Possession (Constantine Brothers #1)

1. Lucas

ONE

Lucas

I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but I’m not sure why. Yeah, the fight that’s about to take place is obviously illegal as shit, but that’s not what’s bothering me.

It’s Frank.

My stepfather.

What the hell was I thinking coming here with him? There’s a reason—a thousand reasons—I didn’t see him for six years. Even before my mom died, Frank made it very fucking clear that he didn’t want me.

And the very day my mom was in the ground, he told me to get out of his house. I was eighteen, he reminded me, an adult, and he wasn’t my father anyway.

So why the hell, when he called me out of the blue for the first time in six years, was I such an eager fucking puppy?

I mean, fuck, I started crying when he said he wanted to “right the wrongs of the past.” I could barely breathe when he told me he was sorry about how he acted after my mom died, that he wasn’t thinking, that it was grief, etc.

Was I so desperate to hear those words that I experienced a temporary amnesia about my entire fucking childhood?

Apparently. Because I let him pick me up from my shithole apartment to take me “somewhere cool.” I actually believed him when he said he wanted to reconnect.

In a way, though, we have. We’ve reconnected to exactly what we were before: nothing. Uncomfortably, awkwardly nothing. It was painfully obvious during the entire forty-minute drive that took us out of the city. (I did not expect that. If I’d known we were leaving the city, I’d have said no.)

So what have you been up to? That’s what he asked me in the car.

What have I been up to ? For six years ? What I’ve been up to is trying to figure out whether my life is worth living.

But of course I said, Nothing. Working.

What do you do?

Mop floors.

I shouldn’t have looked at him when I said it. I think I thought I was being defiant with it. Bold, or some shit. Like it was tough of me to say that to him with his hand gripping the leather steering wheel of his Porsche. Like I was owning it.

I think I thought that when he wrinkled his nose, I would sneer back at him. Like maybe I’d say that all his money from his investment banking bullshit only made it so my mom could pop pills and look how that turned out.

Instead, I just felt like shit, and fuck was it familiar. That’s how I always felt around Frank: simultaneously invisible and in the way. Like something that just shouldn’t exist. Like if I didn’t, it would be better for everyone. For him. For Mom. Maybe for me too.

Why the hell did I think things would be any different now? I mean, seriously, what did I think was going to happen? That we’d have some heart-to-heart and I’d feel like someone gave a shit about me?

Idiot.

Really, though, what is happening?

Is Frank really into this underground fighting scene? I’ve seen shit like this before, and it’s always ugly.

I know because I considered getting into it. I thought because I wrestled in high school, maybe I could make some money. Mopping floors at a gym doesn’t exactly pay a lot, and I didn’t want to end up back on the streets. Besides, since the gym owner lets me use the equipment, I’m in pretty good shape right now. The idea made sense in my head.

Until I saw a guy get his back broken. That changed my mind.

Of course, this operation is clearly on a different level than the parking garage fights I’ve witnessed, where the ring is formed by the shouting crowd. In places like that, I can stay pretty invisible in my ratty jeans, Converse high tops, and black hoodie.

Here, Frank actually blends in better than I do.

Though some of the milling crowd is rough, there are plenty of suits covering soft, middle-aged bodies like Frank’s. Lots of unremarkable faces like his, Botoxed back to their early forties. Lots of women in slinky dresses hanging off their arms like my mom used to hang off Frank’s. Lots of money.

The stakes must be high. I guess that’s what Frank is into. He always did like gambling.

But why bring me?

I don’t fit with his image, and I don’t fit with the rougher elements of this crowd either. The guys in leather and blazers over their t-shirts would scare the shit out of the street creeps I’m used to. They definitely scare the shit out of me.

“What is this?” I ask Frank, but he can’t hear me over the thumping techno beat and the general noise of several hundred people. The atmosphere is like a pop-up nightclub without the dancing. It’s dim, with multicolored lights slashing through the air and a spotlight on the pre-fight entertainment in the cage, where two women in high heels and bikinis are doing a lot of slapping, staggering, and hair pulling. A bikini top is grabbed and a pair of large, fake tits bounce into sight.

The crowd loves it. I look away.

“What is this?” I repeat, leaning near to be heard. When my arm brushes Frank’s, I jolt back. Frank and I don’t touch. We never have. I very rarely touch anyone. Honestly, I don’t know how . My hookup last fall was awkward as hell and didn’t end well.

“A fight,” Frank answers without really looking at me. Except for looking me up and down as I got in his car and commenting that I’m “still a good-looking kid,” he’s barely looked at me at all tonight.

“I know it’s a fight,” I say, “but why are we here?”

Why am I here? That’s what I really want to ask, but for some reason I don’t.

Frank either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to. When he starts moving through the crowd, I stay where I am. Something feels off. I don’t like this. I want to leave.

Frank backtracks and grabs my elbow. “You need to stay with me.”

“This isn’t my scene,” I retort, yanking free. “I’m just gonna get an Uber or something.”

“I told you this place is no phones.”

Yeah, he made me leave mine in his car, but why can’t I just go get it?

“Look,” he says, “I didn’t spend money having a PI track you down just to lose you now, and nobody’s going to drive you all the way to the Bronx anyway. Now come on, there’s someone I have to talk to.”

Frank doesn’t grab at me again, but he jerks his head for me to follow. He waits until I move my feet, and what else am I gonna do? I mean, he’s right. Nobody’s going to pick me up here and drive me to the city, even if I could afford it. And as much as I don’t want to be here with Frank, I also don’t want to be here by myself. This place is dangerous.

With no great alternative, I follow Frank as he makes his way to what I assume is the bathroom. When I follow him inside, however, I see it’s actually a locker room, or used to be, and it’s not empty.

I stop dead as the door swings shut behind me. There are two men in the locker room, but it’s not the one standing guard with a holstered gun that has my heart leaping into my throat. It’s the one sitting on the bench, unarmed and barefoot, leaning down with his forearms on his thighs. He’s wearing only black pants—and some kind of electric collar.

He doesn’t look up, not when we enter, not even when the guard greets Frank as “Mr. Prescott.” He just stares at the tiled floor.

The guy is fucking huge . Even sitting down, it’s obvious. He’s crazy lean, but he’s got a ton of muscle. An ugly scar slashes across his right pec, and I glimpse lash marks on what I can see of his back. His dark hair is tightly buzz cut, and dark stubble shadows his strong jaw.

The scars are unsettling enough, but why the hell is he wearing a collar? The black strap bands his corded neck, and a green light blinks periodically at his throat.

“Lucas.”

When I jump at my name, the big guy looks up. Even though his lean, ruggedly handsome face remains expressionless, his dark eyes focus on me with such intensity that I shiver.

I glance at Frank, who motions for me to follow as he and the guard move out of the locker area toward the showers. Frank gives the collared man a wide berth. So do I as I follow, not wanting to be left alone with the man on the bench.

His eyes never leave me as I go to stand at the juncture of the locker area and the aisle running along the showering bay. There, Frank and the guard are talking quietly like they don’t want the collared man to hear them.

I don’t think he’s trying to listen to them anyway. His focus is still entirely on me. Why is he staring at me like that?

I shove my hands in my pockets and hunch my shoulders. Fuck my phone. Fuck the drizzly March night. I should just walk my ass out of here—because whatever this is about? It’s obviously not about me and Frank reconnecting, and the fact that I was even tempted by that idea makes me feel really fucking stupid.

I have nothing and no one, and it’s better to just own that fact. I’m alone. I always have been.

Fuck, why is this guy still staring at me?

I can feel it even before I glance at him again.

And why is he wearing that collar like he’s not even human? I don’t care how scary he looks or how empty and dangerous his eyes are, it’s wrong. I don’t like it.

I also don’t like whatever is going on with Frank and the guard. I rip my eyes away from the dark ones watching me to see the fat stack of cash that Frank hands over. The guard is taller than Frank and better built. If it weren’t for the guy on the bench, he’d look big. He’d look scary as shit too in all that black with a gun at his hip—because it’s becoming more and more obvious that all of this is highly organized. Professional.

This is some kind of mafia shit.

I need to get the hell out of here.

“So what’s my guarantee?” Frank asks.

“You’re free to test it out, Prescott.”

My eyes jump to the guard’s hand as he opens a pocket of his cargo pants and shows Frank the capped tip of a syringe.

Frank edges back. “You know you won’t get the rest until I cash out my bet.”

“I suggest you fuck off, Prescott, before I lose my patience like you’ve lost all your money.”

I scuttle out of the way as Frank almost backs into me. I don’t need to be told to move. There’s nothing I want more than to get out of here.

Away from Frank.

Away from that guard.

Away from the man in the collar, whose eyes track me all the way to the door.