Chapter 10
Everything feels like it’s on fire. My limbs, my head, my heart. I don’t regret what I’ve done, because it’s the one thing I’ve wanted to do with every cell in my body. It doesn’t matter that I was convicted. What matters is that she got away.
She lived.
“Follow through, Malik. Don’t fucking hold back. Swing, and follow through.” Nicholas continues wrapping his hand, his entire body covered in ink. “The fight against Wilson is coming up, and I want you in top shape.”
I stare at the obvious wound on his chest, red and angry. I’ve never asked him how it happened because I didn’t want to pry, but I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be shot. Since he came back from Italy, he’s been different. More focused and a lot angrier.
“What’s the prize money?”
A loud bang resounds, the door to the dojo bouncing off the wall behind it.
“Nicholas,” Ezra says, his tone harsh. “Let’s talk.”
Nicholas ignores his older brother.
“You have five minutes. Meet me in the back.”
I look back at Nicholas, and he’s smiling, enjoying toying with his brother.
I can’t help but envy them. Having a family, a brother, someone to look out for you no matter what, must be what riches are made of.
“Malik,” Ezra walks up to me and places a hand on my shoulder. “When you’re ready to stop using your fists and begin using your brains to make money, you let me know.”
“What? Is this beneath you, brother?” Nicholas snorts, shaking his head, and Ezra ignores him.
“There’s a better way to get what you want. A cleaner way to make money and redirect all that anger and resentment you feel,” he says in a low voice.
I’ve wondered if I could be more than this, more than just an orphan in search of another, but I never considered the possibility of having money or being educated like them.
“Something to consider if you want to find her.”
When I first approached Ezra, I wanted to be stronger, to be like him. When I saw him on the streets, I knew I needed what he had. The way everyone stops when he walks into a room, the way he’s revered by the strongest people in the country. I wanted that too.
The cool night air brushes past me as I hide behind a dumpster in a quiet corner of the city.
The man in the black suit doesn’t shy away from it.
Instead, he stands there waiting for something.
It’s late, and I wonder what he could be doing, until I see another man approach.
He’s just as tall as him, similar build, but I can’t tell what they’re saying from here.
The one with the dark hair pulls out a gun, and I slide further behind the dumpster.
I expect him to shoot the other man, but he doesn’t.
He lays the gun down on the floor and removes his jacket, uncaring that it hits the muddy ground.
His black dress shirt sticks to him as he waits for the other man to do the same.
He turns his head ever so slightly, a smile that could only be described as a killer’s on his lips, before he tackles the other man to the ground and relentlessly pounds his fists into his face.
I can hear the echoes of the blows bouncing off the buildings amongst the heavy rain, and I can’t stop watching.
The other man attempts to fight back, but he only manages to land one blow. I continue watching as he slides his fingers into the man’s eyes, whose screams, which would be terrifying to passersby, sound like something of a victory march to me. He struggles until he doesn’t anymore.
I hold my breath and close my eyes as I hide behind the dumpster, hoping the man didn’t see me watching.
I wait and count to twenty until I’m sure he would’ve left, but when I peek around the dumpster, I’m met with black boots, smothered in mud.
As my eyes travel up, I see the same killer smile, his hand extended to me, his thumbs steeped with the man’s blood.
“Come with me.” He almost commands it, and it’s either this or I head back to the abandoned shelter.
“I didn’t see anything.” I try to sound convincing, but I’m about as convincing as rain being dry.
“You did.”
“Are you going to kill me like you killed him?”
He tilts his head. “That depends. What did you feel when you watched that man die?”
I hesitate to tell him and consider running in the opposite direction, but I know I wouldn’t get far in this rain.
“I wanted to be you,” I confess.
Since that day, Ezra has known everything there is to know about me.
He kept me hidden, tucked away, so he could use me when he needed to have someone taken care of discreetly.
In exchange for my loyalty, he gave me a place to live, a private tutor to learn all there was to learn about business, and a bank account to put all my hard-earned money.
When he saw how much I understood about the business world, he put me in charge of his newly acquired hotel contract.
The Veridis has been under my control ever since, and although I enjoy being that person during the day, my heart craves the violence.
I have something inside me that wants to be let free, and the more I feed it blood, the bigger it gets—breeding, intertwining its tendrils with my veins, morphing itself into me.
The bigger it grows, the further I feel from that innocent girl I met at the orphanage.
“I have another business opportunity coming up and I want you to be there,” Ezra says.
Nicholas looks busy, lost in his thoughts, and I wonder why he’s not more involved.
“And what about your promise?” I ask, knowing that I can be open and honest with Ezra.
“I’ll find her, but you have to understand, I have other priorities too.”
I nod, knowing I can’t expect him to drop everything to look for her.
“Are you ever going to call it what it is?” Emmett asks from the side of the ring, packing away his gloves.
No, I’m not. I’ll look for her until I physically can’t anymore.
In every woman, in every house, and on every continent.
I’ll search for her until the blood dries in my veins.
“Would you stop searching for water if you were stranded in a desert?” I ask Emmett, catching Nicholas’s attention.
Emmett sighs, accepting that this is my goal. Of everything I have ever done or worked towards in life, this is what I want the most.
Her.