5. Levi
LEVI
I ’ve found heaven in the blood I can spill in underground street fighting.
I slip through the crowd of men and the few women that find themselves here, the scent of weed and sweat overpowering as I pass the cage in the center of the room.
Two men are in the ring, each one battered and bruised. Some might find it horrifying—taking joy in bashing another man’s face in. I think it’s exactly what this world needs more of.
The ability to let go of all social constructs and fight shit out like grown men. Release the pent-up frustrations that we all face on a day-to-day basis without having to worry about the repercussions.
It’s why I found this place. The adrenaline rush it gives me. I come alive the moment I step through the door.
No one knows I’m DEA. Well . . . former DEA. No one knows my family is one of the richest in the state. No one knows Christian Cross, my FBI big brother, or his twin, Sebastian—the crazed lunatic who tried to murder Mila.
Here I’m just me. Whatever version I want to be.
I slide up to the bar and take a seat. The place used to be a dog-fighting ring until Diego, the man who owns the Tomb, “bought” it for the low price of two .45 bullets and a whole lot of bloody mop water.
“Back again, I see.”
I glance up at the bartender with fire-engine red hair.
“Tough crowd,” she says, slipping a beer across the counter toward me. “Sure you want to fight tonight?”
I take a swig of the beer, ignoring the bad taste on my tongue. I’ve always hated beer, but you’d have to be an idiot to come into a place like this completely sober, and my flask isn’t allowed.
“Tough crowd every night,” I muse, and Cherry comes around the bar, falling onto the stool beside me.
Cherry’s sweet . . . ish. I may or may not have spent a few drunken nights, maybe at her place, but not in a while.
Don’t get me wrong. She’s a nice girl. She’s lived a rough life, and she deserves to get out of this place.
I’m just not the one who’s going to give her that. I can barely keep myself alive.
Not to mention, those soft green eyes that seem to be burned into the back of my fucking eyelids lately.
“What are you doing here, Cherry?”
She cocks a delicate brow at me and takes the beer out of my hand. I let her because it tastes like ass.
“What else would you suggest I do, Black? Sell cookies outside the local nunnery?”
They call me “Black” for my hair. And for my black heart. When I get in the ring, I don’t hold back. Everything fades away, and I don’t have to think. I can just let go.
Not to mention, giving them my real name is suicide.
“Beats slinging beer to lowlifes.”
“You forget you’re one of the lowlifes I sling beer to?”
“No, I didn’t forget.”
She shakes her head, laughing under her breath.
“Where’ve you been, anyway? I haven’t seen you around in the last couple of weeks.”
“Been busy.”
She smirks, wiping away a drop of beer that slips down her chin.
“By busy, you mean hiding out in some poor girl’s apartment, don’t you?”
“Jealous?”
“Nah,” she chuckles. “I know I was your favorite.”
“Or maybe I was just that drunk.”
“Right back at you, Black.”
We both turn around to watch the ring when a whistle’s blown. Whistles mean someone got hurt, and when I say someone got hurt, I mean someone’s either broken or someone’s dead.
A guy gets dragged out by two men, blood oozing from his mouth, while the crowd cheers on the man who did it to him. That’s just how it is here.
I once saw a man get stabbed with a broken bottle. He nearly bled out before his girlfriend managed to drag him out of the ring and presumably to a hospital.
The only rule is that your identity gets left at the door, and no one runs their mouth about what really goes on in the Tomb.
Anything else is fair game. Except for bottles. Diego said there was too much blood.
“You should think about it,” Cherry says without missing a beat, and I cast a sideways glance at her. Cherry’s good at confusing the fuck out of me. “I mean, find a nice girl and settle down. You know, instead of doing whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”
Here we go.
“Why would I do a fool thing like that, when I can just come here and see you?”
She rolls her eyes, not buying any of my bullshit.
“Because contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually like you. I just think you’re pretty.”
Never in my life have I been called pretty, but coming from Cherry, I know it’s best to just take it as a compliment.
“I mean it, Black,” she says, her voice quieter.
As if talking about life outside the warehouse around us is forbidden.
She glances back at the ring, where a couple of men are mopping up the blood from the last fight.
“I see people get hurt in here every night. People die. This . . . isn’t the place for you. ”
My number is called, and Cherry winces when I move to stand.
I appreciate her concern, but she’s wrong.
This is exactly the place for me.
Plucking my beer back from her, I down the rest of it before setting it down with a grin.
“Hope you bet on me.”
She doesn’t return the smile.
I hear her growl as I make my way to the ring in the center of the room. There’s a few bigwigs on the sidelines. Mostly businessmen who come to bet on these fights like we’re animals in a cage, but . . . then again, isn’t that what we really are?
The degenerates of the world who can’t live without violence. Who need the pain to feel alive and take comfort in knowing places like this exist.
A few of them eye me when I walk to the ring, slipping my hoodie off as I go, along with my T-shirt.
A few people holler my name when I step into the ring, but I ignore them. I’m not one to make friends, and I’m not taking any of the women here home tonight.
Wouldn’t want my little housekeeper to miss any sleep.
I toss my shit on the stool right outside the ring and take my place in the center of the cage. The guy who enters on the other side of me is notorious for pulling switches out mid-fight, but I’m not afraid of him, nor am I afraid of dying.
Shit comes with the territory. Don’t get in the ring if you value your life. I couldn’t give a fuck less about mine.
“You both know the rules,” Diego says over the noise of the crowd cheering around us. I nod, as does Spinner, the long-standing champ grinning in front of me.
He’s only the champion because he hasn’t fought me yet. To win at this game, you’ve got to have a lot of pent-up rage, and I’ve been saving mine for the last two decades.
At twenty-seven, I’ve watched my mother burn to death.
Watched my brother meet the same fate after he tried to kill the rest of my family.
I’ve survived things that I would rather have let kill me, and yet, here I am, carrying on, though every day feels like a struggle to understand who the fuck I am.
Am I a Cross? A DEA agent? Just some scum of the earth lowlife who hangs out at underground fighting rings and enjoys how it feels to fight?
For a month, I’ve been coming here, and yet every time feels like the very first time. When I found an outlet that didn’t come from a bottle and shut off the voices in the back of my mind, even if only for two minutes at a time.
“You get two minutes. No weapons. Just pure adrenaline,” Diego instructs, grinning back and forth between the two of us.
Diego lives for this shit, just like the rest of us. We come here because we’re what society can’t understand—just pure rage simmering beneath the surface with no real outlet.
“Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Spinner grins, licking his lips like a fucking psychopath. “When this is over, how long do I have to wait before I go home and fuck your bitch for you, too?”
I chuckle under my breath.
That statement’s going to cost him.
“On three.”
The crowd cheers, but I let the blood rushing in my ears drown them out.
“One . . . Two . . .”
Spinner lunges for me, and I duck his first strike, grinning through my teeth when he stumbles to the other side of the cage.
This is what I was born and bred for. This is why I’m not cut out for the formal Christmas party or white picket fences. In a world where it’s either kill or be killed, I will always come out on top.
Spinner growls through his teeth, whirling on me. I let him circle me in the ring, keeping my back away from him because I know the first chance he gets, he’s going to try to get me on the ground. I’ve seen the asshole fight enough to know what dirty tricks he’s got up his sleeves.
The first punch he lands is like the first shot of whiskey in the morning.
I fight back, and though I feel blood coating my teeth, I keep going.
Fighting has become my narcotic, and with each hit, I feel more alive. It’s what keeps me coming back here and keeps me from doing something stupid at home, like making the pretty little housekeeper mine.
Everything rushes to the surface. Watching Sebastian die. Watching the life bleed from my father’s eyes. The lies. The DEA. The alcohol.
I slam my fist into Spinner’s jaw, and I feel a crack. Spinner fights back, and I don’t know how much time is left on the clock, but I could do this all night.
Rushing him, I bend down, wrap my arms around his legs, lift him, and drop him. We land in a heap, and the sound that whooshes out of him is agony. He takes the chance and slams his fist into my side, and though I don’t feel it now, I’m betting I will later.
Rearing back, I bring my fist down on his face, and time both slows down and speeds up all at once. The adrenaline courses through me like pure oxygen, fueling the fire that’s burning in my veins until all I can feel is the rush.
The blood roars in my ears, my body vibrates with energy, and finally, I feel alive.
I punch him over and over again, and when the buzzer rings, I don’t even hear it.