Chapter 1
chapter
one
Some people really don’t know when to tap out.
Rolling my eyes, I step over the guy passed out in the middle of the gym’s octagonal cage. He could have walked out of here, if he’d just had the sense to quit while he was behind.
Eh. Maybe.
Depends on my mood, I guess.
After winning four straight sparring matches, I should be feeling pretty fucking good right now.
That’s when I hear them. Two of the little bitches from the featherweight division. They’ve been watching me for the last three rounds, whispering in the corner like middle-schoolers at a dance.
“They call him Ghost ,” I hear one of them hiss.
Jesus . Again with the nicknames.
Ignoring them, I shove my shit into my duffle bag. Gym rules dictate that we clean up our own bodily fluids, so I swipe my sweat off the bench and then my chest.
I’m not thorough because fuck this place . I’ve always said it’s too nice in here, but leave it to the Thorne Pack to make my punk ass fight in a bougie gym like this one.
There aren’t even any beat-up lockers or smelly punching bags. No, this place is all shiny black vinyl fencing and steel pillars. With the gym’s logo printed on the custom canvas stretched on the bottom of the cage.
Huh.
Guess I did get a lot of blood on that.
Not my fault this fucker is a bleeder, though. He can clean it when he wakes up.
If he wakes up.
Whatever. With what my pack pays for my membership here, they can afford a new canvas. Besides, no one would miss the printed one. Their dumb logo is all over the place. Some pretentious bullshit displaying the name I’ve never bothered remembering because I don’t belong to this place.
I don’t belong to anyone, and that’s the way I fucking like it.
The bitch boys in the corner keep talking their shit. “I heard he doesn’t even have a coach. How the fuck did he get called up without a coach?”
I almost smile. On the inside.
News must be getting around. I figured it was only a matter of time before they all heard about me moving up. I wonder when the crows will start circling. Looking for tender places to pick meat off my bones.
Idiots. Don’t they know why people call me Ghost?
The second I look at them, they both clam up. The metallic tang of fear fills the room as I sling my bag over my shoulder, shove past them, and leave the guy I defeated lying in the ring behind me.
As a warning.
Why the fuck am I here?
I ask myself all the time.
Every morning I shower under a rain faucet head in a marble fucking bathroom. Every time I start the 1965 Mustang Tristan bought for my twenty-fifth birthday. Every time I have to put on a goddamn tie.
Why. Am. I. Here?
There’s something wrong with me. Many things. I know that. Alphas are supposed to want a pack, other strong alphas to have their backs.
I never wanted it. People are annoying. Other alphas enrage mine.
Those dominant instincts lying dormant in my chest? They hate breathing air with these guys. They want me to fight .
Which is really all I ever want, too.
Plus, I hate fish.
I’d bet my left nut that the sea bass filet Jonah has in the pan costs more cash than I have in my wallet.
Okay, so I don’t have a wallet . But whatever. My pocket.
At the moment, I don’t have those, either. Exercise shorts and tank tops ripped halfway down the sides are about as close as I get to dressing around here.
I’m not sure what my aversion to “real clothes” is. I’m sure Spencer has his theories.
Audacious for the guy to spout psycho-babble at us while he’s the most fucked-up person in this house.
Maybe .
It could be a three-way tie.
Jonah is the only normal-ass alpha around here. Came from a good family, finished school. No arrests. No scandals.
And now he’s “successful” and bored out of his fucking mind. So what does that tell you?
Seems like his only form of amusement these days is getting on my ass. “You have blood on your cheek. Use a napkin,” he grunts, tossing one at me.
My scowl pulls into a full-on glower. But the bastard just smirks.
He thinks the fact that I’m a roiling volcano of rage is hilarious .
If I had to point to one specific reason why I ended up here, it would be his unconquerable amusement. When we met, I was twenty-one, fighting in underground matches because I had too many arrests to get into the real ones.
I got the absolute shit kicked out of me one night. And while I was lying on the concrete outside the ring, waiting for my soul to leave my body, some big-ass Jason-Momoa-looking motherfucker stepped right over me. He stopped and glanced down at my bloody hamburger-esque face.
And then he smiled .
It was deranged.
I liked that.
I wouldn’t exactly say we were friends at first. He started coming to my matches. Told me he liked watching my “punk ass” get “beat to hell. ”
Then, it was a flask ringside after a couple victories. A couple rounds of pancakes at shitty diners. He didn’t even tell me he was a famous NFL player until the day he came into the shop where I worked my day job, demanding I sketch up a sleeve of tribal tattoos for him.
I would have told the guy to get fucked, but it was a slow day.
Now, he has ink all over his arms, shoulders, and chest. Nothing like my blackened body. But most of his work is mine.
Since that first appointment, he refuses to go to anyone else. Says my designs are “visionary.” And “shocking, for someone who gets hit in the head so often.”
Dick .
It’s his fault I’m about to choke down some precious fish dish. His fault that I’m here , in this fancy-ass townhouse. The ugly, jagged scar on the face of this otherwise good-looking pack.
He simply doesn’t take no for an answer. Never gives up on any of us.
Like a fucking weirdo.
Or maybe just someone… nice .
Oblivious to my seething—or, probably, ignoring it—Jonah moves on to prepping asparagus and asks, “You have a fight next month, right?”
I flash two fingers, making a point not to look at him. After five years as an amateur champion, my first UFC contract is about to come into effect. Meaning next month’s fights are the real fucking deal.
About time, if you ask me.
Jonah leaves his amber eyes on my face, frowning under his dark brown beard. “You hire a coach yet, Ave?”
Jesus Christ. Not him, too.
The pack has been begging me to hire a coach for fucking ever. Well, Tristan and Jonah have; Spencer doesn’t care. According to him, it’s my business if I want to be “an obvious idiot” and/or “a suicidal lunatic.” As long as I don’t get blood on any of the furniture, he usually acts like my career never occurs to him. He’s never deigned to attend a match.
Tristan, on the other hand, never misses one. Our pack leader has always treated the fighting as a profession. I guess that’s technically true now, but I still want to smirk at that phrase.
My career .
Ha . More like finding a way to get paid for liking pain.
Because, fuck me, I really do .
The giving, the receiving. I’m not picky.
Seeing my answer all over my face, Jonah grumbles his disapproval for a second and then smirks again. “Excellent. I’ll get some cash out to bet on the other guys.”
He says that every time. Even back when I wasn’t good enough for the amateur league, he perpetually placed ridiculous bets on me and gave me all the money when I won.
It’s ironic as hell that I’m a paid fighter now. After years of scrapping and starving and whatever other bullshit—I’m making money when I don’t really need it anymore.
Being a part of the Thorne pack comes with limitless credit cards, cabinets that are always full of food, and a butler who does all our chores and runs every errand. I quit my old day job at Suburban Ink two years ago and haven’t touched any of my prize money in years.
I snort, trying not to be too amused by this asshole.
After all, my greatest strength as a fighter?
I don’t care.
About me. Or anyone.
And that’s why I win.