Wyatt idly wondered if Doc would give him a doctor’s note to excuse him from the party, then smiled to himself at the joke.
“What’s that smile for?” asked a woman’s voice from his left.
Wyatt’s gut clenched in anticipation even before he raised his head, knowing who stood beside him.
Kat was still wearing her gold outfit, but she’d pulled her hair back into a casual ponytail, and the style made her look younger, like a college cheerleader or something. He wondered how old she really was. He suspected she was in her mid-to-late-twenties, but her eyes made her look older. She’d seen some things. Or, worse, experienced them.
She raised her eyebrows and Wyatt remembered she’d ask him a question. His skin prickled in embarrassment at how distracting he found her, remembering the moment in the cage where Spider had nearly got the better of him.
“Nothing, just thinking to myself,” he answered. “Are the fights over?”
She nodded. “Chen won the last one.”
Wyatt nodded. He liked Chen, what he knew of him. Unfortunately, he had to stay away from the fighters he liked—none of which were in McCready’s crew—and stick to the assholes like Spider instead. There was no chance of McCready adopting Wyatt into the inner circle if he didn’t think Wyatt was one of them.
“What are you still doing here, then?” he asked, and wondered if she’d stuck around for him. His heart flipped at the thought, while his head berated him. She was on McCready’s side, and a distraction he couldn’t afford. He needed to remember that.
“Delaying,” she said idly. She meant the party, and he almost smiled again at the similarity of her thoughts to his. If, that was, she was telling the truth.
“You?” she asked.
“Doc needs to patch me up, but Spider’s in much worse shape, so I’m waiting.”
A slow smile crossed her face. “Well, since I’m delaying, how about I help you instead? Then when McCready asks where I’ve been, I can tell him the truth.”
Wyatt swallowed, the thought of her standing close, putting her hands on him, making his heart thump in excitement. No matter what he told himself, why he shouldn’t feel that way, his blood still pounded through his veins with more enthusiasm than the situation warranted.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Sure,” Wyatt replied, attempting to sound casual and failing utterly.
This would be a problem.
Kat left Wyatt in the hall and slipped back into Doc’s room. Doc gave her a quick smile when he saw her taking supplies, but didn’t comment. It wasn’t the first time she’d played his nurse, but usually it was under even less pleasant circumstances.
Kat gathered the gauze, butterfly stitches, and other items into her arms and turned back to the door. Spider’s eyes bored a hole into her back the entire time she was in the room, but she didn’t spare him a glance, confident he wouldn’t try anything with Doc between the two of them and Wyatt right outside.
She took a second to breathe deeply, steeling herself to return to Wyatt and his watchful stare. She didn’t know what it was about him, but he affected her more than a man had in a long time. He was handsome, yes. But she knew as well as anyone a handsome face could hide a loathsome interior. Maybe that was it. He seemed decent. Or at least, he wasn’t transparently evil.
A pretty low bar for him to cross, but given the quality of men she’d been forced to spend time with for the last few years, it was a welcome change.
But not welcome enough for her to throw her plans out the window for him. No man was that handsome, that good, to make her want to sacrifice her future for him.
With that thought firmly in mind, Kat strode out the door and led Wyatt into the empty room across the hall without looking at him. It was a dark, dingy room, a mirror of Doc’s makeshift surgery. The light flickered on when Wyatt flipped the switch, but the glow wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the gloom.
“Grab some chairs,” she told Wyatt. He set out two, then lowered himself into the one facing the room. Kat sat in the chair opposite him, sliding it closer when she saw she was too far back. Her thighs slid between his, not touching, but she was intensely aware of his hard legs cradling her knees.
She finally raised her eyes to meet his gaze. He was watching her carefully, and Kat swallowed. His eyes saw too much.
She began cleaning the wound that had opened, focusing on her task rather than his proximity. But still her skin prickled in awareness. She had no doubt his eyes were still on her, studying her.
Her heartbeat sped up, like a drumbeat increasing its tempo, rolling ever forward.
“You’ve done this before,” Wyatt commented.
“Yes,” Kat admitted. She didn’t tell him she’d almost become a nurse in her former life. Graduation had been only a few months away when she’d had to uproot her life and place herself in McCready’s clutches.
“Why are you here?” Wyatt asked in a low voice.
Kat met his gaze again, but he was too close for her peace of mind. She couldn’t look away, caught by the expression on his face. The curiosity, the veiled interest. She licked her lips, and his gaze followed the movement, growing darker as he did. He tilted forward, then caught himself, blinking, and leaned away from her.
Kat’s heart still thundered in her chest, but now her skin was tight with awareness, and her mouth was bone dry. Damn him and the effect he had on her.
“So?” he asked, and Kat had a hard time remembering what he’d asked her.
“Here in this room? In this situation? Or as a philosophical ‘why are you on this Earth?’ kind of here?”
“I’m sure any of those would have a fascinating answer. But I meant, why are you treating my wounds? I could have waited.”
Her cheeks flushed. She couldn’t admit to him that part of the reason was she wanted to spend more time with him. But mostly, she was here on McCready’s orders. She’d been told to discover Wyatt’s secrets, so that’s exactly what she planned to do. Whether or not she’d pass that information on to McCready would depend on how useful she found the information for her own purposes.
“I told you, I don’t want to go to the party.”
“So why are you?”
“I have to,” she said simply.
“Why?” he pressed.
Kat scowled. “It’s happening where I live.” Not a real answer, but hopefully one that would distract him.
Wyatt frowned in confusion for a moment before his face cleared. “You live in McCready’s mansion?”
She nodded. “We all do.”
“Wh—”
“Don’t ask me ‘why?’ again,” she interrupted. She pressed the wound cleaner firmly into his skin to underline her point and he hissed in pain.
He snapped his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes, studying her even more closely. Kat tried to ignore him, focusing instead on pulling out the butterfly stitches she needed to stick to his head.
When he didn’t say anything for a long moment, Kat decided to turn the tables. “Why are you here?”
“You mean, in this room? Or in this situation? Or in a philosophical sense…” He trailed off with a teasing smile.
Kat rolled her eyes. “I mean here, buddying up to McCready.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Why do you want to know?”
“Curiosity?” she suggested.
He chuckled, and her hands on the stitches slipped at his movement, trailing over his cheek. Her stomach flipped at the unintentionally intimate contact. His skin was still slicked with sweat from his fight, a trait Kat found oddly attractive.
“More likely you’re trying to get more information for McCready.”
She neither confirmed nor denied his statement. “You say that like you have something to hide.”
A slow smile curled against his lips. “Maybe I do.”
“McCready wouldn’t like it.”
“McCready doesn’t have to know.”
Their gazes held in a charged moment. He was asking h
er to keep his secrets, and Kat was so, so tempted to agree. To work with him to put his plan into action, which she could only assume was to bring McCready down.
But she couldn’t risk it.
She glanced away. “Don’t tell me,” she begged. “I can’t guarantee I’ll keep your secrets.”
It went against everything she’d planned when she came in here, but she suddenly didn’t want to have to decide whether or not to betray this man. If he didn’t tell her his secrets, then she couldn’t pass them on to McCready, or use them herself to manipulate him. They were safe with him.
Wyatt’s finger stroked her chin, coaxing her face up so their eyes met again. “Why not?” he asked on a whisper. “You don’t want to be here any more than I do.”
She smiled sadly. “Not all of us have a choice.”
He leaned forward, suddenly urgent. “What’s keeping you? Maybe I could—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You can’t.”
He scowled. “So which is it? Are you McCready’s pawn? His sidekick? Or his enemy?”
She straightened her spine, frustrated by the judgement flashing in his eyes. Who was he to criticise her for what she was doing? He didn’t know her.
“None. Or any, as I need to be.”
“If that were true, you’d have heard my secrets and used them as you saw fit.” He was studying her again with that intense gaze which made her feel so exposed.
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But I’m not a bad person. I do what I must to protect myself. If you’re here working against McCready, I won’t stop you. But I won’t help you, either.”
“You’re a complicated woman,” he mused after a moment.
Kat had nothing to say to that. Instead, she finished with his wound and stood. “I need to go.”
“Back to McCready?” he asked, a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Back to the life I’m trying to survive in. I’ll see you around.”
She swept out of the room without giving Wyatt another glance. A longing welled up in her, a desperate wanting for her to turn back and throw herself at his feet, begging for help. To take her away from McCready, to destroy the man who’d caused her so much misery. But she’d learned a long time ago there was no one she could rely on.
Only herself.
Chapter 4
Wyatt’s apartment was small, poorly-maintained, and in an area not known for its gentility. He stepped inside and let out a heavy sigh. Just as he’d left it.
He missed his old apartment. It hadn’t been much, but it had been a decent size and in an okay neighbourhood. But now that he didn’t have a regular income, he’d had to downsize. McCready’s fights only paid so much.
Hopefully, when all this was over, he could go back to his old life as if nothing had ever happened. But he was beginning to think that wouldn’t be possible. The longer he was in this world—McCready’s world—the harder it was for him to remember his old life. His friends, his family. He hadn’t seen his parents for months. And he wouldn’t, not until he had answers about what had happened to his brother.
Not that they’d asked him to do this. They hadn’t wanted to lose two sons. But Wyatt couldn’t face them knowing he’d failed his little brother. He’d been too distracted to notice what had been happening to the most important person in his life.
And he could never forgive himself for that.
Wyatt set his duffel bag on the floor and strode to the sideboard—a remnant from his larger apartment he hadn’t wanted to part with. It didn’t fit in the space, but he liked it. And he still wanted to believe this was all only temporary. That if he held on to pieces of his past, he could believe he’d go back to the life and job he’d once loved.
On his sideboard was a single photo, in a cheap frame. It was the last photo of him and his brother together, taken right after Dean had come home from war for the final time.
Wyatt picked it up and stroked his thumb over the plastic, as he did most nights. It reminded him why he was here, what he was fighting for.
He and his brother had been close, once. They’d grown up two years apart, and Dean had followed Wyatt everywhere. When Wyatt had started to learn martial arts, Dean had been right behind him. Eventually, they’d started competing against each other in tournaments.
But they’d never let it get in the way of their friendship.
They were so similar—both thrill seekers who enjoyed the rush of adrenaline and friendly competition.
And then, about a year ago, something changed. Wyatt still didn’t understand exactly what it was. Maybe something had happened on his last tour. But whatever it was, his brother had started coming to family dinners with cuts and bruises over him. When Wyatt had confronted his brother, Dean had laughed it off, saying he’d got the wounds in some extreme sport or another.
At first, Wyatt had almost believed him. But when Dean missed a dinner, Wyatt went to check on him, and found him bandaged and bleeding on the floor of his apartment.
After Wyatt had cleaned him up—and possibly saved his life—Dean had finally admitted he was part of an illegal fight ring, but he didn’t mention any names. Two weeks after that night, his brother missed another family dinner. Wyatt had gone straight to his brother’s place, fearing the worst, but he hadn’t been there. And he never returned.
Wyatt had immediately started investigating his brother’s disappearance, using all the resources he had at his disposal as a cop, which were considerable. Eventually he’d found McCready’s name through some old informants. It’d been the first real lead he’d had in months. But he’d known it wouldn’t be easy to find McCready, let alone make the man trust him.
Desperate, Wyatt did the only thing he could think of. He abandoned his old life—already shaky because of his obsession with finding out what happened to Dean—and started a new one. The kind of life that wouldn’t make McCready suspicious. And he put out feelers through those same contacts, claiming he was looking for work. The kind that used his fists.
It had worked, and McCready had invited Wyatt to fight.
Wyatt wasn’t sure if McCready knew who he really was—and who his brother was. He couldn’t imagine so, given that he wasn’t dead yet, but McCready was known to play long games with people’s lives, to string them along for his own amusement. Still so far things seemed to be running about as well as he could expect.
Though the fact that he hadn’t found a hint of his brother yet meant Wyatt’s hopes were fading fast. He’d known, even in the early days, there was a strong possibility his brother was dead. But either way, he needed to know.
Wyatt set the photograph down and pulled himself out of the memories. He missed his brother with a fierce ache that mingled with his guilt over losing him. He should have done more, paid more attention. Had his brother needed money? If so, why? Or had he simply been addicted to the adrenaline of the fights?
Wyatt didn’t know, and he had to find out.
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and scrolled through the contacts until he found the one he wanted.
“Detective Albany,” answered the voice on the other end of the phone.
“You really should check your caller ID before you answer,” Wyatt admonished with a grin. “You never know what kind of riffraff might call.”
“Oh, like you, you mean?” Darrell replied with a laugh. “Well, too late for that.”
“You’d miss me anyway,” Wyatt said.
There was a pause. “I already do.”
Wyatt sighed. “Yeah.” The joking mood from seconds before collapsed in a rush. “So how are things at the station?”
“The same. I almost envy you leaving, man.”
Wyatt scoffed. “No you don’t.”
Darrell laughed. “No, I guess I don’t.”
They were silent for a minute. Wyatt pictured Darrell as he’d seen him so many times. He was African American, and a few inches shorter than Wyatt, with close-cropped hair and an eternally-
rumpled suit. Right now, Wyatt would bet his whole week’s winnings on Darrell being in his chair in the bullpen, leaning back with his feet on the desk, a cup of the sludge they called coffee at the station sitting at his elbow.
“So how goes your search?” Darrell asked lightly.
“I’m getting closer,” he told his former partner. “I was invited to a party last week.”
“That’s what you’re doing? Going to parties? Come on, man.” He said it teasingly, so Wyatt laughed obligingly.
“You should see these things. Drugs, alcohol, women. The whole nine yards.”
“Sounds like a real cakewalk.”
“Honestly the place was skeevy. I needed a shower after. You know all those busts Vice did on those kingpins? This guy is like a suped-up version of them.”
“Sounds like a peach.”
“He’s pretty scummy. But hopefully he won’t be around much longer. Not if I have anything to say about it. Some senators might even go with him.”
“Really? Man, you have all the fun.”
Wyatt laughed hollowly. “Nah. It’ll all be collateral damage once I find my brother.” Wyatt paused for a second. “Speaking of, has there been any—”
“Bodies?” Darrell interrupted. “No unidentified ones that fit your brother’s general description. You know I’d call you if there was.”
Wyatt swallowed, torn between relief and sadness. He wanted this to be over, whatever the outcome.
“Okay, thanks man. I appreciate you keeping me updated.”
Darrell snorted. “Of course. I got your back.”
“I know. I know.” Wyatt let out a breath. He missed his friend, and his life. He had to hope he wouldn’t be too damaged to return to it one day.
Underground Fighters Trilogy Boxed Set Page 32
