your body endure before it started to give up on you?

  I didn't want to find out the answer to that last question.

  As the fighting got worse, the noise of the crowd got louder and louder, clearly enjoying the bloodshed while it made me completely lightheaded.

  Then there was a slam that had my stomach jumping up into my throat before my eyes adjusted enough to see Kenny's body sprawled on the ground, his breathing uneven.

  Not Ross.

  That was really all I could focus on.

  But then there was Ross again as well, dropping down over Kenny.

  And continuing to beat the shit out of him.

  Blood splattered out onto Ross' skin, mingling with his own blood and sweat.

  I saw it then.

  Kenny's hand slamming into the ground.

  Tapping out.

  But Ross didn't stop.

  "Ward!" Xavier roared, starting to move forward even as Laz, Igor, and Pagan charged to break it up themselves.

  Before Kenny's guys could gang up on Ross.

  Laz reached him first, making a grab for Ross who threw him backward, making him lose his footing, and catch his back against an upward facing piece of the jagged flooring.

  Pagan got there next, but was thrown back into Igor who, unfortunately, rammed into one of Kenny's friends.

  Which meant there was suddenly a side-vs-side thing going on while Ross continued to bash his fists into Kenny's alarmingly motionless body. Xavier was making his way through the crowd to get there as well, but got stuck between two people fighting over money.

  I should have been turning to my side and disappearing out the door with the rest of the crowd who had come for a show, not to get caught up in a brawl.

  That was where I needed to be.

  Out toward safety.

  But I didn't go that way.

  I charged forward, jumping up over the uneven flooring, reaching Ross just as he cocked an arm back to - if I was right about it - slam right into the center of Kenny's face which was already, well, barely recognizable.

  Before my hand could grab that arm though, I felt fingers sink into my shoulder, yanking me back a foot, making my stomach lurch, not wanting to get caught in the brawl, knowing I had no fighting skills whatsoever.

  But then a man was moving in front of me, grabbing Ross' arm himself, and sending him flying backward a few feet where he landed hard with a savage curse.

  My eyes went to the man, tall, lean, but strong, dressed simply all in black, his hair pulled up in a man bun that should have been silly, but somehow worked on him, making his striking gray eyes be the dominant feature on his attractive face.

  "Ya were losing yer shit there, Ward," the man declared before turning on his heel, and disappearing into the crowd.

  My gaze went back to Ross, sitting up on the jut of the floor, eyes shocked, lips open.

  Even as I was trying to figure out what was going on, his voice roared out of him, deep, commanding, and - if I wasn't mistaken - almost a little desperate.

  "Adler!"

  "Darling, we need to get out of here," Xavier's voice said, coming up beside me, arm going around my hips, dragging me back away from Ward, toward the door. "This is about to get ugly if we don't."

  I was barely registering what he was telling me, even as he pulled me away. My eyes stayed over my shoulder, watching Ross.

  Ross wasn't paying any attention to the brawling crowd either.

  Because our focus wasn't on the fight.

  No.

  It was on a mysterious man who showed up just in time to stop Ross from killing a man in his rage.

  A man who had, himself, killed at least two men with his own.

  A man who Ross had been trying to track down for years.

  And never could find.

  A man who was once just a boy.

  In a basement.

  With an accent.

  And a jaded outlook on life.

  Adler.

  Adler had been there.

  But, I realized as we broke outside, looking around at all the retreating bodies, he was already gone.

  "No!" I whisper yelled, trying to pull away as Xavier tried to half-drag me toward the parking lot.

  "Trust me; you do not want to be out here looking like a target when these men start pouring out."

  "Ross needs--"

  "You to be safe. Let me get you there, and then I will go back for Ross."

  It wasn't exactly a request seeing as he was pulling me along, grip not quite painful, but bordering on it.

  Before I could do anything about it, I was pulled back through the creepy rebar-riddled building, then exploded out the other side, pulled until he had a question to ask me. "Where is your car, darling?" His voice was kind, but there was an edge there that said he needed to get me taken care of because he needed to get back inside.

  And a man who had spent a lifetime in his profession sounding worried? Yeah, that meant I should worry as well.

  "I got it. It's right there," I said, pointing. "Go. Make sure Ross is okay. I'll stay in my car," I promised, meaning it. I definitely didn't want to run into any of Kenny's friends on their way out.

  So as he turned away, I darted back to my car, climbed in, and locked the doors.

  Around me, about ninety-percent of the cars cleared out, leaving Ross' distinct one, a few motorcycles which, I figured, belonged to Laz and Pagan, a couple pickups, and one final fancy car which, well, had to belong to the bespoke Xavier Cooper.

  It felt like hours, like days with nothing but my swirling thoughts, my crippling worries to keep me company.

  Really, it was only about twenty minutes before I heard voices, then saw a rush of men - Kenny's friends, all varying degrees of busted-up - rushing out, watching behind them like someone was coming for them. Which, well, they likely were.

  Between two of the men, I could see Kenny, barely conscious, face completely and utterly wrecked. He would never look the same, not even if he splurged for plastic surgery.

  An ugly face to match an ugly soul.

  Maybe that was unkind and unforgiving of me. But he had knocked me unconscious for just being a decent human being, so I felt like I deserved to be a little bitter.

  They all peeled out, leaving just the cars mentioned before and one pickup that maybe belonged to Igor.


  It was another excruciating five minutes before I saw my people - and I had a strange internal skipping sensation at the idea of them even being my people - emerge from the side of the building.

  They didn't look great, though not nearly as beaten-down as Kenny's friends. But each one, Xavier included, was bleeding, had rips in their clothes, darkening spots of skin that would likely be bruises in just an hour's time.

  I frantically reached for the handle to my door, half tripping over my own feet in my rush to get out and around my car.

  "Addy?" Ross asked, shocking back slightly, brows going low, lips parting.

  "Oh, yeah, we forgot to mention," Pagan agreed. "Igor let it slip that something was going down here tonight. Your girl showed up."

  And as his gaze went to mine again, a little regretful, sad, I don't know what came over me.

  But I flew at him.

  His slight grunt at the impact let me know that I needed to hold him less tightly, even as his arms went around me, and his lips pressed into the top of my hair.

  "I didn't want you to know about this," he told me, voice heavy, "let alone see it."

  "Well, to be fair, I had no idea what exactly it was that I was walking into. Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, vaguely aware of his men moving away, giving us a minute, but sticking close, keeping an eye, making sure Kenny's friends didn't show back up.

  "Didn't want you to worry. And I didn't want you to see me any differently."

  Well, I had seen him almost beat a man to death.

  That was not something you would normally witness with a man you were dating. But this wasn't any man, and this wasn't just any situation.

  "I don't see you any differently. And if it helps at all, I came because I wanted to know why you weren't going to see me for the next week."

  There was a slight rumble in his chest, followed by a hiss as something clearly hurt. "That's why you were in a mood this morning," he concluded. "You thought I was giving you the brush-off."

  "It sure felt like it," I insisted, pulling back slightly.

  "Figured I would look like shit for a couple days," he told me with a small shrug. "Like I do now," he added. "I didn't want you worrying."

  "Or asking questions," I added.

  "If you asked, I would have told you. I don't do lies, doll."

  "Well, I didn't want to ask because I didn't want to be that girl."

  "What girl?"

  "The needy, clingy, jealous, pathetic one," I supplied.

  "You could never be pathetic," he said with what was very nearly an eye-roll. "And, while this makes no fucking sense to me at all, I don't care if you need to be needy or clingy or jealous. Though I would prefer you talk to me about it."

  "Well, for the record, I would prefer you talk to me about having underground fights in creepy Voodoo bunkers where people do animal sacrifices."

  "They told you about that?" he asked, shaking his head.

  "Oh my God... it's actually true?"

  He looked down at me, giving me as much of a smile as he could manage with a split lip, bloody gums, and a bruise already darkening his cheek. "Yeah, that was true."

  "Great. Full-body alopecia in my future."

  "What?" he asked, smiling despite the blood in his teeth.

  "Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "Maybe we should get you home, and get you fixed up."

  "See, I have this rule," he said as I led him toward my car, figuring driving wasn't a good idea for him right now, and not feeling comfortable behind the wheel of his car that likely cost more than I would make in five whole years at my office.

  "What kind of rule?"

  "About letting people nurse me."

  I looked over at him, lips tipped up. "What kind of rule is that?"

  "It has to be done naked."

  I laughed as he moved toward the passenger's side of my car. "Of course it does."

  He yelled out something about his car to his men before sliding inside, and closing his door.

  "Are you alright?" I asked after turning over the engine, watching as he winced while he shifted in his seat, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. "And don't sugarcoat it," I demanded, giving him a firm look that he must have found endearing because he smiled at it.

  "I'd say two bruised ribs is the worst of it. Though I am starting to think I might have a concussion."

  "Why?"

  "Because I saw something that I know I couldn't have seen back there."

  "You mean Adler?" I asked, watching as his head snapped over toward me.

  "What?"

  "At the very end there, I was rushing over to you. Xavier got caught up, so he couldn't pull you off. I was going to try to get your attention, but before my hand could touch you, someone was pulling me back, then throwing you off. I mean, I've never seen him or anything of course. But he had the long hair, the gray eyes, the accent..."

  "So I wasn't imagining that shit. He was here."

  "He was here," I agreed, nodding.

  There was no mistaking the look on his face then, something I had seen there a few times when he looked at me, with that wonder in his eyes like he couldn't believe he was even experiencing it.

  Hope.

  THIRTEEN

  Ward

  Adler was there.

  I was sure, fucking positive that I had been hit too hard in the head, and had scrambled up present times with past ones. It wouldn't have been surprising either.

  The fight had been harder than I thought.

  Not because Kenny was any better of a fighter than me, but because he was using his embarrassment and anger over what Xavier had told the crowd, shamed him with, to match my anger at the idea of him putting his hands on Addy.

  It came down to that in a fight.

  It wasn't necessarily about skill.

  Skill kept you from getting knocked out in the first two minutes.

  But it didn't win you matches.

  It always came down to what you brought into the ring with you.

  That was how some nights someone as calm and collected as Laz could win over someone as skilled and balls-to-the-wall as Pagan. If Laz was bringing in personal issues, if he was pissed off by some shit in his life not going right, if he was tired, if someone cut him off in traffic, that shit made all the difference.

  If you had some shit to work through; you went harder; the hits didn't hurt as much; you were fueled with something that didn't burn out too fast.

  So Kenny might have been embarrassed, shamed, angry that he was made to feel that way.

  But that shit was nothing compared to the rage I felt each time I thought of Addy just trying to be her fucking sweet self and getting struck for it, then tossed aside like garbage.

  There were no words for that kind of anger.

  It boiled and burned and melted everything in its path.

  There was no way I was losing.

  Though it did shock the shit out of me that I lost my control enough to almost kill the bastard.

  Enough so that a man who had clearly been keeping tabs on me for a while came out of the woodworks just to stop me.

  But it was over, I reminded myself as Addy turned into the parking lot of my hotel, parking, and getting out to come around my side.

  To help me, I realized.

  To fuss over me.

  It was so goddamn foreign a concept that I actually didn't respond right away when she opened my door and offered me her hand.

  What could I say.

  I had a mom that forgot to feed me.

  I lived for years in a basement I was tossed down into, bloody and broken, no one to give a flying fuck if I died of infection.

  After that, I fought on my own terms, but went back to the motel to set bones and pour alcohol over wounds by myself, at times passing out from blood loss or pain.

  There was no softness for me.

  There was no soothing over the hurts.

  "Come on. Don't be a hero," she said, wagging her hand at me. "I've never had
bruised ribs, but I imagine climbing out of the car without assistance isn't fun."

  She wasn't wrong about that.

  I had always managed to do it on my own in the past.

  But I watched as my busted-open hand slid into hers, feeling her little body pulling, trying to take some of my weight.

  She couldn't, of course, but it was fucking adorable as all hell that she wanted to, that she was trying.

  I bit back a curse as I twisted to get onto my feet, needing to take a deep breath to keep my vision from spinning.

  "I'll have the car taken care of tomorrow," I told her as she wrapped an arm around my waist, trying to convince me to put some weight onto her.

  "What about the car?" she asked, genuinely oblivious.

  "I just got blood, dirt, and sweat fucking everywhere, baby," I told her as we passed in through the front doors.

  The guy at the desk's eyes widened, but he didn't comment, merely greeting me like I wasn't trailing bloodspots all over the floor on my way to the private elevator.

  "Don't worry about it. I can rent a shampooer," she said, stepping into the elevator with me.

  The sweetest shit?

  She actually meant that.

  She would go out there, rent a carpet shampooer from the grocery store, and clean it herself.

  Because that was how she was raised, frugally, believing in the power of a little elbow grease.

  I appreciated that about her.

  But she was going to learn, slowly but surely, that life could afford her a little luxury, a little break from hard work as well.

  I wasn't going to fight her on the issue though. I would text someone to have it handled, and she would simply go down to a clean car the next morning.

  I unlocked the door, letting us both inside where Addy immediately rushed me into the bathroom. I sat down on the edge of the tub, not too proud to admit that I was aching, that I needed to sit, to rest my battered body.

  But it meant I got to watch as she frantically dug through my cabinets for first aid supplies as though I was at risk of becoming septic at any moment.

  "Oh, wow, this is a lot of, um, supplies," she said, coming out with a plastic container full of gauze, butterfly bandages, elastic bandages, salves, splints, braces, glue, and even a sewing set for stitches.