Three
THREE
Byron
“THOUGHT YOU WAS TOO good for us now, Goldie. What you even doin’ back here in the ‘hood?”
The guy known less than affectionately as Mouse was still as weaselly and disreputable as he’d been a decade ago. The pool hall that had been his preferred hangout for even longer had gained a few more leaks in the roof and a slightly thicker coating of nicotine-yellow staining on the walls.
“Ignoring my better judgement,” I told him sourly, gesturing to the bored-looking bartender to indicate that I’d pay for the beer she’d just slid across the sticky wood of the bar top.
“Thanks, asshole,” Mouse said, picking up the sweat-beaded Heineken and saluting me with it. He threw it back, chugging; then wiped a dirty sleeve across his mouth. “Seriously, though. What the hell are you doing back here? You look good—love the threads, by the way. Only you also kind of look like shit. You in trouble or something?”
Only the kind I voluntarily signed up for, because apparently, I’m an idiot, I thought.
“Nah,” I said aloud. “I just need to know where the fights are being held this week. I’m out of the loop, and I figured you’d be the easiest person to ask.”
Mouse’s expression turned cagey. He took another swig from the beer, like he was playing for time.
“Problem?” I asked, dialing up the alpha bristling and letting a hint of bark creep into the word.
Mouse was a beta, so it wasn’t the kind of power move it might’ve been with an omega. He still flinched, though—well used to dealing with unpredictable alphas and their tempers.
“Nah, man. There’s no problem. Only... what do you want with the fights, anyway? You’d do better to steer clear of all that shit.”
Believe me, I’d love to , I wanted to tell him.
Instead, I gave a careless shrug. “What can I say? I like betting on cage matches. Made some good money a few weeks back when they were set up at the old meat packing plant in National City. I wouldn’t mind making some more.”
Zalen had pulled the details of Emiel’s last fight-related fiasco out of Luca, and apparently that bit of inside information was enough to soothe Mouse’s worries that I was a mole for the cops or whatever the hell. His shoulders relaxed from where they’d been hunched up around his ears.
“Oh,” he muttered. “Well, as long as you know what you’re getting into, I guess.” He swirled the dregs of his beer around the bottom of the bottle. “I heard they’re in the old Spivey Building for now. Just watch yourself, okay, Goldie?”
The old nickname made the scar in my side itch, but I just nodded. “Thanks, man. Here, have another one on me. And take care of yourself, yeah? You can’t keep swindling people at pool forever.”
“Just watch me,” Mouse muttered, hunching in on himself once more.
The Spivey Building was just east of Eads Bridge, barely a few blocks off the Interstate. I didn’t even know what it had been used for, back in the day—but it had been abandoned for decades.
The area around it wasn’t completely derelict. A few lonely offices clung to the neighborhood, probably because they couldn’t afford to move anyplace better. Those stubborn accountants and payroll processors clearly knew enough not to stick around after dark, though... and I couldn’t really blame them.
“You bring me to all the nicest places, Z,” I groused, as Zalen cautiously pulled his SUV into an overgrown lot full of cars about half a block from the center of the action.
“You should’ve come to Mia’s restaurant with us when we were wooing those investors a few weeks back,” he said. “I can do ‘classy,’ you know.”
In his defense, Mister Ex-New York City Stockbroker probably could do classy. I still wondered sometimes what had possessed him to throw it all away in favor of returning to his crumbling hometown and opening a youth center. His omega mate had died shortly before he moved back here—I knew that much, at least. But I was pretty sure there was more to it.
“Fine,” I told him. “You owe me a nice lunch somewhere expensive, in that case.”
Zalen grunted what was probably meant as an acknowledgment and turned off the engine. “You see Emiel’s Bronco anywhere?” he asked.
I felt like total crap, I was half asleep where I sat, and my dick ached from knotting two omegas for four-and-a-half days straight. I swallowed a sigh and craned around, looking for an old gray Ford among the forest of black SUVs, aging BMWs with rims worth more than the cars they were attached to, and modified Japanese hatchbacks.
“It’s dark, Zalen. I can’t see for shit with the headlights off. Besides, if he’s been here for days, he probably got towed already.” Barely two minutes in, and my patience for both this trip and the alpha who’d necessitated it was nearly nonexistent.
“We don’t know that he’s been staying here the whole time,” Zalen said uncertainly. “He’s probably got a hotel room somewhere.”
It was my turn to grunt.
“Yeah, whatever.” I opened the passenger door and stepped out of the silver SUV, slamming it behind me.
God, I hated this gang shit so much . There was nothing like a bunch of alphas beating the crap out of each other for money, in a place where there were no pesky rules about not actually killing your opponent.
And just like that, the echo of remembered gunfire sent a chill of gooseflesh down my back. For all I knew, the asshole who’d put a bullet in me when I was a teenager might be strolling around the place, laughing with his homies and putting money on the next fight.
Assuming, of course, that he’d managed to stay alive this long. Late twenties was old for a gangbanger.
“Let’s look for him inside,” Zalen said grimly, coming around to stand next to me.
I sighed and started walking. The vacant lot being used for parking was off an alley that ran from the next block over to the back of the Spivey Building. The towering twelve-story structure didn’t have a single pane of glass left in it, and no one cared enough to spend time or money boarding it up. Graffiti covered the back wall, stretching as high up as an angry kid with a spray can could reach.
The action seemed to be taking place in a squat, white-painted structure adjacent to the main building. It was maybe two stories tall—just a big, square, ugly white box.
“This used to be the city newspaper building,” Zalen said in a monotone, as we trudged toward the back entrance. “My grandfather worked here for nearly thirty years.”
Not for the first time, I was struck by the surreality of growing up in a place that had once been a regional economic powerhouse, but was now little more than the rotting skeleton of dead dreams.
“Wonder what your grandpa would think about the place now?” I muttered.
“I suspect it’s just as well that we’ll never know,” Zalen replied.
We joined the short line of men in dark hoodies and gold chains, and women in short dresses with far too much makeup. Two alphas flanked the metal door. When we reached the front of the queue, the nearest one eyed us up and down.
“Don’t recognize you two,” he said, challenge in his tone.
“And this is our problem... why, exactly?” I couldn’t help asking. If I was extra lucky tonight, maybe he’d turn us away so I could go home and sleep for thirty-six hours straight.
“We’ve got a packmate in the fights,” Zalen said, in a much more reasonable tone. “We’re here to put some money down on him.”
“Yeah? What’s his name?” demanded the bouncer.
“Emiel,” Zalen said.
“Never heard of him.”
“Emiel Hamilton,” Zalen added.
The bouncer’s face went still for a beat.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Um, you’d better go in.”
And... okay. Something about that interaction had my hackles prickling with disquiet.
“Thanks,” Zalen said flatly, and slipped through the door.
I followed. “What the hell was that about?” I asked, once we were inside.
“No idea,” Zalen said in the same tone.
The building was just a big, open factory floor. No machinery remained, and while a basic attempt had been made to clear the area of debris, the sheer amount of shredded insulation, shattered bricks, and broken wood that had been shoved against the walls spoke to the building’s decrepit condition.
It smelled like sweat, alpha musk, mildew, and concrete dust. I had a nasty feeling we were going to need one of those TV law firms that specialized in class action suits for mesothelioma after breathing in the asbestos-laden air.
Unsurprisingly, the space was dominated by a chain link cage set on a raised platform. Someone had hauled in a generator, and several spotlights shone down on the main attraction of two alphas pummeling each other inside.
From the back of the jeering crowd, I could only make out one of the combatants—a tawny-skinned female built like a proverbial tank, with blood running down the side of her face and a massive bruise blooming across her back. She had someone pinned on the mat beneath her—one dark brown, muscular arm held twisted in her unforgiving grip—and a leg braced as though she was standing on her opponent to keep them down.
A bellow of rage sounded from the unseen alpha on the mat, and something shivered up my spine—some strange flicker of recognition, even though I’d never heard that sound before.
“Shit,” Zalen cursed over the noise of the excited crowd. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Come on!”
He started elbowing his way toward the front before I could point out what an incredibly stupid idea that was. We were in a crowd where every other person was probably packing a semiautomatic handgun, and the ones who weren’t almost certainly had switchblades. With little choice in the matter, I followed him, trying to ignore the way my skin crawled whenever a hand pushed or grabbed at me.
Somehow—because while Zalen wasn’t what you’d call an aggressive alpha, he could still muster the dominant aura when it really counted—we ended up shoving through the last line of sweaty bodies to get a clear view of the cage floor.
“ Goddamn it ,” I grated, as the female alpha hauled off and kicked a familiar figure in the back of the head. Emiel’s angry roar cut off abruptly, and the woman dropped the arm she’d been twisting in a submission hold. It fell to the mat, completely limp.
Quick as a flash, the referee—who was safely outside the cage, I couldn’t help noticing—came over and started the count.
“ One! Two! ! Four ...” Each word was punctuated by an exaggerated swing of one arm.
In the cage, Emiel lay unmoving.