Chapter 1
ONE
COLE
S he’s here again.
Every day for the last two weeks, she’s been sitting in the same spot in the library when I come in. It doesn’t matter if I choose a different time every day; she still manages to be here.
The girl in question transferred here a few weeks ago at the beginning of our junior year of college.
I only know she’s in the same grade as me because we share a class, plus people won’t shut the hell up about her.
She’s been the talk of the whole goddamn university since she arrived.
I can’t go anywhere without hearing whispers about the mystery of who Lana James is .
At any other school, a random transfer would be completely normal, right?
Well not here at BU. Blackwater University was established decades ago, opened for the sole purpose of educating the elite.
This school is so exclusive that even the richest of the rich struggle to get placements for their children.
New money? Forget it. So, for this girl—who no one seems to know anything about, who no one has any idea who her family is—to just turn up out of the blue is a goddamn mystery.
There are only around two hundred students in each year—all of which usually start freshman year—so for someone to transfer this late is generally unheard of, never mind her being someone that nobody knows anything about.
As if that wasn’t enough to intrigue me, the girl is a goddamn smoke show. She’s shorter than me by around six inches, with an athletic build, thick blonde hair and mesmerizing blue gray eyes.
She’s also an asshole.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. She barely speaks to any of the students who have actually bothered to talk to her, only communicating with grunts or glares.
I hate how much of my attention she’s had since she turned up here. Normally, I’d be focusing on schoolwork and hanging out with the guys, but I can’t concentrate on anything other than her. And it’s not that I want her, like my friends would say.
It’s just that she… intrigues me.
And I hate that she does.
I want to know who she is and why she’s here much like everyone else, but it’s also deeper than that. I can’t stand the mystery surrounding her. She doesn’t belong here, that’s clear with just one glance. But what is she doing here, of all places?
Pissed at myself for noticing her again, I send a glare in her general direction—not that she’d notice—and storm back to the cottage.
My three best friends and I have shared the only premium accommodation on campus since we arrived freshman year.
I’ve known Harley, Noah and Logan since we were kids, and we attended private school together.
The four of us are so completely different that I know other people wonder how we’re such close friends, but it just works.
Harley is the fun one of the group of us, the joker. He’s easy going and with his blond hair and blue eyes, he looks like a goddamn Ken doll that people automatically gravitate towards.
Noah is the sensitive one. He’s the voice of reason between us and is the fixer of the group. He’s the one who will take on the caretaker role without a moment’s notice, even when it’s unwanted.
Which it always is.
Which leaves Logan, the smart one. He’s a genius and quiet as hell, and if we weren’t as close as we are, I’d have no idea just how smart he is, since he hates to advertise it.
He barely talks to anyone other than the three of us.
He’s not shy; he just prefers to observe rather than communicate when it’s unnecessary.
Though looking at him, he usually comes across as a grumpy asshole, considering he’s tall as fuck and packed full of muscle.
From first glance, he probably comes across as one of those tall, dark and dangerous types.
Which would probably be right, since even the guys and I don’t actually know what he gets up to half of the time.
Though his size does make sense, since he’s on the hockey team.
He’s the one I relate to the most, I guess. I’m probably a mixture of the three of them combined, the one who holds us all together and can think like each of them, which has helped us all stay such close friends for so long.
I head back to the cottage, and I’m a ball of energy as I pace the kitchen before grabbing a beer from the fridge and uncapping it. My mind spins in a hundred different directions between schoolwork, my family, and Lana.
That girl is driving me insane .
“You saw her again, huh?” Noah’s voice startles me, and I spin to face him.
“Didn’t think anyone was here,” I mutter and take a swig from the bottle.
The place we share is basically just a one-story cottage on the outer edge of campus. We each have our own rooms, with a bedroom to spare and a huge lounge, kitchen and theater/game room.
We tried to persuade my sister, Gracie, to move in with us when she started her freshman year, but she refused.
Gracie is a year younger than the rest of us and hates how protective we all are of her, so she decided to move into the dorms instead.
Though we obviously made sure she had a single, because like fuck was my little sister sharing a room with someone.
“Yeah, I gathered that by the way you were pacing. Why don’t you just fucking speak to the girl if she bothers you this much?”
This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation. He just doesn’t get it.
“I don’t want her like that,” I grunt and down the rest of the beer before placing the empty bottle on the counter. “And I have talked to her. I talked to her the first day back at school. She’s a dick, and it pissed me off, is all.”
I shake my head and walk to my room, needing out of that conversation. I don’t need to talk about her, I need to forget she exists. I need to get out of my head, and there’s only one way I know of doing that.
T he town of Blackwater is so miniscule, it barely shows up on the map. It’s one of the reasons the founder of the university chose this place—because it’s out of the way, and a smaller town makes it so much easier to ensure the place is guarded heavily.
And although the small town mainly consists of wealthy people who grew up here and holiday homes for those who want to visit their children during the school year, there’s still darkness that lurks in the shadows. Just like any place.
I’ve been fighting for a few years now, always underground and never in the spotlight, since my family would see it as a stain on their name, so I needed to find somewhere I could do it here once I moved away from the city.
It was easy back home; there was an underground fighting ring on almost every corner. Here? Not so much.
But I knew there were people around here that would gravitate towards the darkness, and it didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.
I’ve been coming here since I found the place in freshman year. It was by pure luck that one night I escaped the clutches of security over at the university and decided to wander the town, only happening to walk past the old, abandoned church at the exact right time.
I snuck in to find a bunch of rowdy assholes littering the place as two guys fought in the middle of a boxing ring.
I stuck to the shadows at first, knowing that these guys would never want someone from the university in their space—they’d see me as nothing more than an entitled dick.
I knew they’d either recognize me from the shit the media posts about my family or just because of my age and the way I dress, and I was right.
They took one look at me and declared me ‘one of those pretty kids from the university,’ but I kept coming back, and once I started fighting?
Nothing about where I came from or who I was mattered.
They all know what I’m capable of, and sure, there’s probably people who hate me for being the entitled asshole that I definitely am, but I get that everywhere.
And there’s no way they can blame my money on my skills, since I’ve proven myself in every single fight I’ve had.
I think a lot of these guys had expected me to fight clean, the way some expensive trainer would probably teach me in the city, but that’s not me.
I’m self-taught, and once they realized that I was genuine and not just some pompous prick here for an adrenaline rush, they stopped with the sneers and snide remarks.
Whoever came up with the idea for this place knew exactly what they were doing.
They made it so different rooms were for different levels of what you want to see.
The room you first walk into is your basic level.
The amateur fights where it’s mostly just two guys who have a debt to settle and so on.
The room to the right is where you’ll find your more advanced fights, with people placing bets between them.
And the third room? The only room I use?
It’s the most advanced of them all. It’s a room where there are no rules, where you can do what you want, fight how you want, and for people who love to see bloodshed.
It’s known as the black room, which is fitting, since the room is mostly cloaked in darkness, only a few lights spaced around so you can see what’s happening in the ring.
There have been a couple of deaths in here over the years, according to a couple of the guys I’ve spoken to, but I’ve never seen one personally.
I enter the room, and the commotion ensuing has goosebumps pebbling on my skin.
Something’s different .
It’s so crowded that I can’t even see the ring, and because of the lack of lighting around the room, people are bumping into each other without a care in the world. I glare at a guy who steps into me, and it’s only when he looks into my eyes that he backs away.
“Hey,” I call out over the noise. “What the fuck is going on?”
He glances towards whatever is happening in the ring before looking back to me. “Tyger is fighting…” That’s not unusual, the guy is good. He’s the only one in this place who’s ever come close to beating me. “A girl,” he finishes, and my brows furrow in confusion.
For the three years I’ve been coming here, I’ve never once seen a woman in the place.
That’s not to say that women shouldn’t come here, or that women can’t fight. It’s just the fact I’ve never seen it here before that has my hackles rising, especially since I know how hard Tyger can fight, and whoever this girl is will have no idea what she’s getting herself into.
I walk away, not giving the guy a second glance, and head to the outer side of the room, climbing up onto a stacked set of pews so I can see what’s happening.
And once I do?
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
I’m not sure if I believe my eyes or if they’re playing tricks on me, since the girl in question who is currently fighting the guy twice the size of her is none other than Lana James.
The silly girl is going to get herself killed.
You should stop it , a voice in the back of my mind whispers, but I wave it away. She got herself into this mess, she can get herself out of it. The only question that remains is whether or not her way of getting out of it will end up with her being carried out in a body bag.
My jaw clenches as I take in the sight in front of me—Lana’s round ass bounces in her black workout leggings as she moves around the ring, her black hoodie doing nothing to hide the curves beneath it. Her blonde hair is wild around her face, and her face is free from makeup.
She looks like she belongs in a place like this, unlike me.
Tyger has the upper hand, and I watch as he throws a punch to her gut, not holding back.
The fight continues with him throwing hit after hit, her seemingly not even trying to fight back, and she folds in on herself, her hands finding her knees as she bows her head, her hair covering her face so I can’t see her expression.
She’s in the wrong room.
If she were in one of the others, they would have stopped this already.
And then, like a switch has been flipped inside of her, she straightens up to her full height, her blonde hair flipping back on itself to reveal a feral smile curving her plump lips.
Her eyes are blank, as though she’s not even here in the room with us.
Like she’s in a world of her own and she’s completely dissociating.
She grins up at him and lets loose.
The roar of the crowd around me is drowned out as I focus on her and her movements. She moves with precision, like she’s done this a thousand times before as she lays into him. I’ve never seen someone move so fast, so in control of their own body.
It’s kinda hot.
She fights like she’s been doing this her entire life, and it only adds to the mystery that surrounds her.
I knew there was something off about this girl, and the more I see, the more I need to know her secrets.
I want to get inside her mind, take a look around, jumble everything up and break her from the inside out.
I’ve never wanted to ruin a person more than I want to ruin Lana James.
She’s exorcizing her demons right here for us all to see as she expertly pounds on Tyger. Blood falls from his mouth as she hits him right in the jaw, following it up with a kick to the ribs before she does some ninja move and drops him to the floor.
She straddles him and doesn’t relent her hits, pounding down on him like she has a personal vendetta against him, and all the while her blank eyes stare down at him without an ounce of emotion.
She keeps going, not taking a breath, not even fucking blinking, and it’s not until he’s passed out cold and two guys manage to haul her away from him that she seems to come back to herself.
There’s a hush over the crowd as everyone stares on in disbelief, myself included.
Lana separates herself from the two men who carried her away and glares at the faces staring at her around the room. She can’t see me from where I’m hidden, and I’m sure she has no idea that someone from the university is here to witness this.
Witness the beauty of whatever the hell that was.
She turns and storms from the room.
I had planned to fight tonight, to exorcize my own demons, but like a gravitational pull, I can’t stop myself from following after her.