Chapter 5
Luke
J immy accompanied me to the fight. He never drove with me, only occasionally meeting me at the fights. He didn’t show for all of them.
“Because I’ve always tried to maintain my distance from you,” he explained when I asked what was so special about him coming to this fight tonight.
After we faced each other off at what was, in fact, the original Rossini estate, where my father lie in the bed and hooked up to all those machines, he suggested that I return Randy’s car and stick with him.
My life didn’t seem like my own anymore. I was used to working, then working overtime. Fighting. Then crashing at home for as much sleep as I could manage.
Nothing seemed the same now.
The focus that drove me to stay alert was Emma. I hadn’t stopped worrying about her or thinking about her for a moment. Even on this drive to the fight location, somewhere that was changed to keep it all secret, I tried to resist the what-ifs about where she was and if she was okay.
“And, I want to see Marchese,” Jimmy said. He maintained a stern glower on the road as he drove, concentrating but also deep in thought.
“Antonio?” I asked.
“And his father, Vincent.”
The boss. “What makes you think they’ll show?” Crime leaders usually had their lackeys attend for them. Some cartel lords showed up here and there, but usually, the big bosses stayed away.
“Because they’ve asked for a challenge one of their best fighters.”
I grunted a laugh. All this time, I’d been eager to fight higher up. To make more money and advance. Here I was, getting that fucking wish, and it was the last thing on my mind.
I understood Jimmy’s strategy. He wanted to observe the Marchese men. I did too. But this fight was nothing more than a ploy in my mind. I didn’t care about a win or money. I cared about collecting intel about Emma.
“And since they’re coming,” Jimmy said, “I don’t think that they’ve got Emma. Not in their custody.”
“How so?”
He sighed, as though he hated to discuss this because he was still holding on to the hope that I’d give up on Emma.
“Antonio’s a sick fuck. He’s obsessed with marrying Emma. If he had her in custody, he wouldn’t give a shit about watching his fighter. Or you.”
Through my peripheral vision, I noticed him glance at me. I was too busy scoping out this shitty, rundown warehouse area outside Miami.
“He’s heard enough about you and his men have seen you with Emma enough that he knows you’re his enemy, but Luke.” He exhaled a hard breath. “You can not let him know you’re Marlo’s son.”
“Why?”
“No one can know yet.”
Yet. That was the key word I latched on to. Jimmy was scheming something. He had some kind of plan to follow if he intended to let the world know I was Marlo Rossini’s son. Just not yet.
Why?
I had a layman’s understanding of the inner politics of the mafia, but I’d ask Emma, not my uncle. I trusted her, not him.
“Trust me,” he said, hedging an actual reply.
Not a fucking chance in hell I’m making that mistake twice, Uncle.
We arrived at a warehouse, and he paused me from going in. He set his hand on my forearm and pierced me with a stern look. “Do you understand?”
I didn’t, but I could play along. I was still coming to terms that the sick, old mafia boss I saw lying in that bed was my long-lost father I never knew about. I wasn’t in any position to broadcast the news I had yet to fully accept.
“Got it,” I said.
We headed out, and once more, he touched my arm to get my attention. “Sean will be here.”
“He’s always lurked in the background,” I replied. “I never realized that.”
“He’s my eyes and ears. Act like you don’t know him.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t be scanning the crowds. When I was in a fight, I had to focus so I wouldn’t be hurt.
Inside, Jimmy ceased speaking to me. We fell into a looser companionship as I prepared to fight. Unlike the time when I brought Emma to watch me, I felt tense and on edge knowing that my uncle was here. He was no longer just my manager, but family, and it was surreal and foreign to know that I had someone out there watching me with a personal connection.
As soon as I entered the ring though, primed and pumped to get this over with and show Antonio and his father who they were fucking with, I realized my first error of the night.
This wasn’t just a fight.
This wouldn’t be a simple in-and-out chore to get over with.
The tall, thickly muscled monster across from me looked at me in such a way that I was intimidated. I didn’t show it. I never would. But a man only stared at his opponent like that when he intended to annihilate him. To kill him.
It’s rigged.
The Marcheses weren’t here for the sport of watching their fighter or to make an example out of me for taking what wasn’t mine.
They intended to eliminate me.
Permanently.
This tall motherfucker was matched against me to kill me.
I knew it, just as I knew I loved Emma and that I would never stop protecting her.
“Luke!”
I heard Jimmy’s shouts from the side. He had to have realized the same thing I just did. That when this freakshow of a killer stepped out here, grinning sadistically like I was his prey he couldn’t wait to murder, this was not a standard fight.
“Luke!”
I ignored him, concentrating on this beast. He wouldn’t win. They wouldn’t get rid of me that easily. I wasn’t cocky to the point I let my confidence overrule my ability. But I was motivated, more driven than any other man here, to win.
Because Emma depended on it. Because walking away from here would make sure that I remained on the path to save her from whoever kidnapped her.
Tuning out the noise of the crowd and the direct shouts from my uncle, I entered a zen-like focus, fighting one of the biggest, meanest assholes I’d ever encountered. He was better that Orsen, who I’d struggled against in the alley. He was faster than that stupid fucker I met in the streets when I was just a teenager. I killed him. That stranger with the knives and guns was my first kill.
And tonight, this wicked fighter who thought to remove me joined that list.
We fought hard, evenly matched. Despite him whipping out a knife halfway through and trying to cheat by slicing at my neck, he couldn’t beat me.
Blood, sweat, and spit flew. The crowd went wild. We kept at each other, fighting like the deviants we were.
After what felt like an eternity of punches, hits, kicks, and slams, I at last had him in a deadlock.
I lifted my gaze, shaking with the force of keeping him still and down beneath me. Finding Antonio in the crowds, I let his stern expression of disgust be etched in my mind. He watched, furious as I held his fighter an inch from death.
If he wanted to rig a fight and see me dead, he had another thing coming.
Play stupid games...
I cinched my arms, snapping the man’s neck.
Win stupid prizes, motherfucker.
Wheezing out hard breaths, I climbed off the dead man. Shouts of praise and even louder yells of shock rang out all around. I staggered back, spent and wasted of energy after such a hard and long fight.
Holy shit. I’d given my all to stay alive in that fight, and it showed in every tired, exhausted movement I made. I hadn’t strained that hard in a fight in years.
Meeting Jimmy’s gaze, I saw his sober understanding that I’d had to kill the man. Everyone saw that the other guy cheated. They were all witnesses to how rigged this fight was with that Marchese man pulling a knife on me.
Jimmy nodded once, and I acknowledged that we had an understanding.
It had to happen.
I did all that I could do.
He’d tried to warn me, and I’d shown him—and the Marcheses— that I wouldn’t be taken down that easily. A fleeting fear hit me that next time, they’d try harder. They were the kind of people who’d try until they succeeded.
“This way,” Ben’s ring workers ushered me out of the ring, and I followed their direction. A shower might revive me, but fuck, I was whipped. Stumbling a bit, I walked out of the main focal point of the room as other men pulled the dead fighter to the side. It still felt so surreal that I had killed him like that, with my bare hands. I’d always known the limits of my strength, and I had maintained a level understanding that I would only kill for the sake of defense.
I had, but here, under these circumstances, it didn’t seem right.
I’d never killed someone in the ring. I’d only been paired against easy or almost equally skilled fighters and it would’ve been cruel to kill them.
Tonight, it was kill or be killed, and I didn’t have time for that. I had to live. I had to survive.
For Emma.
The workers pushed open a pair of dinged and rusty double doors. As soon as they stepped through, entering another room where victors were given a chance to clean up, I lowered my head and heaved out a deep breath.
Killing didn’t come easily to me. Physically, I could endure it. But mentally, I was taken to a low, dark spot. I didn’t regret killing that fighter. I had to in order to survive, but it weighed on me, a pounding force that crushed the questionable conscience I had.
The men ushering me into the room eased off to the side. They sidestepped too suddenly for it to be a natural move.
I tensed, my adrenaline spiking as I assessed what had changed.
They’d shifted to the side unexpectedly, reacting in surprise to the pair of masked men approaching from inside the room. One shoved a ring worker over when he didn’t get out of the way fast enough. The second rushed closer.
They were coming for me.
I lifted my hands, posed to defend myself even though I still had to catch my breath from the fight I endured.
As soon as the other masked man lifted a taser and aimed it at me, it was all over.
I fell, letting the image of Emma be the last thing on my mind as the force of electricity stunned me.