Fourteen
FOURTEEN
Mia
“IT’S SO EMPTY in here tonight,” Candace said, sounding bewildered. “Is it because of that new restaurant opening on Menard Street?”
As I cast an eye over the unoccupied tables in the dining area, I was wondering that, too. Candace was one of the newer servers, and she’d never known the Elderflower Inn to be anything other than busy. This was the first time since the previous Michelin guide had come out that we were running at barely half of capacity.
Isaiah took advantage of the lull to stick his head around the edge of the pass-through. He gave a low whistle. “You know, boss—we could send a spy over to the Bella Vita and see if it’s busy. It’d be like—what do they call it? Corporate espionage.”
“We are not sending a spy to the Bella Vita,” I said firmly, ignoring the temptation to do exactly that. “Our job is to make sure the customers who come here get an amazing meal that will bring them back, preferably with friends in tow. What other restaurants in the area do isn’t our concern.”
Isaiah sighed. “Yes, chef.”
“Candy, go check on table four, please,” I told the server.
“On it,” she said, but some of her usual bubbliness seemed noticeably subdued.
Nat chose that moment to walk in from his rounds in the front of house. “This is bad,” he said. “We can’t run the place with these kinds of numbers.”
“It’s only one night,” I told him. “There’s a new restaurant having a grand opening a couple of streets away. They’ve been wallpapering half the city with flyers.”
His worried frown deepened. “We need a new social media campaign. Something to remind people we’re here.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said, keeping my tone neutral and professional. “When it comes to the quality of the food, if we can get people through the door, I’m confident we can beat any other kitchen in the city.”
“I’ll put something together tonight,” Nat promised, and I wasn’t sure what it said about us that this was the most civil conversation we’d had in days.
“Sounds like a plan,” I told him. “There’s a lull in orders, so I’m taking five. I’ll be in the back.”
After making sure the staff was on top of the handful of dessert orders in the queue, I wiped a towel over my sweaty face and went outside to cool off for a few minutes. One night wasn’t make or break for a restaurant, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.
Hell, maybe Isaiah was onto something, and I should send someone over to Bella Vita to scope things out on the downlow.
To distract myself, I pulled my phone out and powered it on so I could check messages. There was one from a vendor about an upcoming change in the delivery schedule, which I forwarded to Nat. The other was from Luca. I frowned and opened it, surprised to hear from him so soon after our coffee date.
Hi , it began. When do you get off shift tonight? And would you come to a late night underground fight venue with me?
I tilted my head at the phone like a confused dog. I recognized all of those words individually, but I was struggling to get my brain around them collectively.
Why? I typed the word out and hit send.
Dots marched across the screen, then paused. It was a long enough pause that the pull to go back inside and start working again tugged at my awareness.
Then, Emiel is fighting there tonight. I’m worried about him. He was acting off this afternoon.
I thought about the big alpha with his scent suppressors and his unexpectedly sweet grin. I tried to picture him beating the shit out of someone else in a boxing ring. The image superficially made sense, but it also twisted something in my chest unpleasantly.
Did I want to go to an underground fight club? It definitely wasn’t something I’d have done if left to my own devices... but Luca was worried. If we were going to be friends, that meant helping him out when he asked.
I still had questions, though.
Not saying no, but wouldn’t it make more sense to ask Zalen or Byron?
My heart gave a little lurch as I typed Byron’s name, but I hit send anyway and waited.
More dots.
Zalen needs plausible deniability since Em’s an employee of the non-profit. And Byron doesn’t like violence .
That gave me pause. The bad boy with tattoos all over his body was squeamish about a boxing ring? Then I remembered the bullet scar, its ugly pucker incorporated into a design of jungle flowers. There was a lot I didn’t know about hiding beneath the surface, but I could see how getting shot might put a person off violence in general.
So... was there any reason I couldn’t go watch Emiel’s fight?
The most obvious answer was lack of sleep, but it wasn’t as though I slept more than a few hours a night in the normal course of things.
Sure, I texted. I get off at ten. Should I meet you at this place, or what?
I’ll pick you up, he replied. 10 p.m. sharp.
The Luca who showed up in a white Nissan Leaf was not the same Luca I was used to seeing. This wasn’t ‘sharply dressed omega ingenue’ Luca, or even ‘soft, rumpled watching-a-movie’ Luca.
Tonight, he was dressed in clothing calculated to conceal. Baggy, faded jeans were topped with a dark hoodie so big he practically swam in it. The oversized clothes hid the elegant lines of his lithe body. The hood covered his perpetual rumpled bedhead, its laces pulled tight around his angular face.
On the positive side, it meant I’d fit in okay with the vibe wherever we were going, since I’d thrown a similarly shapeless hoodie on over my work clothes. On the negative side, I didn’t like how pale and hunted Luca looked.
“Hi,” he said tersely. “Thanks for doing this.”
I didn’t comment on his clothing, even though the change from what I was used to had freaked me out a bit. Or... maybe that was just the situation in general.
“Hi,” I said back. “I didn’t realize visiting an underground fight club was on my bingo card this month, but at least I can cross it off early. Or, um, whatever you do with bingo cards. I’ve never actually played bingo.”
“I don’t think you’re missing much,” Luca said as I got in.
We drove north, crossing the river on the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge rather than the Poplar Street Bridge. Luca exited onto St. Claire Avenue, then turned onto a smaller road leading into the old derelict meat packing district in National City.
I’d been past National City a couple of times, but it wasn’t the kind of place you purposely went to.
The abandoned factories loomed like crooked, decaying teeth in the moonlight. Partially collapsed smokestacks rose drunkenly from partially collapsed buildings. The overall effect was eerie and foreboding. I couldn’t help my shiver of reaction.
Luca must’ve smelled my misgivings in my scent. “Yeah, it’s creepy as hell, I know. I think that’s part of the reason the organizers chose it? That, and the cops don’t give a shit what goes on back here.”
We ended up having to drive around for a while before a glimpse of way too many cars through a gap in the trees led us to an overgrown parking area. Weeds didn’t so much sprout from the crazy network of cracks in the pavement as launch a full-on ground invasion. There were no lights, no road signs, no signs of life at all... except for about a hundred cars and trucks mysteriously parked by an abandoned factory.
Luca chose a spot at the periphery, where the car was unlikely to be hemmed in by other vehicles. Only when we got out did I notice the rumble of a generator and see lights inside the structure, flickering through the patchwork of gaping, empty window frames that hadn’t been boarded over.
“Stay close to me and keep your head down,” Luca muttered.
He’d hunched in on himself, losing a couple inches of height and a couple inches of breadth... making himself small. Nerves thrumming, I pulled my hood up to cover my hair, hoping to make it less obvious that I was female.
We approached a pair of burly alphas on door duty, and this seemed like a bad time to ask Luca what the hell he was getting me into. The bouncers eyed us up and down, nostrils flaring, and waved us inside. Once my back was to them, my hand wandered into the large front pocket of my hoodie, where I’d stashed the little handbag that I used to carry my ID and cash.
And my pepper gel.
I popped open the handbag clasp and felt around for the small keychain cylinder inside, easing it free and thumbing the safety catch to the spray position by feel. Having it within easy reach and ready to use made me feel better. Reassured, I turned more of my attention outward.
The factory was a massive steel and concrete skeleton. It smelled of age and decay, and its belly was littered with the corpses of rusting machinery—hooks and chains and conveyors with the blown-out remains of old motors scattered about like disturbing industrial art exhibits.
Past the aging detritus of meat production, we reached a central open area. It was dominated by a large chain-link cage and surrounded by a milling, rumbling crowd of onlookers. Harsh lights had been set up overhead, glaring down on the cage like spotlights. A man in a white shirt and black trousers conversed with two men in suits.
“They’re about to get started,” Luca said tightly, just as a sound system fired up, pumping a pounding bass beat through the echoing space. “Emiel’s in the second match.”
Around us, bookies waved pieces of paper in the air, people shouting and jostling as insults flew and money changed hands. My sum total of experience regarding sanctioned fights revolved around watching boxing matches with my father on pay-per-view when I was young.
I hadn’t had any particular like or dislike of the carefully staged spectacles set in venues like Madison Square Garden and the Vegas strip. It was just a thing happening on a screen. In this heaving, turbulent crowd, however, I couldn’t imagine anyone feeling neutral about what was happening. Alpha pheromones and beta body odor choked the area around the cage. The occasional lighter scent of omega perfume led my eye to some simpering, scantily clad arm candy clinging to a hulking guy’s bicep.
The jury-rigged lights positioned over the cage flashed on and off twice. Luca led me deeper into the crowd, pushing through tightly packed bodies like a flying wedge—ignoring the occasional irritated cursing flung at him as he elbowed past someone.
I felt unpleasantly on edge, my nerves jangling with pointless fight or flight response. One of the men in suits lifted a microphone and spoke in a booming voice, introducing the first two fighters. They entered the cage—two large, wiry alphas with hard eyes and battered faces. They were wearing brightly colored trunks and nothing else—no boxing gloves anywhere in evidence.
The cage door closed behind them, locking them inside.
“Isn’t there a referee?” I asked Luca, pitching my voice to be heard over the excited crowd.
“This isn’t that kind of fight,” Luca said grimly. “Wins are by submission or knockout only.”
A bell sounded. The two fighters crouched, circling each other with wary movements. One feinted and then charged low, slamming into his opponent with crushing force. There was no fancy martial arts shit on display here. Just two alphas beating the crap out of each other, until one collapsed choking under the force of a roundhouse punch to the throat.
Clammy sweat had broken out on my forehead, and I clutched Luca’s cold fingers with enough force to bruise. Emiel was going to do this? The guy who’d meekly vacated the TV room so Luca and I could watch a movie, and who’d told me how much he’d liked my food at the restaurant?
Abruptly, I understood why Luca had come here, even though the place clearly made him uncomfortable. What the hell was Emiel thinking ?
In the cage, the alpha who’d been hit flopped around on the mat and eventually went limp. The bell clanged several times, and a cheer went up from sections of the crowd, overwhelming the disgusted groans from the people who’d lost money on the fight.
My heart thudded loudly in my ears as the unconscious alpha was dragged away. The announcer took up his microphone again and confirmed the winner, who punched a fist in the air in celebration. Sweat glistened in trails on his chest and back.
“Next up,” the announcer boomed, “we have a special treat for you all. Undefeated crowd favorite Hamilton, versus newcomer The Iceman!”
A fresh flurry of betting erupted around us, while two more figures made their way toward the cage. I recognized Emiel with a jolt—but even if I hadn’t, Luca’s convulsive hand-squeeze would’ve clued me in. Then my gaze fell on the largest alpha I’d ever seen, and my heart leapt into my throat. Seriously, the dude must have been pushing seven feet, with broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and tree-trunk legs to match.
“Holy shit,” I muttered hoarsely, as both men stripped off their robes and tossed them aside before climbing into the cage.
The walking alpha mountain loomed over Emiel. A slow smile twisted the bruiser’s broad face as he ground one fist into the opposite palm. Emiel’s back was to us; I couldn’t see his expression. Before I could properly panic, the bell sounded.
Still grinning, the giant musclebound alpha darted forward with a kind of speed no human being that large should possess. His left fist pulled back and let fly, aimed directly at Emiel’s face.