Chapter 10
RAFE
“Alex stays with me,” I said, my voice deathly low and brooking no argument. I would take on every fucking asshole in this barn, leave bloody corpses in my wake before I’d hand over Alex.
Shelton’s spine stiffened, and he retreated a negligible inch. Barely noticeable—that sign of concession—but I recognized it for what it was. My rage had festered into an entity, and any fool within a few hundred feet of me could see that. Shelton was no fool.
“Alright,” he said. “The girl stays put, but I want her present at the match. Dress her up in something sexy. The crowd will love it.”
I bit back a growl, my gaze veering to Zach. For an insane moment, I almost expected him to give a shit. This was Alex. His sister.
The girl he liked to fuck.
But he couldn’t give two fucks whether or not she was dragged into this mess, so long as it benefited him. He didn’t wear smug well.
As if Shelton sensed the undercurrent of hostility still zipping back and forth between Zach and me, he instructed his goons to take Zach back to wherever they were keeping the fucker. As the other men herded him from the barn, he ground his teeth at being manhandled.
How do you like it, asshole?
Their exit left Shelton and me alone. I bunched my hands to keep from striking him. “This wasn’t what we talked about last night.”
“Sure it was,” Shelton said in a grating, humoring tone. “You want Zach, and I want a memorable final match worthy of you.”
What he wanted was a blood bath that lined his pockets. “You crossed a line by dragging Alex into it. She’s been through enough.”
“That’s just to get him onboard. Nothing personal. He thinks he’ll win, but I’ve got my money on you.”
“You might be willing to risk Alex, but I’m not.”
Shelton folded his arms over his massive chest. “I’ve got five hundred grand on you in this fight. That’s how little De Luca junior concerns me. I never liked his old man, and junior was never as good as you. He knew it. Everyone knew it.”
Even so, Zach had caught me off guard once already when he’d shown up on the island. Then a group of thugs had added insult to injury. But that was then, I reminded myself. I’d been fresh out of prison, hadn’t trained or fought for a while, and shit had spiraled out of control.
This was now, and for the past six months, I’d dominated inside the cage. I could win this. I knew it in my gut, believed it for one important reason; giving up Alex wasn’t an option.
And taking care of Zach was a necessity.
I tapped my foot for several seconds, mulling it over, trying to determine if Shelton could be trusted. “So when I win this, Alex and I are free to jet on out of here, right?”
“I have no intention of burning bridges, Mason. Not good for business, and you’ve proven to be good for business. It’s been years since I had a guy like you fight, so give me a good one before you up and quit on me.”
A siren blared in my head. What if I was too good for him to let go?
Stop being fucking paranoid, Mason. Not everyone’s out to get you.
But even so, the urge to grab Alex and disappear was strong, yet doing so would solve nothing.
Zach would still be out there, and I’d be damned if we had to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives, wondering when he’d catch up to us.
If anyone should live in fear, it was Zach.
But he didn’t operate like a normal human being.
Fuck, I didn’t operate like a normal human being.
“If you fuck me over—”
“Have I ever done wrong by you?”
Not counting the shit he was pulling now?
“No, can’t say you have.” He’d been nothing but good to me.
This time, when Shelton stuck his hand out, I pushed past my defenses, logic, common fucking sense, and shook on it.
And as I left behind the stench of distrust in that barn, my feet barely out the door, I wanted to turn back. Wanted to change my mind.
Impossible.
If this was the only way to get to Zach without stirring up more trouble, I had to do it. Didn’t mean I had to like it though. I returned to the boat, silently screaming obscenities the whole way. My life was a series of clusterfucks.
Would it ever end?
Not even close. I got the second biggest shock of the day once I stepped aboard and entered the cabin. Jax was handcuffed to the damn pole.
He shrugged, throwing me a helpless look. “She found your gun, man, and she looked pissed enough to use it.”
Fuck.
I stormed past him and flung the bedroom door open. The dresser was a fucking disaster zone fit for a visit from FEMA. She’d left the drawers open with clothes strewn about, and the drawer where I kept my toys and implements hung precariously off its tracks. Alex was nowhere to be found.
I strode across the room and just as I suspected, she’d taken her purse. A quick swipe underneath the nightstand confirmed the stolen gun.
Double fuck.
As I returned to Jax, I pulled out my cellphone and keys. “How long ago did she leave?”
“Thirty minutes, I guess. Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve been a little tied up here.”
“Any idea where she was headed?” I asked, unlocking the cuffs binding him. I pocketed them, figuring they might come in handy.
“She was going after you, dude.”
“But she didn’t know where I was.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I might’ve said something about the barn.”
“Jeez,” I said, shaking my head.
“She was pointing a fucking gun at me. What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, attempting to contain my aggravation. “Handle the situation? She wasn’t gonna shoot you.”
“You didn’t see her face. She’s not the same scared-shitless girl from six months ago.”
“She’s upset with me,” I muttered, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d put her through the wringer—six months ago, last night, even this morning when I’d laid her on the table for breakfast. She had too many questions and no fucking answers.
I dialed her cell and got her voicemail straight away.
Either her phone was dead, or she’d shut it off.
Or someone had shut it off for her. With a hard swallow, I banished the thought from my mind.
Shelton had stowed Zach in shackles somewhere, and he had incentive enough to make sure the fucker stayed there.
No one had taken her. Not this time. I refused to believe it, so that meant she’d gone off on her own.
But why?
Rubbing his wrists, Jax leaned against the bench, and I sank onto the sofa across from him.
“Shelton wants me to fight Zach, with Alex as the prize. If she followed me to the barn…” I cursed under my breath. “She might’ve overheard something she shouldn’t have.”
“Or she’s scared out of her mind after pulling a fucking gun on me.” Jax’s face hardened. “She should be scared. You need to get that shit under control pronto.”
He might be right, but I couldn’t drive away the anxiety in my stomach. If she’d overheard us, then she’d seen Zach. Maybe she’d removed herself from the situation so she couldn’t be used as a bargaining chip. Seemed like something she’d do.
But had she taken off because she was worried about my part in this upcoming fight, or because she was afraid for her brother?
Did she sense how badly I wanted to rip into him?
Maybe she’d caught a whiff of the metaphorical blood on my hands, and the realization that she was in love with a monster had sent her packing—had sent her careening over the cliff, a thread away from another mental meltdown.
“Fuck. I’ve gotta find her.”