Renegade Hearts (Rebels of Sandland Book 1)

by Nikki J Summers

  “I’m fine. Just a bad night. I’ll be right. I need this.”

  He took a second or two to study me then nodded and patted me on the back.

  “I had quite the response when I told my men you were heading down here. You need to start fighting for me, Brandon. We could make far more money than that shitty little ring you’ve got going on with your boys.”

  I’d always turned Pat down when he’d offered to manage me before, but times were changing. Maybe I did need a different route?

  “Maybe. Let’s see how tonight goes,” I said, to keep the lines open, but in truth, I couldn’t see past this next fight.

  “I think you’re gonna like this.” Pat grinned as we walked back towards the hay bales that separated the fighters from the crowds. “You might know your opponent. I think he went to the same school as you. Brodie Yates?”

  That anger that I was channelling from tonight, ready to unleash on my fighting partner, turned into a fucking tsunami.

  Brodie fucking Yates.

  That motherfucker deserved everything that was coming to him. Yates and Lockwood had made my life hell back in middle school, and although I’d got in a few digs and lucky punches over the years, I’d never really had the chance to give him a proper pasting. Looks like tonight was my lucky night. Brodie Yates was about to experience the full force of hurricane Mathers.

  “Are you fucking on something?” One of Pat’s guys asked, looking at me like he couldn’t work out if I was crazy, insane or just off the wall.

  “I’m high on life, mate.” I gave him my signature grin and he laughed.

  “Looks like you’ve already been a few rounds too. Is that a cut lip?”

  “You should see the other guy.” I shrugged not giving a fuck.

  “Your eyes… Look at the state of them. You look like a fucking demon. I’m glad I’m too old to fight if that’s how they’re training you these days.”

  I took it as a compliment. If I could psych out Brodie Yates just by looking at the fucker, then he’d be dead meat in seconds. Fear and violence, that’s what fed me right now. His fear and the sheer level of violence I wanted to offload onto him. The most dangerous man you can ever go up against is one that has nothing to lose. I was that man.

  I heard someone behind me call my name and I turned to see Chase, Jensen, Brodie and some of their friends walking towards me.

  “No friends tonight, Mathers? They finally seen you for the loser you are?” Jensen said, giving me the once over.

  “That’s funny. I seem to remember beating your ass just a few days ago, Lockwood. I’d wait for the bruises to fade before you come at me again. You might sound more convincing.”

  “You wanna know what I see?” Jensen didn’t care what I said. He was the big man with his crew around him. Get him on his own and the guy would’ve pissed his pants at the thought of going up against me again.

  “I couldn’t really give a rat’s ass, but I’m sure you’re gonna tell me. You just can’t seem to shut your mouth, can you?”

  His grin turned to a snarl. He didn’t like that I wasn’t threatened by him. If anything, he spurred me on even more. I liked being the underdog. Shit, I’d take them all on if Pat would let me.

  “What I see is a lonely, washed up nobody. A wannabe Tyson Fury without the charisma. You’re less gypsy king and more shitty king. You know, like the shit they found you in when your mum left you to bone every drug dealer she could get her hands on.”

  I snapped and threw myself at Lockwood, but Pat and his men held me back.

  “Woah! Save that shit for the ring, son. You’re up next,” Pat said, shaking me and giving me another look that told me he wasn’t taking any shit tonight. He wanted a clean fight.

  I nodded in silent agreement. My fighting was going to be as clean as I could get away with. Pat was all about the honour of bare-knuckle boxing, it’s what he stood for. But tonight, it was my honour at stake. I wasn’t fighting to win. I was fighting to destroy.

  I pulled my T-shirt over my head and threw it to the side as I stepped into the fight zone. Brodie smiled at me, but I just glared back at him, using those precious seconds to focus my energy.

  I thought about Emily and how she’d looked at me like I was dog shit on her shoe.

  I saw Ryan as he straddled me, punching me like I was the scum of the earth and he needed me gone.

  Then I remembered being beaten by Brodie and Jensen. I heard the names they called me. Then I saw an image of Jensen in my mind, holding me down in the boys’ bathroom while Brodie smacked his fist into my face until my nose bled. I swear if the teacher hadn’t disturbed them that day they’d have killed me. I was seven years old. They were nine, maybe ten, and the only punishment they’d received was a slap on the wrist and a warning not to do it again.

  That’s what happens when you’re poor and your family aren’t worth shit in this town. You have to wait until you’re older to get the revenge you’re owed.

  In the distance, I could hear the referee reciting the rules. No head butting, no biting, no elbow smashing. I nodded, but I wasn’t listening. All emotion was drained from my body. All I had left was fire, anger, fury.

  The ref stepped back, and it was on. Brodie held his fists up in defence.

  “Come on then, you pussy. Show me what you got. Or did Jensen wear you out the other night? You’ve always been a disappointment. All these people here tonight to watch you fight and look at you, nothing but a weak-ass pussy with a chip on your shoulder.”

  I didn’t hear him. He thought his words would get to me, but I already had fourteen years of hatred stored up inside me. There wasn’t room for any more.

  He jabbed his fist out and I saw it, but I didn’t duck like I usually would’ve. I wanted him to get a few hits in. Those knocks would help to numb the pain. The crowd booed, probably thinking I wasn’t trying. They needed to shut the fuck up. I was in control here. I knew what I was doing.

  Brodie got another punch in, hitting my side. The pain that radiated through my body helped to release some of the pressure in my head, as if it gave my brain somewhere else to focus. It was exactly what I needed. I tensed my core, letting him get a few more hits in. The crowd were screaming now. They thought this was done and dusted, but I hadn’t even started. In this ring I wasn’t a man, I was a machine, and that machine had just flipped it’s switch and shifted to attack.

  I grunted as I threw a punch into his face, putting the whole weight of my body behind it. Brodie jerked back and seemed to grow unsteady on his feet. One hit and I was already gaining the upper-hand. He wiped over his face and shook his head to try to steady himself. Blood was pouring from his nose and I grinned. A broken nose was my first gift of the night.

  I charged into him, pushing him up against the bales and pounding my fists into his stomach. I wanted to add a few broken ribs to the list, but when Brodie dropped to the floor, the ref intervened and I had to back away. Fucker didn’t stay down for long though. He was buying time. I had him right where I wanted him, and he knew it. He was about to get his ass handed to him on a plate in front of all these people, and it was fourteen years in the making.

  I stood firm with my fists held up ready. Brodie wobbled on his feet, but he wasn’t about to give up just yet. It was a good job too. I wasn’t done with him by a long shot. I had a lot more fight left in me.

  I swung my fist back and smacked him at the side of the head, catching his jaw and sending him flying backwards. He stumbled and tried to regain his footing, but he took a tumble and that’s when I heard it, the crack of his skull as he landed on the cobbled barn floor. He’d caught his foot on a loose flagstone and judging from the amount of blood pouring from the back of his head, he wasn’t getting back up any time soon.

  My ears were ringing with the buzz of the adrenaline and I could just about make out the screams around me. Then people started to push and jostle around the edge of the ring. I stood over Brodie as he lay there, bleeding out, his eyes closed and
his body twitching, and I was about to spit on him when I saw a flash of blonde hair. A girl knelt down and started to cradle his head. She checked his pulse and then screamed up at me, “I think he’s dead! You killed him! You fucking killed him!”

  Harper.

  Harper bloody Yates, Brodie’s twin sister.

  I had no idea she was even here. What the fuck had I done? I’d just beaten her brother to death in front of her. There was gonna be a new place in hell reserved specially for me after tonight, and if truth be told, I didn’t fucking care.

  Pat and a few of his men shoved me out of the way and started giving Brodie first aid. I just stood there, my life balancing on a knife’s edge. I didn’t want to stick around for the aftermath. I’d done what I’d come here to do. I’d shown everyone what’d happen if they ever crossed me. I hadn’t factored in the guilt from seeing Harper wailing over her brother. I didn’t need to add more weight to the shame that was my life. I felt worthless enough already, but now I had even more reason to hate myself. I was a fucking liability. I couldn’t even do revenge right.

  Shutting down the emotions that were surfacing and threatening to drown me in self-loathing, I turned and pushed my way through the crowd. A few people shoved me, shouting in my face, but I didn’t listen.

  “Call an ambulance,” I heard Pat shout out. I knew the police would follow and I wasn’t about to stick around to be hung out to dry. I left the barn, got into my car and drove away. I threw my mobile out of the window and kept going. I was gonna drive until my fuel ran out and then I was gonna keep going. I had nowhere to go. I had no one to care.

  From this moment on, Brandon Mathers was no more.

  A ghost.

  A forgotten man.

  I doubted anyone would mourn me. I wouldn’t even mourn myself.

  “No one’s seen him since. Police found his phone discarded on the path outside the barn. His car was left abandoned about thirty miles away. We don’t know what to do. There’s a warrant out for his arrest, but we’ve got no idea where he might be. What do we do, Ry?” Zak was frantic, and Ryan looked as shell-shocked as I felt. I thought we’d had our full quota of bad luck last night, but it seems fate wasn’t done with us yet.

  “Any news on Brodie?” I asked as Ryan sat there stunned.

  “He was in surgery most of the night. We don’t know much, the police aren’t giving anything away, but it sounds like he had internal bleeding and swelling to the brain. They were trying to ease the pressure or something, but he went into cardiac arrest when he was under and they couldn’t save him. He fucking died, Em.”

  I couldn’t speak. I put my arm around Ryan as he leant forward in his chair and ran his hands over his head in pure exasperation at how shitty this whole situation was. I’d woken up to a nightmare that just kept getting darker and more hopeless.

  “Shit. He’s gonna go down for this.” Ryan looked up at Zak and Finn and then hung his head again. “He’s gonna go down for life and it’s all my fucking fault.”

  “This is not your fault.” I shook him, so he’d look at me, but he couldn’t.

  “It is. If I hadn’t gone in on him like that last night, he wouldn’t have had that fight.”

  I looked over at Zak and Finn, willing them to help me out. I couldn’t risk letting Ryan spiral down a dark tunnel into a pit of despair. I might never get him out again.

  “She’s right, mate. Brandon was gonna do whatever Brandon wanted to do. The beef with Lockwood and Yates had been brewing for years. Something like this was always gonna happen,” Zak said, and Finn nodded in agreement.

  “And if we’re pointing the blame at anyone, I’m as much to blame as you,” I added, holding his hand with both of mine. “I said some pretty shitty things to him myself, remember?” I wasn’t about to let Ryan take the fall for this. I didn’t want him blaming himself. We needed to work together to get through this awful mess. Blame wouldn’t help anyone now. Not Brandon and certainly not Brodie or his family.

  “Have you spoken to the police yet?” Ryan snapped his head up, going from dazed to alert in a split second.

  “We’ve both given them a statement,” Zak said. “They’ll probably be round here soon to take yours. We told them the truth. We saw him earlier in the evening, but we left him around ten o’clock. We weren’t anywhere near the Murphy’s barn. We saw nothing.”

  “Let’s go to the station now and get it over with.” I didn’t feel like waiting around for the police to come to us and I wanted to find out what’d happened to my dad after last night’s arrest. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Ryan agreed and the four of us headed out, leaving Connor to the now stone-cold breakfast.

  We both gave separate statements, telling the police exactly what we knew, which was nothing. They questioned us about where Brandon could be, but we had no clue on that either. When we left a few hours later, I headed back to the main desk to ask about my father, telling Ryan to wait for me in the car park. I needed to do this alone.

  The last person I expected to find sitting in the reception when I got there was my mother and the woman who my dad had kept as his dirty little secret for so long. The two of them sat in awkward silence, and when mum saw me she jumped up and grabbed me into a hug.

  “Em, thank God you came. I’ve been trying to call you all night.”

  I highly doubted that. I think I was a long way down on her list of priorities today.

  “They’re keeping your dad in. The solicitor is with him now, but he doesn’t think he’ll make bail.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did she really want him out? Was she delusional? Obviously she was, seeing as she was sitting with his mistress like nothing had happened.

  “I couldn’t give a fuck, Mum.”

  “Language, Emily,” she scolded, and my eyebrows shot up.

  “Really, Mum? After everything that’s happened you’re gonna pull me up on saying the word fuck. That’s fucking rich.”

  She tutted and rolled her eyes. “I know he’s made some mistakes…”

  “Mistakes? He killed my brother, your son. Or did you conveniently forget that part?”

  Her eyes misted over, and I felt a twinge of sadness for her. “I know what he did. And no, I’ll never forgive him for that. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t miss Daniel. I cry every single day. But maybe, with counselling, your dad-”

  I cut her off. “My dad doesn’t deserve to walk out of here. He deserves to rot in hell for what he did. He left Danny there. He knew Dan needed help and he did nothing. He didn’t even call an ambulance, Mum. He scurried away like a rat to save his own skin. I hate him. He’s dead to me.” My mother seemed intent on seeing the good in everything when it came to my dad and I didn’t have the energy to argue with her anymore.

  I moved past my mum to stand in front of the woman my dad had kept hidden from us. His dirty mistress. “Did you know?”

  “I did what I had to do to protect my daughter,” she said holding her nose in the air with fake airs and graces. She needed to cut the bullshit and stop pretending to be a lady and own who she was; my father’s whore.

  “A daughter he never acknowledged, and we knew nothing about.” She glanced past me to look at my mum, and that’s when I snapped. I spun round to face her again. “You knew? What the fuck, Mum?”

  “I had a feeling.”

  “And you stayed with him? Do you enjoy being a doormat? This is messed up, even for you.” I couldn’t believe my own mother had suspected my dad of having an affair, fathering a child, and she had turned a blind eye. No wonder she’d taken to the bottle and become a shell of a woman. I would’ve shook some sense into her, but I think she was beyond help.

  “So, what now? Are you two gonna become best buddies? Get your nails done and compare notes on my dad? Or better yet, why don’t they come and live with us, Mum? Then we can all be one happy fucking family.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Emily. Once your dad is home we’ll work something out.�
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  I shook my head at her. My mother was certifiably crazy.

  “He isn’t coming home, Mum. Even I know the jail sentence for money laundering is pretty steep. Add the manslaughter charge and he won’t see the outside of a prison cell for a very long time. I’d get used to living on your own, Mum, because Dad isn’t coming home, and neither am I.”

  She gasped and tried to stop me as I headed for the door.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Emily, stop and come back here. We need to talk about this. You can’t just leave. Where will you go?”

  I stopped, ready to give her one more minute. It was all she was going to get from me for a long time.

  “I don’t know, Mum. I’ll stay with Liv, Effy, or maybe Ryan’s dad will let me crash at theirs.”

  She frowned. “Ryan? Daniel’s friend, Ryan?”

  “Yes, Mum. My boyfriend, Ryan. Not that that’s any of your business. I think you forfeited the right to have a say in my life the minute you chose Dad over us.”

  “It was never about choosing sides. I wanted, no, I needed to keep my family together.” And a fucking stellar job she’d done at that.

  “I don’t think Dad got the memo. He was too busy making another family without you.” I could see the hurt on her face as I said that, but she needed to hear the harsh truths. Her life was no rose garden and she was trying to preserve something which was irrevocably broken. Paper over cracks that were huge gaping holes. No amount of damage control could save us. As a family, we were finished.

  “The house is in my name, Emily. Whatever happens to Dad, they can’t take that away from us. I have money. We’ll be okay.”

  I knew what she was saying. The police would freeze Dad’s assets. But I think she was fooling herself. It wouldn’t be that easy. Every part of her life would be scrutinised too. Suddenly, a pang of regret and remorse hit me.

  “Mum, if you need me, you’ve got my mobile number. Whatever it is, I’ll be there.”