40. Summer
Chapter 40
Summer
I glance down at my phone before I scan the crowd. Kieran’s been gone for over forty minutes, and I am one more fight away from demanding Cormac go search for him. What is taking so long? He wouldn’t detain Riku longer than he needs to, right?
Blood appears, trickling from a cut above one of the fighter’s brows as he’s pressed into the floor. His dark skin is wet with sweat as it drips down the sides of his sideburns and farther into his beard before splashing off his chin. His eyes narrow, and in the short time I’ve been here, I know that look. The fight is nowhere near over.
They’re relentless. Pushing each to the limit, swinging, dodging, and swinging again. I wonder what it would be like to see Kieran in a fight. Utterly terrifying I suppose, but also, with the air charged with competition, the possibility feels riveting.
Each round seems to blur into the next, and my heart pounds when one of the men is knocked out cold. The raw primal energy that hackles up from the crowd is unnerving, but I can’t seem to tear my attention away.
I lean into Cormac without straying from the fight. “Don’t you think he should be finished by now?”
Cormac shifts. From my proximity or my question, I’m not sure. “Probably. Why? Worried about him?” He winks at me.
“Aren’t you?”
A woman in a short cocktail dress walks past, lingering around Cormac. He adjusts his tweed sport coat and rolls his shoulders. I cast him a weary look, pulling my phone back up and typing out a message to Kieran.
Where are you?
Nothing. No response.
Just then, the referee yells out, “Tap out!” and the crowd jumps into the air, shouting and screaming. Even the leather sofa groans as it’s jostled across the concrete floor by those surging forward.
When I glance up?—
Wait …
Riku slinks on the opposite side of the ring. He’s hard to miss with his tightly shaved head and tattooed face.
I fumble next to me, grappling to grab Cormac’s arm. When he finally understands where I’m pointing, he curses and jolts to stand before he takes off in a near sprint.
I throw my damn heels, chucking them away. The floor is sticky, grimy with an uncomfortable pull, as alcohol, spit, and God knows what else suctions to the soles of my feet. I take off in the direction Cormac darted, glancing over my shoulder to see Riku lost in the sea of people. What the hell happened?
Yanking out my phone, I dial Kieran this time. It goes straight to voicemail.
Jeez.
It’s then I decide to shoot off the text while clinging to the outer wall of the arena, making my way to the entrance that leads to the halls surrounding it. I’m panting from the stagnant humid air, plus my exertion in this confining dress.
I scramble to find any of Kieran’s men; the guards he has plastered around the arena. Where are they?
Several men I don’t recognize brush by me in suits, and when I turn to look at them, they’ve stopped to watch me.
Yakuza.
Stumbling back, I run into a cackle of girls in fancy cocktail dresses giggling and sucking the straws of their drinks. “Hey! Watch it!” one of them yells.
The four Yakuza men drift toward me, dressed in all black. No suits. Just black slacks with black shirts and leather jackets. I push through more people spilling out into the main hallway for drinks and slip on spilled alcohol, crashing down on my knees to the concrete floor.
My heart pounds in my chest while I frantically try to untangle the long fabric of my dress from where it’s bunched around my legs. I cry out, dread tightening around my throat as desperation gnaws at me to. Move, move, move!
I force myself to my feet, legs shaky beneath me. Focused behind me on the approaching men, I slam into a solid figure and the impact knocks the breath from my lungs while I stagger back. I swallow, hard, and take in the grim, familiar face.
“Callum?”