by Addison Jane
Repo said we were safe here.
He said we were safe.
Meyah looked around the room, her eyes fixating on a few things before falling back on me. “It’s okay. They often swap out their dealers. I think Dan, the man, just got a little nervous being in our presence.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced a smile. “He was sweating a lot.”
We all fell into easy laughter, but my body, it was still extremely alert, unable to brush away the anxious feeling that was building in my veins. It was making my heart pump faster, harder, shooting adrenaline through my veins and keeping me on edge.
It was a few minutes before another dealer joined the table. The girls and I were focused on the chips and the deck of cards that Dakota had stolen from the table and was casually flipping through, as they explained in more detail when and how to bid, which cards were important, and which ones were a waste of time.
“Sorry, ladies.”
I froze for a second before my eyes flicked up. He was wearing the dealer’s uniform, looking almost the part if it hadn’t been for the fact that his hair was scraggly and disheveled, and when he smiled, he had more than a couple of teeth missing.
“Pipes,” I growled, my hands gripping the table. “The hell are you doing here.”
The girls were both confused, but Dakota was already sitting straight and leaning her body closer to me.
“We’ve missed you.” He chuckled, his disgusting and sick grin growing wider, acting as another shot to my stomach.
“Come on,” Dakota urged, grabbing my arm and encouraging me to climb down from the stool I was on, her eyes quickly searching the room around us, trying to figure the best escape. But before I could even get off the seat, another body slipped in between Meyah and me, grabbing my wrist and pinning it to the table.
I couldn’t look.
I knew what I’d find if I did.
“Fancy seeing you here.” His voice instantly made me want to be sick. It may have only been a few weeks, but God help me if I’d never heard it again in my life, I would have been happy. I flinched, not sure what I was going to do, but he put a halt to it all pretty fast. “Wouldn’t move if I were you, Kennedy,” he warned, nodding down to where he had his gun pulled beneath the table, tucked away so the people around us couldn’t see it, but pointed directly at Meyah’s stomach.
Our eyes met, and he grinned. He was dressed in his usual jeans and some kind of dirty and stained shirt, but his cut was missing. He’d come in here without his colors, most likely to avoid drawing attention.
“Don’t you dare,” I growled, my voice catching. Dakota squeezed my hand, continuing to keep herself pressed against my back in support.
“When are you gonna learn, Kennedy?” he mused, shaking his head and looking at me as if he was the cat that got the cream. He was so fucking proud of himself. “When you form relationships with people, that’s just another way for someone to hurt you.”
“Fuck you!” I hissed, clenching my fist, wishing that it was just him and me. If I had to go down fighting, I would, but goddammit, I would do whatever I had to try and take him down with me. Unfortunately, though, he was right. I had two women here with me who I cared about, whose men I’d come to care about, and who I refused to let get mixed up in my shit.
Crow chuckled, reaching out with his hand and tucking a strand of hair back behind my ear as if he was some kind of gentleman. He wasn’t, though. He never would be.
His fingers stroked back through my hair before he quickly grasped a handful and tugged tightly, bringing tears instantly to my eyes and drawing me closer. “You should have just kept doing what you did best… spreading those pretty fucking legs and appreciating what we fucking gave you.” Isolation is the key to breaking anything and Crow, he kept us all that way. Even though I had Laken and Brooklyn, they were just as broken as I was, unable to see anything other than what it was that we had. Crow, proud as hell of himself, turned to look at Meyah and winked. “Sometimes I even let her come. That’s how fucking nice I was.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Meyah responded darkly, her tone one I hadn’t experienced yet. I could see why she was Shake’s old lady, staring directly at Crow, not for a moment expressing any sign she was scared and letting him know exactly that. “And tonight, you made the wrong move,” she taunted and shook her head as she turned back to the table. Her fingers shuffled the chips in front of her like she was completely unafraid of the damage that this man could do.
My heart was already in my throat.
Because I knew just what damage he could do.
And I knew just what he was willing to do in order to get what he wanted.
But I also knew what I was willing to do in order to protect these two girls, who had done nothing but welcome Brooklyn and me into their family like we’d always been there. I wouldn’t let him hurt them.
Crow snorted and shoved me away, finally releasing his grip on my hair. The stool I was on leaned back, but Dakota quickly righted it, holding me tightly. “Seems like your men made the wrong move when they left you unattended in this huge room.”
“Depends what your definition of unattended is,” Dakota shot back casually, squeezing my hand a little tighter as if she was trying to reassure me. “There’s a lot of people in this room.”
Things had changed in the past few weeks. Before this, I was fighting every day just to make it to the next day. I was holding my breath and kicking for the surface of the water, but still really not knowing whether when I finally got there, if I would be able to breathe, or if Crow had filled the air with toxins.
Now, though, I’d had a taste of how good things could be. I’d had a breath of fresh fucking air. And I wasn’t going back.
You don’t really realize just how alone you are until you suddenly find yourself surrounded by people who want to help you, who want to care about you, and who don’t judge the life choices that you made before.
“It’s getting a little crowded in here,” he announced as three more club members joined us at the table, all dressed in employee uniforms. “Let’s take this party somewhere else, shall we?” He climbed down off the stool, his gun still held close to his body and hidden by the poker table. “Get down.”
Dakota continued to hold my hand as I climbed down from the stool, and he put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it tightly and forcing us toward the swinging double doors at the back of the room that said Staff Only. It was there where food tended to come from, where rubbish was removed, and where the employees would go to switch shifts.
I had a pretty good idea it more than likely led out the back of the building where there would be a kitchen, and more than likely a back alley and service entrance.
That was bad.
I tried to slow down, putting the brakes on a little, but all that earned me was a blow to the back of the head from Crow’s fist which sent me sprawling forward onto the linoleum floor. I tried to get my hands under me, but his heavy boots found my ribcage, his kick so hard that it practically lifted me up off the floor.
“Stop it!” Meyah screamed, trying to get to me, but Pipes moved faster, pressing his gun to her temple and forcing her to freeze.
I coughed and choked trying not to vomit everywhere. I tried to fight the nausea and the pain, sweat forming at my hairline as I forced it all back down.
“What’s going on here?” I heard a soft voice ask.
“Nothing, man. Security asked us to remove these girls. They’re drunk as fucking hell and this one almost vomited all over one of the tables.”
I wanted to scream ‘no’ to tell whoever it was to get fucking help, but I couldn’t risk it. I knew at least two of the guys had guns, and I knew that Crow didn’t care how many people he had to kill to get what he wanted.
“Yuck! Good call throwing them out the back with the trash,” the young guy said with disgust, his footsteps tiptoeing by as if he thought I was going to be sick on him.
I heard a
door swing closed. “Get her back onto her fucking feet.”
My eyes were watering, and I was fighting to keep my breathing normal, the blow to the head mixed with the kick to the stomach had me fucking wondering if I was even capable of moving. Hands grabbed at me, and I knew instantly they weren’t the boys. They were gentler. Dakota and Meyah gathered me up, taking an arm each as they pulled me to my feet.
“Kennedy, it’s okay, we got this,” Dakota encouraged with a whisper in my ear, and her arm wrapped securely around my waist. “It’s gonna be all right.”
In my head, I wasn’t really sure how she was so calm and so sure that we were gonna get out of this. We continued walking down the hall, the white walls reminding me of the corridors in a hospital. Maybe they were, maybe I was actually fucking crazy, and I hadn’t let this man get a hold of me once again with the absolute possibility that he could ruin or even take my fucking life. The girls continued to hold onto me as we made our way through the short maze. The guys seemed to know where they were going like they’d spent a lot of time studying the place, getting to know it—just fucking waiting for us.
I looked up as a couple of men pushed open two heavy doors at the end of a loading dock. They pulled them and hooked them back, giving us a wide view of the alleyway behind the casino. I could see four bikes and a van parked off to the side.
Crow came to stand in front of me, hooking his finger under my chin and lifting my face so I was looking up at him. That was how he fucking liked it. He was a narcissistic bastard who needed to feel powerful, to feel like the spotlight was fucking on him. And even when he cowered, because when I’d sat and thought about it for a while, I realized that there were times that he did. Times where he hid away when he sent others to do his dirty work and refused to get his own hands dirty or risk taking a bullet to the head.
He was a coward.
A coward who was so fucking good at manipulating people into thinking the opposite.
“Where’s Brooklyn?”
The question surprised me, and I frowned as I tried to compute what he was saying.
Why was he concerned about where Brooklyn was?
I took too long.
The back of his hand collected my cheek, the heavy-set rings he wore making it feel like my cheek was exploding. Luckily, Meyah and Dakota caught me before I collapsed, Meyah passing me over to Dakota before placing herself in front of me.
“Meyah, don’t,” I hissed.
Crow ignored her like he was looking straight through her, his eyes locked onto me like a fucking heat-seeking missile. “Where the fuck is Brooklyn, Kennedy?”
There was no way in hell I was telling him where she was.
And I was about to tell him that in no uncertain terms, but a deep voice cut in, clearing his throat.
“Man, that ain’t the way to treat a pretty lady.”
REPO
When we got back in the elevator, I noticed the thing we’d missed when we’d come upstairs.
The reason Myth had instantly been on edge.
“Demonstration match and signing autographs,” I snorted as I leaned in, taking a good look at the poster which was taped to the wall. “The Jester.”
Myth shook his head. “It’s been years since he fought on the circuit around here. Why the fuck do they still have him doing this kind of shit?”
Shake sighed, looking down at his phone with a frown. “Because it’s just a way for them to explain why he’s in town, when he’s actually here to fight.” He looked back up at us. “Turns out The Jester is the main attraction downstairs tonight, and he’s drawn in a fucking crowd and a half.”
The elevators dinged at the ground floor, and the doors slid open. We all stepped out, but I turned to Myth and grabbed his shoulder, turning him to face me. “You sure you still want to go take a look? There’s gonna be a lot of people down there cheering for him to win, and if he spots you, who the fuck knows what his crazy ass is gonna do.”
We’d already given the boys the run down in the hallway about what was going on and the challenge that had been made. They were all cautious, but none of us were willing to let him go check this shit out alone.
Myth shuffled on his feet, clicking his neck back and forth like he was in the ring, preparing for a fucking fight. “I need to see it. I need to see what his fight is like, what he’s like, whether I think that if I agree, I’ll walk out alive.”
Myth took his fighting seriously. He fucking studied it. He didn’t talk himself up, he didn’t gloat about being the best. He just worked fucking hard, and when it came down to it, he knew his limits.
“I got our names put on the door. There’s some tickets waiting for us,” Shake acknowledged, tucking his cell into his back pocket. “And I made sure they were aware of the girls in the casino, and they watched out for them.”
I nodded. “Good.” The last thing I needed right now was to be worrying about Kennedy when I was about to head into what could ultimately turn into a really fucking dangerous environment if things got too heated. At least, I knew that there was someone looking out for her. Not just anyone by any means, either.
The fight didn’t start for at least another thirty minutes, so we headed toward the bar and had a couple of drinks, part of me hoping that would cool Myth down a little before we went downstairs. Even the air and the atmosphere in the hotel was different, and I wasn’t quite sure why. There were underground fights here often. But it was something about this one that was throwing everything off.
“Let’s go,” Shake urged when a little time had ticked by, and we knew the fight was starting.
We got up and walked across the expansive tiled room, the elaborate decorations and shit, not exactly what I would pick.
Kennedy was pretty right on the money questioning why the hell a place like this catered to assholes like us. The reason that we got so well looked after when we were at this particular hotel and casino? Because the Exiled Eight built the entire fucking place.
Not only that, but they built it for very wealthy owners, with very particular specifications. There were parts of this place that you would never find on any public knowledge building plans, and that you would never expect to find within a place that’s so pristine, so elegant, and proper.
But that was the point.
They didn’t want you to know that underneath the casino there was a miniature type stadium, one that held close to eight hundred people with an octagon in the center.
We followed Ripley down the back hall. We let him take the lead on this one since the bouncers here knew him more than others, given the relationship and the fact the Exiled Eight worked security here.
“Rip.” The guy at the elevator nodded, stepping forward with his hand out. He was at least a foot taller than my six-foot-something stature and probably three times as wide. The thing was, though, it seemed as though most of it was fucking muscle, there wasn’t a damn roll on him. Did he even have a fucking neck or was his head just sitting on his shoulders? Rip took his hand, shaking it hard before stepping back. “Good to see ya.”
“You, too,” Rip answered before pointing to the elevator doors. “Shake said there was a call made about us getting a couple seats to the main event?”
The guy nodded. I guess he had a neck. “Yeah, man, go ahead.” He hit the button to bring it to our floor. “Hope you’re ready to witness a whole lot of fucking crazy coming from a boatload of goddamn stupid.”
Myth grinned. “You not a Jester fan?”
He let out a loud laugh like a fucking foghorn. “Trust me, ain’t no real Jester fans. There’re people who like money, and like that the crazy bastard makes them a lot of it. But he’s psychotic. The last fight he did a few months ago, knocked a guy out, and then instead of walking away the victor, he jumped up and down on the guys back until it snapped.”
“Fuck!” I cursed, looking at Myth and shaking my head. “No fucking way in hell.”
He met my eyes, but he didn’t even flinch, which meant he was
still considering this shit.
He was thinking about getting in a fucking ring with this bastard.
Myth didn’t fight these kinds of fights. The underground he was involved in, they had laws, and they had rules that were enforced by the guys running the competitions. You either abided by them, or these guys had no problem making sure you never fought again.
They were scary bastards, but when it came to the fight, they played fair.
Outside, that was another story.
The problem with these fights that The Jester was involved in, they were blood fights. They didn’t have referees like a normal fight. They didn’t have someone in there saying enough is enough. You didn’t leave that fucking cage until one guy either tapped out, got knocked out, or he was fucking dead. And it was becoming fucking obvious that even then, this guy wasn’t satisfied.
I raised a brow. “He that good?”
The guy turned to me, his eyes flicking around as if he was nervous of who might hear him talk. “My opinion? He’s good, but… no, he ain’t that good. His mind games are his play. He has this weird ability to get inside the other guy’s head, distract him, get him fighting hard instead of fighting smart.”
“Jesus Christ,” Myth cursed under his breath, tilting his head just a little to look me in the eye. His hands were clenched by his sides. He was not fucking happy. “I didn’t even know that they held blood fights here.”
The bouncer screwed up his nose. “As far as I know, this is the first. A lot of places won’t do them for the fact of how hard the law will crush them if they find out. But from what I heard, the price for this fight, in particular, was too high to turn down.”
This changed things again. This threw more questions out there, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to them.
“These people, they fucking come to watch one guy kill the other, it’s blood sport, it’s like an addiction for a lot of them,” Ripley explained, leaning back against the wall. “I’ve spent my fair share of time right here, working security for fights, and I don’t even know if want to fucking go down there.”
