18. Tristian #2
“Well good for you! Always knew you could. I said that right from the start, didn’t I?
I always said, this guy can take it to the top.
He can win ’em all. Isn’t that right, boys?
” He glanced at them and they nodded like obedient dogs.
“And you’ll get to win fights, Tristian.
But right now, you’re odds on to win—and that means there’s money to be made from playing the game.
So, you work for me, you toss a few fights out the window, take a tumble, let the other guy catch you off-guard with a punch or two.
We win big on bets, and we split the money.
Everybody wins… It’s not so bad, is it? Sure doesn’t sound it to me.
Not the end of the world, losing to some hundred-to-oner and raking it in big time at the pools? What do you say?”
This was Darragh’s game. I knew it all too well. I’d played my part in it before, left him a rich man. I’d done okay out of it, I guessed… but I wasn’t prepared to do it again. I wanted to live my life with honesty and integrity—more than I could ever say for him or my father.
Worse, it had been so hard to pull out of this game before, when the bookies caught on and started applying their own pressure, threatening to drop me from the bill, and then when the cops started sniffing around too. Darragh had kept me in for months, him and his thugs… and that fucking belt.
I pulled at the Velcro straps to my gloves, one off and then the other.
“No deal,” I muttered, before I turned and marched toward the locker room. “Don’t come looking for me again,” was the last thing I called over my shoulder.
Darragh’s voice echoed behind me: “I told you, Tristian: playtime is over. That goes for you being some street da Vinci—and for this little doll you’ve been playing with lately.”
My steps faltered as his chuckle rang low.
“She’s fuckin’ pretty, eh?” Darragh taunted. “Brandon told me all about how she’s got you twisted around her finger with that innocent act. I couldn’t believe it—until I saw her. And you know something? I can’t say I blame you. Her little ass and mouth would bring any man to his knees.”
Instantly, I saw red.
Swiftly turning, I marched over to him only to be stopped by his guards. I raised my fists, no longer caring—but they caught me, snagged me with brutal force. My arms yanked behind my back so hard my shoulders almost popped from their sockets, I was down on my knees in moments, grunting.
Darragh leered over me, impassive. Thumbs still hooked in his belt loops, he tutted. His fingers ticked up and down on that glinting metal buckle.
“And now we see the truth,” he said. “You are playing. But underneath you’re still just this… angry little boy who doesn’t know a lick about how the real world works.”
“Don’t you ever say anything like that about her again.”
He pouted, a mock expression of pity that made me want to rip his tongue out. “Did I strike a nerve, lad? Well, that’s too bad. I’ll say whatever the fuck I want, and there’s nothin’ you can say or do, eh?”
He stepped closer, leering down, fingers twisting into my hair, yanking my head back until I had no choice but to look up at him.
“You’re throwing those fights,” he snarled. “We can work out which ones you’re gonna win later. But for now—you are a dead man in that ring. And if you don’t play along… well.”
He tapped the buckle. “Then perhaps you’ll have to get reacquainted with this.”
I spat. A gob of thick saliva stuck to the head of the dragon.
Darragh looked down with disgust.
“That’s all you’ll fucking get from me,” I snapped.
He tutted, disappointment in his eyes, letting go of my hair with a shove. “I didn’t want to do this… Show him we mean business, boys.”
They laid me out. There was really no other way to put it.
One held me back, arms tight behind my back in a vice grip I couldn’t break.
The other slammed fists into my ribs and stomach.
I gasped and thrashed, fighting, but the hold was too strong.
I couldn’t even fall down because the guy behind me had me so tight.
Kicks sailed into my hips. Another fist struck my face. I grunted, seeing stars.
When I blinked the painful haze out of my eyes, blood running down my chin, Darragh was sliding back into his jacket like nothing had happened.
“Your next fight is next week, yes?” I didn’t answer, but he knew already.
“I’ll expect you to be in touch. Get your shit together, or next time I’ll have to pay a visit to that little doll of yours. ”
The guy behind me released my arms and I collapsed to the ground.
I moved to go after him, but I was spent. All the air had been driven out of me. My body was alive with fire. Breaths came short and sharp, painful. It felt like my ribs were broken.
Darragh and his goons filed out. They chatted nonchalantly, as if none of this had even happened. Last I heard of them was a chorus of laughter at some little thing, at whatever nothings they had started to talk about between themselves—and then the door closing.
I breathed hard.
Darragh’s last words echoed in my mind:
“Get your shit together, or next time I’ll have to pay a visit to that little doll of yours.”
I couldn’t let her get involved in this.
I had to keep her safe—from my world, and from Darragh.
But how?
You know how, came his twangy voice.
You know exactly how to keep your little doll safe.