Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Conrad
I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
The warehouse was drafty but at the same time humid with too many bodies crammed inside.
There was a crude ring sectioned off with rope.
Men and women circled the crowd taking money for bets.
I couldn’t stop my lips from curling in disgust.
Ben stood at my side with his hands stuffed casually in the pockets of his coat. I hadn’t expected him to come, but when I’d gotten in the car, he’d been in the back seat already with a wide grin on his face. I had glared at him, and he’d just shrugged and said, “Nik.”
Those two either ribbed each other like brothers or conspired against me.
Today apparently was a conspiratorial day.
While Ben had been out of this kind of a life for a long time, the senses we’d honed as kids into troubled teens into criminal adults never really faded.
While Ben seemed casual, his gaze took in the scene with shrewd eyes.
“Can’t believe you were going to leave me out of this,” he said, gaze still traveling over the crowd.
“You never let me in on the fun anymore.”
“Maybe because it’s not fun anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time.” I hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.
Ben swallowed and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You’re right. Sorry about that.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Don’t apologize. I’m on edge.”
“So we’re looking for a rent boy named Casey and a jacked guy with two different eyes?”
I stared at him. He knew this how? “Are you fucking for real?”
He tilted his head. “Nik.”
“I’m going to staple his mouth shut.”
“Come on, the big guy is a steel trap except when it comes to you and me. He needed my help, and I blackmailed him into telling me why. Simple, really.”
I changed the subject from Nik’s big mouth. “And have you seen either of them?”
“Nope. No sign of our former friend here, either.”
I was aware that Devlin could see me here, and he might make a scene, but likely not. He didn’t know me as Soto, and so I was only in attendance as Conrad Staffod, legitimate CEO and patron of illegal fighting. I’d even placed a small bet, just in case Devlin questioned why I was here.
The crowd was starting to get rowdy, and shouts went up as heads collectively turned to the left.
There were no fancy spotlight or announcers, but a tall man could be seen heading down a marked off aisle that led to the ring.
He bounced on the balls of his bare feet as he walked, thighs bunching under dark blue compression shorts, which was all he wore.
His skin was dark, his head shaved. And he looked fucking scary.
“That is one big motherfucker,” Ben whistled. “They call him Shock. This fight’s supposed to be a big one. Neither fighter has ever been knocked out.”
The crowd was even louder now chanting something that sounded like hissing. “And who’s the other fighter?” I hadn’t even listened when I made the bet, just handed over a few hundred and called it a day.
“Husk.” Ben craned his neck as a door banged open somewhere to our right
As the crowd jostled, a woman bumped into me. She glanced up. “Oh sorry, about that.”
I gave her a nod before trying to see the other fighter over the rabid crowd. Fists pumped the air. “Husk?” I asked to no one in particular. The crowd was rabid now. Fists pumped the electric-charged air.
“I think they got Husk from Husky,” the woman at my side said, swaying a bit on her feet. Her drink sloshed over her cup.
I frowned. “Why would they name a fighter Husky?”
She jumped in her heels and let out a little squeal. “Oh shit, there he is. Guy is a beast. And I think they named him Husky because of his eyes.”
His eyes.
The room slowed down. The sound dimmed. I turned my head, not wanting to look but knowing I had to, knowing I needed to confirm what had to be my worst nightmare.
Husk—my Tav—strode across the warehouse floor on the way to the ring.
He wasn’t bouncing on his feet like the other guy or pounding his fists.
His head wasn’t bowed. He stared straight ahead, his expression perfectly blank.
But I knew that face, I’d touched it with my fingers.
I knew how his eyes sparkled when he was happy, how his jaw worked when he chewed food he’d made with his own hands, how his dimples showed when he laughed.
I’d felt that ass shift under my palms. I’d been inside of him.
And now he was about to enter the ring with some fucking huge man named Shock. And then, the world hit unmute, and suddenly everything came back into sharp focus like a slap. I registered the eager face of the woman at my side and the bloodlust of the crowd. I was going to be sick.
“I’ve only seen Husk fight once.” The woman was still chatting, and I wanted to throttle her. “Maybe two years ago. He’s out of it. Just fights with that dead-eyed look on his face, drops his opponents like flies, and then leaves.”
Tav wasn’t dead eyed around me. Well, maybe he’d been when I first met him, but this was the man who ate grapes from my fingers, who cooked me omelets in my kitchen. And I was supposed to watch him fight?
I had to get away from this woman. I gripped Ben’s arm and steered him closer to the ring. He frowned at me. “What’re you doing?”
Ben didn’t know. He hadn’t heard the woman, and we were two far away to see Tav’s eyes. I licked my dry lips. “It’s him.”
“What?” He glanced around us. “Who?”
I turned and gritted out through a throat that felt shredded. “Husk. He’s Husk.”
It was hard to shock Ben, but I’d succeeded.
His eyes went impossibly wide as we came to a stop a few rows back from the ring, and his chest heaved as he stared at Tav.
His hand gripped my arm, tight, so tight that I felt the bones grind.
And for the first time in a very long time, I saw real worry in his eyes as they met mine.
“This is bad, Conrad. This is really fucking bad.”
I didn’t need him to tell me that. Tav wasn’t some shmuck indebted to Devlin. He wasn’t a low-level grunt. He was one of his prized fighters, undefeated, so popular that he had a whole nickname and an entire crowd behind him.
He was in the center of the ring now, a ref standing between him and Shock.
He looked relaxed, but I knew what Tav really felt like at rest, and this wasn’t it.
That energy was right below the surface, ready to strike, just like when he’d been in my kitchen with that knife ready to throw down against Nik.
But that was all a costume, something he donned to survive.
I believed that to the depths of my soul.
The real Tav just wanted to cook good food and take my cock.
The real Tav liked peace. He deserved more than just survival.
He wore a pair of black compression shorts, black tape on his hands, and something red was tied around his left bicep.
More jostling brought us even closer to the ring, until I had nearly a front row seat to watch the man I craved get pummeled in the face.
Ben kept a tight grip on my elbow, and that was the only thing that anchored me in place, that kept me from running into the ring and snatching Tav away from this nightmare.
Tav didn’t look at the crowd. He didn’t seem to acknowledge much around him as the crowd surged and shouted in waves. He faced his opponent with dead eyes and a tightly coiled body.
The ref made some sort of guttural sound and then stepped away swiftly as the two fighters went into a boxing stance, taped hands in front of their faces in loose fists.
I didn’t want to watch this, and yet I couldn’t look away.
That felt like I was leaving Tav alone to fight for himself.
No, I’d stay here, and I’d watch as if my presence alone could get Tav through this.
Shock got the first hit, a kick with his left leg to Tav’s right thigh.
Tav moved away quickly and immediately went in for a punch, catching Shock on the cheekbone, then another punch in the gut.
Shock wiped his face, and the light-colored tape showed blood.
The crowd roared, loving the sight of it, the blood-thirsty motherfuckers.
Tav didn’t take his eyes off Shock, like he didn’t even realize the crowd existed. He was focused solely on the fight. They traded punches and kicks. At one point Tav got Shock on the floor, and then the ref blew a whistle to end a round.
I leaned toward Ben. “Do you know how many rounds?”
Ben’s jaw was tight. “I’m going to assume however many it takes.”
However many it takes until what?
By the fifth round, both men were showing signs of fatigue.
Sweat dripped from Tav’s soaked hair into his face.
I didn’t know much about fighting, but I knew Tav’s body.
I knew the way he walked. He was favoring his right leg a little, which Shock seemed to love kicking the shit out of.
I wanted to rip off Shock’s left leg and beat him with it.
Tav’s body seemed carved from stone, every muscle standing out.
He was bleeding from a cut above his eye, and his lip was split.
Tav got in a hit to Shock’s temple and the man returned the pain with a sharp punch to Tav’s mid-section.
I couldn’t tell who went down first, whether Tav’s legs gave out or Shock stumbled, but they both crashed to the ground with a thud I could feel in my spine.
Shock on top, straddling Tav—those hips I’d held—his elbows swinging as he beat either side of Tav’s head.
Tav protected his face as best as he could, but the punches just kept raining down on that face I saw every night in my dreams. The ref stood by, arms crossed over his chest while the crowd roared.