Chapter 8
EIGHT
Tav
Lary squeezed my taped wrists and looked at me in the eyes. “You got this one, Husk.”
I knew that. The guy I was fighting—Dirk—was bigger than me, a total fucking giant. And I was big, so that was saying something. But I’d seen him fight last month. He was slow as hell, and his endurance was shit. His aim was shit too.
Basically, Dirk was shit.
Chen’s bodyguards stood behind Lary, wearing all black like this was the fucking movies.
Chen was all about image, the asshole. He worked for Devlin Walsh, the fucker who stole my life five years ago.
I’d contributed to that, but I couldn’t take it back.
The reason I had to fight was six feet underground, and if I could do it all over again, I’d still put him there.
Chen controlled the fights and the fighters. I rarely saw Devlin anymore, which was good, because it was hard not to pound his face in. He was an unhinged maniac who thrived on suffering, and everything about him made me sick.
I pulled my hands out of Lary’s grasp and gripped the edge of the table I was sitting on in this supply closet. Sometimes I thought I could talk to Lary, give him something, one piece of me, but I gave enough to Chen, to Devlin, to my sister. I wasn’t sure I had enough to give anyone else.
No one ever gave me anything. Except Con.
For a couple of hours, he’d given me Tav.
Every other minute of my fucking life, I was Husk.
But that was over now, wasn’t it? Because he’d given me a choice, and I couldn’t choose him.
I couldn’t give him any more than what I already did.
Could I? It was all I thought about since I saw him a few weeks ago.
What could I give him that he’d accept? I could maybe give him scraps, but this was Con we were talking about.
He’d always want more. He deserved it too.
He was a successful businessman who should be married.
He should be attending black tie events with a pretty man who fit in his social circle, who looked at him like he raised the sun.
Not me, a scarred husk with nothing to offer.
Lary’s tanned face was lined with worry as he looked at me.
He didn’t hide it as well as he’d used to.
In the years since I’d been fighting for Devlin, Lary’s hair had gotten grayer and grayer, thinner and thinner.
I wondered what hold Devlin had over Lary to make him put up with this bullshit.
I had a soft spot for Lary, though, the old bastard.
I’d never tell him though. Sometimes I thought Lary was the only person who gave a shit if I stayed human.
“Ten minutes,” said one of the wannabe bodyguards.
Lary placed his calloused hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“Just go out and do what we talked about, boy. Remember to let him get in a couple, okay?” He used to hate to tell me that, to order me to let myself get hit.
But that was years ago. Now, it didn’t faze either of us.
And we both knew I fought better, made the fight more exciting once I was bleeding a little.
And that’s what Devlin wanted, an exciting fight.
The door flew open behind the bodyguards, and Casey sauntered in with a smile on his face. He wore a pair of impossibly tight jeans and a thin V-neck T-shirt.
“Hey there, Lary,” he sing-songed, batting his eyelashes.
Lary scowled. “Would you get your ass out of here?”
Casey didn’t skip a beat. “A lot of men pay a lot of money for this ass.”
Lary threw up his hands and wandered away, muttering to himself.
Casey focused on me, the flirty look gone while he stood between my spread legs. “How are ya, Husk?”
I shrugged. What else was there to say? I didn’t stand back here and shadowbox, getting hyped. This wasn’t some televised smackdown. This was a brutal underground fight. I needed all the energy I had.
Casey’s hand fluttered near my knee, but he drew it back quickly without touching the skin.
I’d allowed him near me one time. A year ago, I’d been desperate for someone to touch me that wasn’t with a closed fist. Casey was a rent boy who worked for Devlin, so I’d offered to pay him.
But it hadn’t gone so well. I was nervous.
Casey was still scared to death of me. We’d ended up rubbing against each other until we both came, then we’d slept on opposite sides of the bed without touching each other again.
We never talked about that night, but that was the start of a tentative friendship.
He didn’t know my name, and I had no idea if Casey was his real name.
All I knew was that we were both slaves to Devlin.
And that Casey brought me a flask full of whiskey before every fight.
Sometimes it was the only way I could come alive enough to pummel someone’s face.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the silver flask. I grabbed it from him and tilted it back, welcoming the burn down my throat and into my stomach. The warmth spread out to my limbs as I wiped my mouth with the back of my taped hands and handed it back to Casey. “Thanks.”
He slipped it into his back pocket and cocked his head at me.
He was pretty, with a runner’s body, blonde hair and blue eyes.
He wasn’t my type, but even I knew men probably paid a lot to see those lips around their cocks.
If I had energy to waste on someone else, I’d waste it on Casey, though.
He was a good kid. A smart kid. I hated that Devlin had his hooks in him.
“Dirk seems to be favoring his left leg a little,” he said quietly, fingering the hem of his T-shirt. That was a job of Devlin’s rent boys, to spy on the competition. And Casey was the best, so since I was the best of Chen’s fighters, Casey usually reported to me.
I smoothed down a piece of tape. “How so?”
“Sideways movements. He advances okay, but something about his sidestep. It’s weak.”
I lifted my gaze. “Good job.”
Casey smiled, not the fake one he used for Chen or anyone else. But the real one that he’d given me right before we had tried to fuck. I patted his cheek.
“Gotta get out, Casey,” one of the bodyguards said.
“Good luck,” he whispered, then adopted that fake smile before turning around with a little flounce in his step. “All right, fellas. I’m off. You have a nice night now.” He winked at the one, and my lips twitched.
I hopped down off the table and smacked my hands together.
I didn’t bounce on my toes or roll my neck or any of that bullshit they did in the movies or whatever.
None of that mattered. All that mattered was that my head was in the right place.
Too bad it wasn’t, not really. It was in Conrad’s bed.
I’d known that showing up at his office would remind me of everything I’d lost.
“Five minutes.”
Without a word, I walked between the bodyguards as they opened the doors for me.
The warehouse we were fighting in wasn’t so bad.
I didn’t think the lights were going to fall on me any minute, or that the whole place was going to go up in flames if someone flicked a cigarette wrong.
A rope had been set up to lead the way to the fight ring.
There was no mat. Hit the floor and hit concrete, that’s the way it was in Devlin’s world. I never hit the floor.
The crowd surrounding the roped off fight ring surged forward when they saw me.
I didn’t bother with a hood or any of that dramatic shit.
I wore a pair of shorts and taped hands.
That was it. They began chanting my name, which I always thought sounded serpentine when they got going.
“Husssssk. Husssssk. Husssssk. Husssssk.”
I’d been fighting for a long time, and while the crowd changed over the years, there were always the regulars who started the chant and got it going.
They were the ones who’d seen me fight way back when I was still angry, still bitter.
I didn’t have time or energy for anger and bitterness anymore.
All my energy had to be spent on staying alive.
Some of those regulars wanted me to stay on my feet, while I’m sure others were waiting on my inevitable downfall.
They didn’t know why I was fighting, or what I was fighting for. I’d win or die trying.
When I got to the ring, I flexed my fingers, the tightening of the tape on my knuckles a feeling as familiar as the concrete under my bare feet.
The chant had begun to change now, as Dirk came bouncing toward the ring.
He wore an unzipped sweatshirt, glaring at me from underneath the hood pulled up over his hair. What a fucking tool.
I just wanted this over with. I wanted a burger, and I wanted to sleep. In that order. And maybe a nice jerk off session thinking about Con fucking me. I could really go for those plans.
Dirk paced back and forth like a tiger in the ring, all while glaring at me like this was some sort of real fight. This was illegal and underground with no rules. Whatever the fuck he was doing was for show, and I was going to smash in his face for it.
Chen hired a guy he called a ref, but he didn’t do anything ref-like other than tell us when to start fighting. Pretty sure I could have gouged out Dirk’s eyes, and the ref would have been over at the side of the ring chatting with some ring girl with big tits.
All that training, all the years I’d put into fighting. I never thought this was what would become of it. I touched the red strip of cloth tied around my bicep. I remembered my sister giving it to me. I remembered what I was doing this for.
“Figheeeet!” The ref called.
And then it was game time. I went into the familiar form, hands up, fists loose, rocking back and forth on my feet.
Back in the day, I’d practiced these moves to be the best. To win belts and titles.
To make money. I’d learned how to put on a good show so that I could maybe get a contract.
But now, I put on a good show, because that was what kept the crowd coming back.
The crowd that made Devlin money. And since the only reason I was any use to him was because I made money, it mattered.
The day I stopped making money was the day my body—along with my sister’s and my nephew’s—would end up in the Detroit River.
Dirk wore a snarl on his face. Seriously, he was a tool.
I wasn’t sure what he thought this was or what his handlers told him.
This wasn’t a steppingstone to anything.
There were no fucking scouts here. This was the basement with no ladder.
There was no getting out of here. And that pissed me right off.
I took it out on Dirk’s face. I advanced quickly, taking advantage of his lax arms. He’d been too busy scowling and trying to act menacing that he hadn’t kept up his form.
It didn’t take long. He got in a couple of jabs, a thigh kick, but that was only because I let him.
The sharp pain in my cheekbone told me that he tore open the skin.
And once the blood began to trickle down my skin, I took him out.
A quick blow to the side of his head, right where his jaw started under his ear, and he fucking dropped. The ref called the fight. The crowd went berserk.
And I walked out of the ring.