by Meghan March
For a moment, Bodhi lies on the canvas, his arms and legs in the air, like he’s expecting Gabriel to come back at him. When he doesn’t, Bodhi jumps up and charges at Gabriel. Gabriel is ready this time, though, because he pushes off the cage floor to leap into the air. His right knee rams directly into Bodhi’s bowed head.
Bodhi’s entire body goes slack and drops, and chaos erupts in the club.
“Knockout!” someone roars as Gabriel pounces, ready to finish Bodhi off. But the ref waves his arms, shoving Gabriel away as everyone rushes toward the cage.
“It’s all over!” Jon says as he slaps my shoulder from behind.
“Go, go, go!” Harlow yells at me, pushing me in the direction of the cage door. “He’s going to want you in there when they raise his hand.”
People are crushed together, surging out of their seats, and I can barely move. I try to maneuver through them, not thinking about anything but getting to Gabriel inside the cage.
Thank God, it’s over. He won. He really won. Thank God.
I make it almost to the stairs leading up to the cage, and something jabs me in the side. Hard.
I jerk my head around and down to see what the hell I ran into, but all I see is Lucy Byers’s malevolent gaze.
“That’s a gun, and if I pull the trigger, you’ll bleed out right here.”
“What—” I start to sputter a question, but Lucy’s claw-tipped fingers wrap around my arm and squeeze.
“Don’t say a word. You’re coming with me. Right now.”
The riotous cheering of the crowd fades away as static fills my head. I look for Hal, but I was too fast out of my seat, and there’s no way he’ll be able to find me quickly in this madhouse of a crowd.
I jerk at my arm, but Lucy smiles, and I swear, her expression embodies pure evil.
“You’ll be dead before you hit the floor if you try that again. Come on.” She starts moving, and I glance down at the black barrel of a small handgun driving into the gold fabric of my dress.
This isn’t happening. Not right here. Not with all these people.
That’s when I realize what’s really at stake. I can’t let her shoot me in this club. It’ll never recover.
I have a split second to make the decision. Fight right here and risk her shooting me—or someone else—sending the club into a stampeding frenzy . . . or follow her out of the club and subdue her where she can’t hurt anyone else.
I’ve taken self-defense. I know how to do this.
Maybe it’s not the smartest decision I’ve ever made, but I know what I have to do. Protect Gabriel and the club.
I walk with Lucy, a smile on my face belying the fact that I have a gun jabbing into my kidney. The crowd blocks anyone from seeing what she’s holding as Lucy shoves me toward a door that nearly blends into the wall at the back of the club.
As soon as the door closes behind us, I make my move, jabbing my elbow into her stomach as I spin around to grab hold of her wrist and twist hard.
“You bitch!” she screams as she loses her grip on the gun and it clatters to the floor, sliding toward the wall.
We both dive for it, but Lucy must realize that I’m going to beat her, because she latches onto something else instead—the necklace I’m wearing. It jerks me back like a dog on a choke chain, cutting into my skin for an instant before the delicate links snap.
Doesn’t matter, get the gun.
I crawl toward it, but a man’s battered leather boot lands on top of the pistol before my fingers can wrap around it.
“Well, well, well. How about this shit?”
I look up and my gaze zeroes in on a new gun, this one with a really long, thick tube attached to the barrel . . . pointed at Lucy.
Oh my God. I’ve seen those in movies. That’s a silencer.
I stare at the hand before my gaze tracks up his arm to his shoulder, and then finally to the face of the man holding it.
Recognition hits me first. He was the one who talked to Gabriel that first night I met him and Roux at the gym. He knew Bodhi. He wanted Gabriel to fight him. What is his name? It’s like the candy . . .
“Who the fuck are you?” Lucy snaps out the question.
“Rolo?” I whisper, hesitantly trying it out.
“You got that right,” he replies to me, looking down at the gun beneath his boot. “Now, what the fuck is going on here?”
“Give me my gun,” Lucy demands.
Rolo squats down to pick it up, keeping the silencer trained on her. “I don’t take orders from cunts like you.” At least he’s right about her being a cunt. When he rises, he’s got a gun pointed at each of us. “Get up.”
I slowly rise to my feet, and Lucy does the same, my necklace dangling from her fingers.
I sneer at her. “I hope whatever you had planned was worth this.”
“He’s not going to shoot me, but I don’t give a damn if he shoots you,” Lucy says, venom dripping from her words. “He’ll be doing me a favor.”
I glance at Rolo, wondering what the hell his plan is. Because you don’t just show up in a club with a gun that has a silencer on it unless you plan to use it.
“You want Legend’s bitch dead?” Rolo asks her, sounding genuinely curious. “That’s what you were doing here?”
“The world would be a better place without that fake princess sitting in her ivory tower. So, why don’t you do me a favor and pull that trigger?”
Rolo chuckles. “Damn, you’re an ice-cold bitch. What the fuck did she do to you?”
“Good question,” I whisper.
Lucy turns and glares at me. “Twenty years. For twenty fucking years I’ve had to watch you live your perfect fucking life and get everything I want. I’m done, which means you’re done.”
I blink twice, trying to understand what she’s saying, because she sounds like a deranged lunatic. “You’ve hated me for twenty years? And now you want me dead? What the hell, Lucy? Are you off your meds or something?”
When Rolo huffs out a laugh, Lucy turns her malice on him. “You don’t get it. She had everything. Since the day her perfect fucking mom walked her into class, and everyone wanted to be her. I was the one everyone wanted to be before you. You took that from me.”
She’s fucking nuts.
Clearly, I’m not the only one thinking that, because Rolo glances at me. “Bitch be crazy.”
“Fuck you, asshole. Give me my gun, and I’ll get her out of your way.”
“Fucking crazy,” he says with a shake of his head. “How were you getting away with this?”
Lucy flips her hair like she doesn’t have a gun trained on her, making me even more certain she’s gone off the deep end. “Oh, that part’s easy. Everyone’s going to be so sad when Scarlett’s stalker finally kills her.”
My mouth drops open. “You were going to frame the troll for this? Jesus Christ, Lucy.”
Maniacal laughter breaks free from her lips. “Fucking Scarlett. Always the last to know. Bitch, I am the troll.” She turns back to Rolo and holds out her hand. “Now, give me the gun. I’ve got shit to do.”
I’m frozen. Shell-shocked. It was her all this time?
I don’t know if it’s the entitlement in her tone or what, but Rolo just shakes his head.
“Bitch, shut the fuck up.”
Lucy charges him, and I see it before she does—Rolo’s finger squeezing the trigger.
“Lucy! No!”
But the pop of the muffled gunshot comes next, and I throw myself toward the wall and away from her and Rolo. My body hits the floor at the same time Lucy’s does.
Oh my God. He shot her. I want to look, but I’m terrified. Jesus Christ. He shot her.
His boots stop in front of me, and Rolo holds out a hand—except there’s no gun in it now. Where did he put Lucy’s?
“Get up. She ain’t bothering you again.”
I know I can’t trust him. He fucking shot her.
“Come on, get up. You’re lucky I shot that bitch. Couldn’t have he
r killing you before I get the shit that belongs to me. Legend shoulda thought twice before cutting me out. Making me go through all this shit—shooting up the club, trying to fuck up Black. It’s not fucking right. But she just made it hell of a lot easier to get to you, at least. Now, let’s go.”
Rolo shot up the club and went after Bodhi? Oh my God. I’m struggling to process Rolo’s words when he grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, shoving me down the hallway toward another door.
I jerk my head around to look behind us, and there Lucy is . . . with a dark pool growing around her prone body.
“Oh my God.” I stumble, tripping over the hem of my dress, but he yanks me upright.
The gunshot. People had to hear the gunshot. Right? But my ears are barely ringing . . . which means . . . there’s no way anyone could hear it over the crowd because of the silencer.
“Go, bitch. Unless you want me to shoot you right here too?”
I stumble forward, even more terrified of Rolo than Lucy, because I just watched him end her life without a shred of remorse.
Rolo shoves me toward the door with an exit sign glowing red above it, and waves at it with the gun. “Open the door, rich bitch, or I will shoot you in the fucking head. You hear me?”
My hand trembles as I reach for the door, my self-defense skills no longer appearing as useful as I once hoped they’d be.
What do I do? Leave the club and go with him? Or stand my ground and die fighting?
Gabriel, what do I do?
Fifty-Four
Legend
“Where the fuck is she?” I shout at Hal, who’s near the cage but still out in the crowd, while the announcer comes out to declare me the winner of the fight by knockout.
“I don’t know. She was coming up there. I can’t find her in all these people!” he shouts from just feet outside the cage.
The ref grabs my hand and raises it in the air, but I don’t give a shit about anything right now, including winning. Only one thing matters, and that’s Scarlett.
As soon as they announce me as the winner, Jeb comes over. “Let’s get a picture—”
“My woman’s missing. Gotta go.”
His expression morphs into one of seriousness. “What? How?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
I run for the cage door, pushing through the crowd at the stairs, and catch sight of Monroe and Harlow. “Where is she?”
Harlow shakes her head. “I don’t know! She ran up there to get to you. She’s gone.”
“Fuck!” I roar the word and plow through the crowd, ignoring everyone who is trying to congratulate me. Clap me on the back. Tell me job well done.
None of it matters. If Moses has Scarlett, my world is gone. No one knows the hell I’m living right now. Not a single person in this place.
Someone tugs my arm, and I’m tempted to throw an elbow until I see his face. Q.
“What’s wrong?”
“Scarlett’s gone. I don’t know where she went right after the knockout. No one does.”
His face pales. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He reaches for a com controller I didn’t notice earlier, attached to his suit. “Scarlett is missing. Lock the place down. No one goes in or out. Find her. Keep her fucking safe.”
Security. He’s talking to security. The extra security we have on duty to prevent this from happening to begin with.
“They have to find her,” I tell him, charging toward the back of the club, not sure where the hell I’m going, but I know she isn’t here.
Q follows me, and when we hit a pocket of empty space near the bar, he slaps a hand over my shoulder. “Someone thought they saw Rolo right before the fight. I didn’t want to take a chance of telling you and fucking with your head. No one’s seen him again. I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t think he’d try to come. I didn’t think he’d go after her either.”
“Fuck!” I roar, and adrenaline dumps into my system. “Find her! Now!”
People in the crowd are staring, but I don’t give a fuck. Nothing matters but Scarlett.
Not this club.
Not this fight.
Not the money.
Nothing.
I can’t lose her.
Fifty-Five
Scarlett
The door I’m standing in front of opens without me turning the handle, but Rolo doesn’t realize that. He shoves me through the opening . . . straight into the arms of the very last man on this earth I want to see right now. The man who I last saw with a gun to Bump’s head.
Moses.
“Whoa, darlin’. Damn, sometimes life just works out perfectly, doesn’t it?” His accented words cut through the static in my head.
“Who the fuck are you? Let her go!” Rolo barks as Moses shoves me behind him.
My knees give out as I stumble and land on my ass.
“No problem, man,” Moses says easily, like Rolo isn’t training his weapon on him. “I let her go. What the fuck you gonna do now?”
“Shoot you in the fuckin’—”
But Rolo doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Moses’s hand moves faster than Rolo’s mouth. This time I cover my ears and turn away as Moses pulls the trigger. There’s a deafening gunshot, followed by a thud.
Jesus Christ. No. No. No.
“I don’t think so, motherfucker,” Moses says to Rolo’s body as my ears ring.
Desperate to get away from him, I scramble, crawling toward another damn door, the one I’m praying leads outside of this rabbit warren of hallways.
Gabriel. I need Gabriel. I have to warn him.
Footsteps slap on the concrete behind me.
“You’re gonna ruin your dress like that, princess,” Moses says over the gurgling sound coming from behind us. “Why don’t you get on up now. You’re too pretty to be shaking on your knees.”
He says it so melodically. His deep timbre would almost be soothing, but he has a gun and he’s threatened to kill me before.
But he’s right. I’m not going to die on my knees. I turn my head toward him, tamping down the bone-deep fear coursing through my body.
“How? How did you get in here? Everyone is looking for you. Everyone.”
Moses’s smirk lights up those eerie eyes of his. The light greenish-gold color belongs to a predator. His gun hangs by his side in a loose grip, pointed at the floor as I press my palms against the concrete.
“I’d venture to guess everyone’s looking for you too by now, Ms. Priest. I did not expect that bitch to grab you. She threw off all my plans, and then Rolo offing her . . .” He shakes his head like he’s annoyed. “Now shit’s gonna get complicated.”
“What . . . what do you want?”
“First, for you to get up. I don’t like seeing women on the ground. Bothers me.”
It bothers him to see women on the ground? I blink twice as I process what he said, but I make no move to stand.
He releases a sigh and shakes his head. “Lord, save me from women who don’t know how to do what they’re told. Get up, girl. I’m losing my patience.”
I don’t do it for him. I do it for myself and my self-respect.
“If you’re going to kill me, why does it matter if I’m standing?” I ask as I regain my balance on my heels and straighten my shoulders.
One of his eyebrows goes up. “You think you know how this is gonna go? Because I suspect you don’t.”
Fifty-Six
Legend
“Gunshot in the back hallway,” Q says to me, and we both change directions and run.
I dodge people, shoving them out of the way. Men in black suits move through the crowd, heading in the same direction.
Q goes for his keys, but I yank the handle of the service door, and it flies open.
Fuck. So much for security having shit locked down.
We both bolt down the hallway, and then slide to a halt when we see a body on the floor. Black hair.
Not Scarlett. Thank fuck.
“Who is that?” one of the security guys
asks as I step toward her.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Lucy Byers. Some bitch who was hassling Scarlett.”
“Jesus Christ, Gabe. What the fuck?” Q demands, his eyes wide.
“I got no answers,” I say and keep going.
As much as I don’t want to deal with a dead body in my club, only one thing matters—that body doesn’t belong to Scarlett, and I need to find her as soon as fucking possible.
There’s another body up ahead, before the door that leads to the service corridor that lets out into the alley. A man’s. I slide to a halt, thinking it’s Moses. But it’s not.
Rolo.
Blood stains his lips as he coughs, pressing a hand against his chest. “Call me an ambulance.” He hacks up more blood. “Fucking hurry.”
Q stops beside me as security swarms us. “Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck is going on here tonight?”
“Where is she?” I drop to my knees beside Rolo and grip him by the collar. “Where the fuck is she!”
“Same guy who shot me took her. Through there.” He nods at the door.
“Fuck!” My voice echoing in the hallway, I release my hold on him and run for the door. Right now, I don’t give a fuck about Rolo. I don’t know how all this fits together, but the only piece that matters is Scarlett.
Where is she?
One of the security guys jumps in front of me. “Let us go first, Mr. Legend. We’re armed. You’re not.”
“Find her!” I yell as he shoves the door open, but as soon as he steps through it, he freezes.
“Well, fuck. See? I told you this was going to get complicated.”
The voice makes my blood run cold.
Moses.
I walk through the doorway, prepared to see my worst nightmare.
And there Scarlett is, standing in front of Moses like a human shield, with his gun to her head.
“Jesus Christ, Moses. She’s got nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with what I owe you.”
“Congrats on winning the fight, Gabe,” he says with a lift of his chin. “But you seem to have disobeyed your orders, boy.”
