Chapter 19
Luke
T wo sober people combing this house for one unconscious woman would make our efforts go faster, further. But this seemed to be one of those times where efficiency didn’t equal security. One of us might locate Krista quicker, but wouldn’t that all be for nothing if one of those guards tried to get to Emma?
It seemed like a stupid contrast—running and hiding from one of those armed guards the day before at the resort but now freely traipsing around them here.
Come on. Where they fuck are you? I knew what Krista looked like, but I wasn’t finding her anywhere in any of the rooms on this first floor. I split my focus, too, keeping tabs on where Emma moved upstairs while I searched down here. The enormous great room was built not only with an open-floor concept in mind but also an open-ceiling one, too. The second floor hallway was contained behind a glass half-wall so all could look out that balcony and the mass of sweating, drunk people down below. More glass encased the house, providing walls that showed the dark sky over the beach. This place was a behemoth, designed with unlimited resources. I acknowledged that I didn’t belong here, walking among the rich and influential members, the denizens of the upper crust of society.
And it pushed me to want to leave now , as quickly as I could. I didn’t need anything else added to this sense of urgency. I was alert. My senses were heightened with a slowly burning flame of adrenaline.
So when a few men blocked me from striding down another hallway to look for Krista, I was already prepared, half primed to fight back if need be.
“I remember you,” one man said.
Shit. “Likewise.”
His upper lip curled. Disdain coated his face, leaving him with a fierce scowl.
“How’s that neck feeling?” I taunted, tipping my chin up in reference to how I’d pulled him off Emma by grabbing the back of his neck before throwing him into the wall. A fat white brace ringed his neck now, supporting his head.
“You fucking—”
He was pushed further back though. Someone taller, stronger, and calmer stepped forward to block this thug from spewing hatred at me. This man had that same sort of learned calm that I did. We got it through fighting.
“Orsen,” I said as a greeting. Coming face-to-face with that higher-up fighter was a surprise. Then again, they all seemed to be connected with Emma. “Or am I supposed to call you a devil?”
He smirked, losing his hold on his tough-guy persona for a second. “I don’t think I ever got your name.”
I shrugged. “You didn’t.” And he wouldn’t. I wasn’t here to offer it up.
More of the same sort of uniformed men surrounded us, and I marked the position of every one of them. They’d nearly succeeded in blocking me in a corner, but I could slip out the other hallway if I had to.
I liked to live my life on the edge of danger, but I wasn’t so stupid to think I could take on all six of these fuckers on my own. Okay, five and a half. That cocky bastard in the neck brace didn’t really count.
“Who do you fight for, man?” Orsen asked.
No one tried to step in front of him, and the fact that they all deferred to him told me that he was a man in charge, to some degree of authority.
I stayed where I was and kept my face blank.
I had to be careful with what I said. If they asked me that in any other circumstance, like, if we were at a location where matches were held, I’d answer. But this was different. I kicked his ass in an unsanctioned fight in the alley. Things were already off-kilter between us. While his question could’ve been a business one, this felt personal.
These men were from a bigger outfit. I suspected one of the quarreling mafia families, but wouldn’t Jimmy explain that? Wouldn’t he have the balls to be decent and inform me about this shit?
If these guys were affiliated with the Marchese mafia, which was my first guess based on a few familiar faces I saw here from the fighting circuits, this was some serious shit. The Marcheses were no joke. The cartel was worse, but I didn’t care to have any mafia meathead singling me out as an enemy.
Besides, I didn’t know what to say. Jimmy was my manager, but he never identified who he worked for. He’d come up to me as a sole operator, interested in me as a fluke. Ben and his lackeys mentioned some Sean man, and the name did seem familiar, but I never saw the guy at fights. He was more of a figure from when I started training under Jimmy’s say-so.
The fact remained that I knew next to nothing about Jimmy. Who he was associated with, who he’d want me to avoid or align with.
“Cat got your tongue?” one of the other men teased when I didn’t reply.
I’d let my silence be an answer, but they didn’t walk away.
“You think you can take me on again?” Orsen taunted, lifting his chin higher in a gesture of cockiness.
I raised my brows, letting him decipher my expression. I know I could.
“What about Ferris?” he asked.
The other men with him nodded and laughed, like it was some hilarious joke to challenge me with the mention of a fighter even higher up in the ranks.
Now I had my answer. Ferris was clearly sponsored and represented by the Marchese family. I knew who I was dealing with. I was in deeper shit to have attacked a Marchese fighter the way I had, but it was too late to take that back. I wouldn’t take it back anyway. I was in deep enough that I’d always stand up to protect Emma.
But what the fuck is she doing messing with the damn Marcheses?
“What do you say, Sawyer?” Orsen taunted.
Just as I’d suspected, the fucker knew my name. It wouldn’t have been hard for them to figure it out. People knew me in the fighting arena.
This shit was getting deeper. Too deep. I wasn’t sure what to commit to, even as a reply right here and now. I got the sense that they were expecting me to back down from a bigger fight, but that challenge was exactly what I’d wanted. I’d been thinking about how to have Ben get me arranged in a preliminary fight to go against Ferris at the end of the summer. The bastard didn’t fight often, so it would be a big deal. And a big deal meant more money. Money I wanted to provide for my mom.
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t affiliated with anyone other than Jimmy. I wasn’t officially repped or sponsored by any gang, club, family, or organization. Whatever I said in a reply now—backing down or accepting this challenge—would lead to more complications later, and I couldn’t determine who to trust or rely on. I always wanted to remain an independent fighter, a solo man in this illegal sport, but that wasn’t how these things worked.
It wasn’t how they worked when I wanted to dip into the waters of fighting for good money.
“What do you say?” Orsen repeated.
I settled on silence. Keeping my mouth shut was imperative. Maintaining a level glare on him, I cut through the small crowd of them and shouldered through them.
I walked away, putting a big pause on that conversation I hadn’t wanted in the first place.
Where they fuck are you? I focused on finding her. On finding them. While Orsen locked me in that conversation and revealed that I was getting mixed up with the Marchese family, I’d lost tabs on Emma.
I had to find her. And we had to locate Krista.
“Bingo.” I had. Opening a door to a shabby guestroom down in the basement, I found the woman curled up on a couch.
“Krista?”
She didn’t stir as I entered the room.
No one else was down here, and that worried me more. She’d been shoved aside, out cold. If she wasn’t covered with a guard, that had to mean something, right? Or maybe they’d drugged her so well that they knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Her clothes seemed intact, and as I patted her cheek, I saw that she was breathing fine.
“Krista.” I patted her cheek harder, concerned with how deeply she was out. “Krista.”
Nothing. They had to have drugged her with something potent. I hauled her into my arms and carried her out, more worried about losing Emma in this place.
I didn’t belong here, an outsider looking in, but I knew what this place represented. Money. The filthy rich. They could rise above any standard obstacles in life to get what they wanted—including hard drugs. If they could do this to Krista, I worried as I took her out an unguarded exit from the basement level, they could do it to Emma too.
Questions wracked my mind as I carried Krista past people making out, a couple fucking against the fence. No one stopped me as I set the sleeping woman in the backseat of Emma’s car. Not a single thing slowed me from entering back the way I’d come, either, slipping in that basement door.
How did Emma know the Marcheses?
Why did they take Krista and drug her?
What the fuck was going on here?
From the moment I saw Emma, I knew she would be trouble in my life. With the events of this night, I was getting suckered into the belief that she was worth it all. Emma simply clicked with me. She fit with me, and I knew I couldn’t walk away now. I wouldn’t. I meant it when I said I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to familiarize myself with every detail about her. I wanted to explore with her and learn what she liked and how I could annoy her. I looked forward to cutting some slack and letting her encroach on my privacy too.
But what trouble was she bringing into my life? What was I really walking into here?
I hurried through the hallway upstairs in the party house. Stuck with a tunnel-vision approach to finding her, I tuned out everything else. The noise of the party. The people fucking in a team effort in the bedrooms. That couple seeming to race in snorting up coke.
I concentrated on finding Emma, worried with every moment that I couldn’t locate her.
I’d just found her. I’d just relented to the idea of keeping her with me. To make her mine.
And I’d be damned if I lost her already.