Wildcard (Stacked Deck Book 1)

by Emilia Finn

  “What proposition?” I growl.

  “Like I said… Kincaids are royalty to us, so I thought I was seeing a ghost when I saw you on the TV over Christmas break. Your hair, Evelyn Kincaid. It’s unforgettable.”

  I turn away and face the front. “Not interested.”

  “Come see our setup.” His lips touch my hair. I feel his breath moving the loose strands. “Not because you’re a Kincaid, but because you fight. Come see what we’ve got. I know you must miss training while you’re away.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Liar.” His pencil comes back to tap my shoulder. “Every fighter misses fighting. It’s not a hobby for us. It’s a lifestyle, and spending more than a day away does things to our soul.”

  “I have a boyfriend. I feel like we’ve covered this before.”

  He scoffs. “I never once said I wanted to fuck you. I said come train with us.”

  His callous words make my stomach jump. It’s not like I’m not fluent in cussing, and it’s not like Ben doesn’t say fuck sixty times a day. But he never says it in that context. He’s never crude when he speaks of us.

  Reid continues through my silence. “You can keep your boyfriend. Ben Conner is a powerhouse, so it’s not like we don’t know his name.”

  “How could you possibly know who my boyfriend is? Ben is my friend. He’s been my friend most of my life.”

  “Probably something to do with the way you threw yourself into his arms on national television.” Reid shrugs, and sits back like he’s not emotionally invested in the outcome of this conversation.

  It feels like I’m Biggie’s scout again, when people try to impress me because they know I hold an important key to their future in our gym. I don’t hold all the keys, or any at all, if my family thinks I’m wrong. But if I say someone has got it, then I’m rarely brushed aside.

  “I’m not looking for an in with your family,” he presses. “Like I said, we already have our own plans. I don’t need to befriend you for this. In fact, it would be best if I didn’t, because what if you decide I’m an asshole, and roadblock our meets?”

  “I already think you’re an asshole,” I grumble. “You seem unable to take no for an answer.”

  “You’re a fighter in a strange land.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “It’s impossible you’re not curious to see what we’ve got.”

  “You’re… what?” Ben stops moving in the hall of our gym and plants his back against the wall. We’re voice calling, not video, but I still know where he is, and what he’s doing, just by the sounds of his feet on the various floors. Concrete, rubber mats, tile, linoleum. “Say that again?”

  “A new gym.” I move around my dorm room and pull clothes from my case. The case I still haven’t unpacked. “I heard about a fight gym near the school, so I’m gonna check it out.”

  “But…” His breath comes out on an exhale. “But this is your gym. This place. Right here. This is your home.”

  “Not for the next three and a half years,” I pout. “I need something, Ben. I’m running in the mornings, but it bores the shit out of me. I even tried listening to books, you know, like, reading with headphones instead of my eyes. But they’re annoying, so I zone out and lose two chapters before I realize I’m not paying attention. Then I have to rewind and try to figure out why the hell the chick and the dude are mad at each other. I just…” I pause. “I think going to this place might be good for me. It’ll keep my fitness up, and it’ll mean I don’t have to start over again when I get back. I’m going pro eventually, but taking four years away from the gym is kinda counterproductive, no?”

  “It just…” He exhales. “It feels weird. You’re supposed to be here, but now you’re gonna find a brand-new fight family?”

  “Rollers aren’t just my fight family.” I select a pair of shorts and a plain black tank. No way in hell am I going into that gym – or any fight gym – with Roller merch covering my chest and butt cheeks. “They’re my actual family, they’re my blood and my heart, so you need to relax. Nothing is set in stone yet. I’m just going to check it out.”

  “How will you get there and back? You’ll train at night, right? How will you get there and back safely?”

  “On my own two feet?” I counter with a smile. “The place is supposedly only a couple blocks from campus. And you never know, maybe after tonight, I’ll meet a chick student and we can walk together or something.”

  “You’ll call me while you walk? It’s not the same as, you know, not going out in the fucking dark, but at least I’ll know in live time if you’re being attacked.”

  I roll my eyes, but his concern still makes my heart swell. “Yes, I’ll call. I’m not sure what time I’ll finish, but it won’t be super late or anything. I’ll catch you before bed.”

  I have a handwritten map and a GPS app in my phone telling me which way to walk. I might get hit by a car, or kidnapped, because my focus is purely on my phone, but I still walk, and thank the universe that I was thinking ahead and pulled sweats on over my shorts. Back at home, I tended to just come and go in my workout clothes. In Mom’s car, out of Mom’s car, run straight inside. But not knowing exactly the way to go, I dressed in enough layers to fight the chill, and had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, in a sense, to find clothes that don’t have Roller logos.

  I had no clue how much apparel I’ve stolen from my family’s gym until now, when I’m trying to find something unbranded.

  It takes fifteen minutes to make my way from my dorm front doors down to a staircase that might literally stretch to Hell. I was expecting a gym, a shed of sorts, or at least a long-ago deserted church. But instead I find concrete stairs, and the only reason I know I’m heading in the right direction – because God forbid they have any kind of signage anywhere – is because two dudes walk ahead of me with training bags slung over their shoulders, and one of them is doing up his wrist wraps as he walks.

  The guys are a little older than me. Not a lot, but early twenties or so. They’re fit, and have the exact kind of bodies I’ve become accustomed to knowing. Had I arrived here and found a bunch of lazy old dudes, I’d have turned around and gone back to my dorm, but first impressions really are important, and so far, these guys are good advertising for the gym Reid called Sparta.

  I follow the guys down maybe a hundred steps, deep into a space under the ground of a city park. Perhaps it’s the subway. Or a deserted sewer. God knows, but I follow them until the sounds of home meet my ears and make me smile.

  Fists thudding against bodies.

  Invisible to the two guys, I follow them all the way into the concrete bunker and take a deep whiff. Ball-sweat and antiseptic. It’s my nirvana, and though I take a second to wonder if I have a mental deficiency, my eyes stop on an octagon, and my heart goes pitter-patter.

  “It’s real,” I whisper to myself. My hands tighten on the strap of my training bag. A girl grows up in a gym? She knows to always have a training bag. It’s as familiar to me as a purse is to my mom. Or donuts are to Aunt Tink. “Holy shit. It’s real.” I stand a little to the left of the doorway, so I’m out of the way, and study the two heavyweights that slam each other around a regulation-sized octagon.

  It’s like the fighters are supercharged. Like they both chugged coffee before this, and now they’re fighting for the world title. They’re easily Uncle Bobby’s size – two hundred and twenty, maybe two-thirty pounds. Six and a half feet of muscle and a deep hunger to win.

  One has inch-long hair that drips with sweat and sticks to his scalp, but his opponent cut to the chase and shaved his all off. His scalp is shiny with sweat, but so are his massive biceps and bulging thighs. The bald one wears UFC branded shorts, the training kind that look like underwear and stick to his body like a second skin. The other guy wears the shorts Biggie always wears; the kind that look like boardshorts for swimming, but with the split in the sides for functionality and movement.

  I’ve been in a gym just like this almost every single day since I was a toddler, so s
eeing large men whale on each other is hardly a thing in my eyes. The concrete floors, the smell of masculinity and sweat, none of it gives me pause as I make my way closer to the cage and my eyes are invariably drawn to the fighters’ feet.

  I have a thing for feet placement. It’s been drilled into me since the first time I stepped into the ring, so I’ve found myself over the years studying everyone else’s feet. But now, as I find myself standing just twenty inches from the cage and someone else’s sweat hits my chest, I find a pair of feet almost touching my face, because the guys grapple against the fence and the one with no hair uses the cage to lift and spin.

  They’re evenly matched. Equally skilled. Equally hungry for the win, and watching them is mesmerizing to me the way it isn’t to anyone else moving through the dimly lit gym.

  This is common occurrence, it would seem. But for me, it’s enough to stop me in my tracks and make me forget about my reasons for being here.

  “Wrap it up, guys!” An equally large dude, though younger than the two in the octagon, steps up to the cage, but stands about eight feet from me. “You have thirty seconds to finish it. You look like you’re rolling around in bed together.”

  My smile grows as the guy with the sweaty hair grabs Baldy – one hand on his arm, and another on his inside thigh. He lifts him up like he weighs nothing, holds him above his head for just a nanosecond, and then he slams him to the floor until the entire octagon shifts on its foundations.

  “Holy shit.”

  Baldy lays on his back in the center of the canvas, stunned from the throw and subsequent landing. His eyes remain on the ceiling, taking stock of his life choices as I come closer. Baldy is the loser, so my eyes go to the victor. To study him. To weigh him in my mind and prepare the speech I would give Biggie if this was in our gym.

  “Mmm. I knew you would come.” Reid steps up beside me in training shorts and nothing else. No shirt, no wraps, no mouthguard. His hair is sweaty, but nothing like the guys in the gym. It’s cold outside, but the walls down here are thick, and the body heat has nowhere to escape except up the stairs I just used.

  “Who’s the dude with dark hair?”

  “That’s Baker, and he’s one of our contenders.”

  I frown. “Contenders for what? I don’t know his face.”

  Reid smiles and drops his hands to his trim hips. “We don’t fight for the bigwigs. We do our own thing, since sometimes, our guys have trouble with the law or whatever.”

  I turn to him with a lifted brow. “Your guys are criminals?” I wave him off and head straight back toward the doors. “Not interested.”

  “No, wait.” He grabs my arm and swings me around so my bag smacks my thigh. “Not big-bads or anything. But the official circuit doesn’t want a guy with a rap sheet for assault, right? They frown on that, which means he can’t compete above ground, I suppose we could say.”

  “You have a gym full of criminals with anger issues.” I give a humorless laugh and snatch my arm from his hold. “Like I said, no thanks.”

  “Stop.” He grabs me again when I turn away. “I’m not talking about beating on just anybody for any old reason. I’m just saying, a couple guys get unlucky. Like Baker, for example. This dude was dating his sister, right? But the dude had a thing for putting women in their place… with his fists. First time was brushed off as an accident, second time, she stayed holed up at home until she was yellow, instead of black and blue. Third time, Baker walked in at the exact right moment, took the baseball bat from the dude’s hands, and delivered on the promises the abusive asshole had made. He was charged for assault, but it was later seen in court and they went light on punishment, since the whole world knew he was defending his sister. But a felony is a felony, and now he’s in our gym, rather than, say, yours.”

  My eyes narrow to slits as I try to read the truth in his words. My eyes go back to the guys in the octagon, then to Reid. “Do you knowingly train women-beaters? Have you ever turned a blind eye to someone that puts his girl in her place?”

  He shakes his head with steely finality. “No. Never. We’ve had guys come through who think they’re the shit, but if we get a weird vibe from him, we boot him.”

  “Do you train active criminals? Guys who sell drugs, or jack cars, or steal shit and sell it elsewhere at a discount? If the police wanted to raid this place right now, would you sweat?”

  He turns just a fraction to his right and studies the large room with narrowed eyes. When a guy in blue shorts and a black hat drops his heavy bar and swipes the sweat from his brow, Reid points, and meets my eyes. “Dude over there? Jameson. He’s the police. He makes sure our place stays classy.”

  “And the women?” I ask. “If I ask any of them questions, in private, and promise there’ll be no blowback on them, what are they gonna tell me? That they’re getting their asses slapped while training? That they can’t take a shirt off to train in a sports bra, because the guys lose their minds and won’t stop looking? Will I find any disrespect at all?”

  “I mean…” He flashes a grin and chuckles. “Sometimes, when one of them gets a new bra, and it has cute patterns on it or something…”

  I narrow my eyes.

  “We don’t scam on the women!” he laughs. “Jesus, do you hit every gym this hard?”

  “I come from royalty,” I smart, “and you’re trying to convince me that your gym stands up. The bar has been set high, and I don’t like wasting my time, so…”

  “Join the seven o’clock class,” he presses. “It’s guys and girls, a circuit setup, with combat techniques thrown in for fun. Instead of me telling you that we’re good, we’ll show you. First week is free, and after that, you pay up.”

  “Who owns this place?”

  “My brother.” He points back to the men in the octagon. He points to Baker. “Kyle Baker knows his shit.” He grins. “And so do I.”

  “Your brother.” My breath comes out on a dizzying exhale. “So your sister–”

  “Is single, and perfectly happy staying that way for now.” He nods toward a woman that looks to be twenty-five or so. She has black hair that hangs to her shoulder blades, and shoulders that imply she likes to lift. “She’s also capable now. She knows how to fuck a guy up if he decides he’d like to take a swing.”

  They enable the women in their lives.

  They protect abused women.

  “Shit.”

  “I got you now, don’t I?” He brings his arms in to fold over his chest. “I knew I would. I told you I was confident.”

  I look at the clock on the wall and bite my lip while I think. It’s ten minutes to seven. “Classes go for an hour?”

  He nods. “Thereabouts. Sometimes we run over, but not by a lot. We have lots of kids from campus, and we know the brainiacs need their sleep. Plus, you know, athletes need to rest.”

  I turn back and study Kyle Baker as he helps his opponent stand, and when they clap shoulders and pull it in for a hug, I can’t help the way my head nods. It’s involuntary, and probably a bad choice, but it happens anyway.

  “Okay. Give me five to put my things away.”

  “We don’t have lockers, per se. But we have a space where you can change, so long as you’re quick or don’t mind other chicks seeing you. Men stay out of the ladies’, and the ladies stay out of the men’s. Bring your bag back out with you and toss it against a wall, out of the way. If you need to nervous pee, you have to run back outside and find a tree or something.”

  “Wow… okay.” I didn’t have to nervous pee, but now that the option has been taken away from me…

  I walk toward the far wall, not so far from Jameson-the-cop, and kneel down to begin taking my sneakers off. There are other women moseying around in booty shorts and sports bras, so I don’t feel out of place when I peel my pants down and shove them into my bag.

  I leave my tank on, and grabbing my phone, I shoot a fast text to Ben: I’m here. Class starts at seven, and they said it’ll end somewhere around eight, but sometimes they r
un over. So don’t panic if I’m late calling. Wish me luck!

  Ben: Luck. Anyone being weird? Would you recommend the place to, say, Bean?

  He’s testing me, because he knows I’d never recommend a shady place to someone I love.

  Me: So far so good. I haven’t trained yet, but everything seems fine so far. I’ll see you on the other side.

  I toss my phone into my bag, and take a second to wonder if my things are safe, but everyone else is leaving their shit by the walls, so I stand in bare feet and reach up to tie my hair back.

  “Ready?” Reid stops beside me with an encouraging smile. “Classes are being held right here.” He points over my shoulder, to an open space of rubber mats about a hundred and fifty square feet wide. At the very back of the room are hanging bars and brackets to hold your weights for lifts. “Buckets are in the corner, if you need one.”

  I narrow my eyes. “I won’t need a bucket. Jesus. I haven’t been out that long.”

  He chuckles. “I meant with chalk, sassy pants. Your hands are probably gonna get sore. Come on.” He doesn’t touch me, though I’m certain the thought passed through his mind for a split second. Not a pervy touch, but the kind where he’d tap my shoulder and steer me in the right direction. But he thinks better of it, and keeps them to himself.

  “Don’t mention my family,” I murmur as we come closer. “I didn’t come here to talk about them, so if you think this’ll be like tha–”

  “I won’t say a thing.” He makes a little cross over his heart. “Your hair is kinda noticeable, but if you don’t mention your name, they probably won’t connect you to Kincaid.”

  “Call me Katie.” It’s the name I was born with, after all. “Obviously you know my name, so it’s whatever. But, ya know, keep it discreet for the masses.”

  “How about I just call you ‘Curls’?”

  He chuckles when my eyes narrow to slits.

  “Alright, folks. Fall in.”

  I stop with surprise when I realize everyone snaps to attention at his words.