17. Kovu
The fight club is my sanctuary. It’s where I feel most at home, where the blood and violence soothe my aching soul, and it’s where I get to run the show. We have an assortment of businesses across the city. Some legal, some not so much, but this is the only one I have any interest in, and the one I built from the ground up.
It’s hardly a surprise that a city like New York is so full of sin and darkness, but fight nights are like nothing else the city has to offer. Sadly, I’m only here tonight to check the tapes. There’s been some weird shit going on here recently. Things are going missing, the back room where we keep files was broken into, and there have been an assortment of well-timed fights outside the ring. It’s all too suspicious for me to ignore, but I haven’t brought myself to tell the others yet. I don’t want them to think I can’t take care of this myself, because I can. I just have to figure out what the fuck is going on first.
I stride through the old warehouse down by the docks and look around the empty space. During the week, it’s quiet here, usually only a few small fights and some of the guys training, but tonight it’s eerie.
I flick lights on as I go, the only sound is my heavy boots on the concrete below my feet. I’ve been here alone hundreds of times over the last few years, but I’ve never felt like I was being watched.
I check the gun in the waistband of my ripped jeans, a force of habit when you’ve spent so many years looking over your shoulder. We all do it when we’re outside the compound, like we’re anticipating an attack at any moment.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it. I can’t afford to lose my focus right now. Years ago, I would have thought I was just allowing my paranoia to get the better of me.
When Crew found me, I was…broken. The things I’d seen, the way I’d grown up, it made me violent and terrified, not a combination anyone wants to be around. I would wake up in the middle of the night in our shitty old one-bedroom apartment on the mattress a few feet from Bishop’s and think he was going to kill me. He woke up more than once to my hands around his throat, choking the life from him because the voice in my head insisted he was a threat.
But in time, I learned that these people were the family I never knew I needed, and even my subconscious mind grew to understand that. Paranoia still plagues me at times, but this doesn’t feel like that. This feels like I’m being watched, and with all the other weird shit going on here, I’m willing to trust the feeling.
The phone starts vibrating again, and I chance another look around before tugging it from my pocket and rolling my eyes. Kaos.
“I assume the little lamb is driving you crazy?” I smirk. I hate that I’m not there with her, but at least they’re spending some time together. I need them to get along, because I don’t think I can let her go, and I don’t think Bishop can either. We’ve grown attached in the last few days, and the idea of sending her to a life of misery with Davenport makes the monster cooped up inside me beg to be unleashed.
“You need to get back here, I can’t deal with her.” His voice is cold, but there’s something there, something I haven’t heard in a long time, and something he’s trying to hide from me. But he should know I see through his bullshit just the same way he sees through mine.
“I can’t, I’m busy.” I look around again, but when I see no movement, I continue toward the back of the warehouse where the offices are.
There are only a few, after all, you don’t want to keep too much evidence of illegal activity, but each one serves its own purpose. One is where the fighters get ready to take the ring. Another is my office, mainly used on fight nights when I need to get away. And the third is the security room, which doubles as a records room. We don’t keep much information about our fighters, just some basic medical shit in the event of something unfortunate happening in the ring, which happens pretty regularly, so our doctors can take better care of them. There’s no reason someone would want any of the shit we keep in here, so why would someone break in?
“She’s a fucking brat,” he seethes.
“No, she’s scared, and she’s alone.”
He huffs out a sigh but doesn’t say anything, the line remaining silent for long moments.
“You don’t like that she makes you feel,” I offer.
“Shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kaos snaps.
“Don’t I?”
“No, you fucking don’t.”
I unlock the security room and throw one last look over my shoulder before pushing the door open and slipping inside. It’s only a small room, but it’s plenty big enough for what I use it for. A wall of monitors stand lit up in front of me, while filing cabinets line the remaining walls. I’ve racked my brain trying to work out what the hell someone could want from this room, but the more time I spend thinking about it, the less it makes sense.
Once I’ve locked the door behind me, I take a seat in front of the monitors and lean back. “Kaos, you forget how long we’ve known one another.”
“I haven’t forgotten shit.”
I tug my knife from my waistband and move it between my fingers. There’s something comforting about the steel against my skin, and the movement allows me to think more clearly. “You feel a pull toward her just like Bishop and I do. You wouldn’t come sit in her room every day if that weren’t the case. You keep finding excuses to be close to her even though you hate it, even though you want to pretend you hate her.”
“I do hate her.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Just because you and Bishop have a new plaything doesn’t mean Crew and I have to give a shit about the girl.”
“But you do. You both do. Crew would have sent her to Davenport the first night if he didn’t, and you would be spending as much time as possible away. You’re both in denial, and at some point, you’re going to have to admit you feel something toward her.”
Movement on the cameras draws my attention away from the call. There’s someone else here. Which either means I was followed, or they were waiting for me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Crew and I are just keeping our heads on straight because someone has to make sure you two assholes don’t get yourselves killed making poor decisions about women.” His words don’t hit me the way he thinks they will, because I was the one who told them she wasn’t right for us. It was only after a while that my obsession grew.
“Shut up,” I snap as I track the movement through the warehouse. It’s one person, and they think they’re being sneaky. Or at least I assume that’s what they think. If it’s the same person who broke into this room last week, they’d know there are cameras that cover every square inch of this building, inside and out, but surely no one is that fucking stupid.
“No, don’t tell me to shut up because you know I’m right.”
“I’m telling you to shut up because there’s someone at the warehouse, and I’m trying to watch them on the cameras while you’re yammering in my ear about a girl who has lost literally everything. She’s barely eighteen, and the only people she has left in the world are her asshole uncle and dumbass cousin. Now will you shut the fuck up for just a second?”
Silence greets me on the other end of the line, and I watch the cameras closely. They’re doing a decent job of flying under the radar, I’ll give them that, just not good enough to get past me. “Do you need backup?”
“Nah, it’s just one guy, I’ve got it.”
A chuckle fills the line. “God help them if you get your hands on them.”
“It’s been too many days since my hands have been covered in blood.”