11. Elio
Elio
“I don’t love this, Boss,” Enzo mutters from below as I haul myself over the ropes and into the ring.
“You sound like an old broad. When was the last time I asked you if you loved a single fucking decision I’ve ever made?
” I toss back at him. Curse stands beside him on the floor.
My brother knows better than to question me when I’ve made up my mind on something.
Plus, he knows that I don’t fucking plan on losing.
He stares at me steadily as I roll my shoulders.
Fuck, that stiff shoulder might be a problem.
It doesn’t hurt too bad right now, but it could be a liability where speed is concerned.
“I’m your head of security,” Enzo says with a shrug. “I’m supposed to worry like an old broad does.”
Well, I don’t need any of that shit right now. Right now, all I need to do is beat this weird-eyed motherfucker in his own damn ring.
“What are the parameters?” I ask Darragh. He’s in the ring now, too, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet so fast he looks like a manic kangaroo or some shit.
“Bare knuckles,” he says. “Though those are pretty thin. You can keep ’em on if you want.”
He means my leather gloves.
But Darragh isn’t wearing anything on his knuckles, not even tape, so I’m not going to be the prissy one covering up my precious, shitty hands. With harsh, quick movements, I tug off the gloves and toss them backwards, knowing that Enzo or Curse will catch them without even having to look.
Darragh’s eyes go to my hands as I flex my fingers. He lets out a low whistle.
“No wonder you’re always wearing them. You got some real Phantom of the Opera shit going for you there.”
I don’t know much about Phantom of the Opera except for the whole white mask thing. That and there always seems to be some young, beautiful woman swooning before his monstrous, possessive gaze.
Which… considering the Songbird I’ve got locked up in my tower, might actually be a fair comparison.
I don’t bother responding, just watch him as he bounces around and shakes out his hands. He’s actually only a year younger than I am, but there’s this frenetic energy burning in him that makes me feel like there’s a decade between us.
“First one to land a good, hard blow to the face and draw blood wins,” Darragh continues.
He swoops his arms in big arcs as he continues to limber up.
Which seems kind of unnecessary, since he’s probably already warmed up from his last fight, but if he wants to do his weird fucking pre-fight thing then more power to him, I guess.
Maybe it’ll tire him out a bit before we start.
“Fine. I agree to the terms,” I say, giving a tight nod and raising my fists. It’s fucking weird to have them this close to my face without the gloves on. But I’m not looking at them anyway. Gotta keep my attention focused on my opponent.
Other than that one nose-crunching punch I gave Brian, it’s been a long while since I beat somebody to a pulp in a fight with my fists, but the feeling comes right back as I assume my stance.
I’m barely aware of how every person in this place is now gathered around the ring, all of them staring at us as we stare at each other.
One of Darragh’s men calls the start to the fight, and when Darragh’s fist flies at me, jerking back and out of range is as easy as fucking breathing.
But Darragh is fast, I’ll give him that.
He’s not the type to circle his opponent, to learn about them, to slowly try to gain the upper hand.
He’s the kind who bursts right out of the gate without a single thought of how he’ll get to where he’s going besides sheer, persistent force.
He punches and jabs with astonishing speed, though I have no problem dodging and blocking. For now, anyway.
Unlike Darragh, I don’t mind taking my fucking time.
Same as I was willing to bide my time and wait to get my hands on Deirdre, I don’t rush this, either.
I want to get this done, but I won’t win if I’m too impatient.
So I block, and block, and block again, taking blows against my wrists and forearms and even a couple to the kidney area that take my breath away.
But all the while, I’m watching, I’m analyzing.
He’s got weaknesses. A chink in his armour.
Everybody does. It’s all about patiently waiting to find out what they are.
So that you can get your thumb inside that crack and push until it bleeds.
At first, his punches are so quick and random that it’s hard to discern any kind of pattern.
But even a loose cannon like Darragh can’t make his movements random and unpredictable forever.
A rhythm emerges, a method to his madness, and, strangely, it almost reminds me of the notes of music.
Each pumping blow a bright, discordant note that jabs its way into a song I feel like I might actually be able to get a hold of. And predict.
I probably have my Songbird to thank for that.
Never gave two shits about music before her.
And here I am, turning Darragh’s lunging punches into notes so that I can get my head around them.
Maybe some of her university lectures have rubbed off on me.
Is there a class on turning the physical pain of somebody punching your ribs and your arms into a soundtrack in your head?
There should be. Hell, maybe I could teach it.
Step one: let some nutcase use you as a punching bag.
Step two: do it long enough that the pain turns into art.
And art that you can analyze, not just gawk at like a dumbass. With every moment that passes, I get a better and better sense of Darragh’s movements, his patterns, the raging rhythm building in my brain.
So when that rhythm stumbles, when it slows, I know the millisecond it happens.
Maybe it’s cliché, but time gets real fucking slow in that instant. The only thing that’s fast is my fist, slicing like a shark through water, jabbing straight forward until it connects hard with Darragh’s face.
Even with how fast I move, Darragh still manages to bounce to the side slightly, almost avoiding my blow.
But nobody, not even Darragh, is good enough to avoid my fist when it comes down.
I may not hit his nose like I’d been aiming for, but my knuckles slam hard against the soft tissue of his mouth, driving his lips and cheek so hard against his teeth I think I might have knocked at least one of them loose.
Darragh stops bouncing and blocking instantly, going utterly still, which is kind of impressive considering the momentum he must have built up.
He stares at me with those odd eyes of his, chest heaving but not making a sound.
Then, he opens his mouth and spits right there on the mat between us.
A big old mouthful of blood and at least one tooth splatter at his feet.
There’s no cheering, no laughing, no chatter.
The entire room holds its breath. I can practically feel the tension radiating off of Enzo behind me.
He, like all of Darragh’s guys, is no doubt wondering if I’m about to get knifed in the belly for having the audacity to beat Darragh at his own game and on his own turf.
Darragh doesn’t bother wiping his mouth and chin, and blood streams steadily from a very busted lip and some injury inside his mouth that I can’t see.
Between that and the electric, crazed fucking look he gives me, he looks more like some feral vampire than a man.
Like he just ripped somebody’s heart out with his teeth and he’s mad that I just stole it from him.
“Fair and square,” I tell him when he doesn’t say anything to acknowledge my win.
My voice is raspy. I’m breathing a lot harder than I realized.
Even just blocking his punches was an insane amount of work.
He’s not only fast as fuck, but he’s strong, too.
Pain is starting to cut through the fray of adrenaline.
Aching in my wrists, and a deep pounding in my side that tells me I might be pissing blood tonight.
“I won. You’ll leave Deirdre alone now. That was the deal,” I remind him. I reach backwards and get my gloves back from one of my guys without taking my eyes off Darragh. I assumed he’d honour a deal he made, but now I’m not so sure.
Maybe Enzo was right to be worried. Because Darragh looks so intense.
Not even specifically angry, just… I don’t even know if there’s a name for the emotion pouring off of him like poison.
It’s like anything and everything going on in that head of his is turned up to eleven, every feeling and thought so loud, so explosive, it turns into a big, screaming soup of a mess that’s impossible to define as any one single thing.
“Fucking say it, Darragh,” I command him as I tug my gloves back into place. “Fucking tell me we have a deal. Or tell me we’re about to start a fucking war.”
Darragh blinks, and the mute, hostile, writhing thing inside him appears to go completely blank.
His expression relaxes, and he finally wipes at his face, smearing blood.
He stares down at the blood on his hand for a long moment then says, “I’m done with Deirdre.
She’s yours, and I won’t use her to get to O’Malley.
” His voice hardens. “I don’t go back on my fucking deals, Titone. It’s the-”
“Principle of the thing?” I finish for him, echoing his words from earlier about O’Malley.
“Precisely.”
He swipes at his face again, shaking drops of blood forcefully off of his fingers. Rowan appears at his side with a clean towel, and Darragh takes it, wiping away both blood and sweat.
“Well, gents,” he says, his tone light if slightly slurred by the swelling, his eyes like lasers, “I’d invite you to have a drink with me, but it looks like I’ll be making an emergency trip to my dentist today.”
“Dentist?” I ask, raising a brow at him.
“Of course,” Darragh scoffs. “You just knocked one of my fucking teeth out. Didn’t your mammy ever tell you that a man’s smile is his calling card in this world?”
“Can’t say that she did,” I reply blandly, shrugging into the shirt Curse has just passed me through the ropes.
“Ah. Well. Neither did mine,” Darragh says with a rueful, disconcertingly bloody grin.
“But then again, she and my Da didn’t have a single good tooth to count between ’em.
” He turns, about to leap down over the ropes and out of the ring, when he suddenly twists to look back at me over his hard, bare shoulders.
“Shall we shake hands then, d’ye think?”
“Not necessary,” I tell him in response. I don’t have much interest in being around this goon any longer than I have to, and knocking his damn tooth loose should be good enough to seal our deal.
“You know what? I like you, Titone,” Darragh says, though I don’t believe him for a goddamn second. “Fists over handshakes. Blood over ink.” He casts a meaningful look down at the crimson splatter with its lone white shard of a tooth.
Then, he finally jumps down out of the ring.
I turn and do the same, landing more heavily than Darragh with his weirdly light-footed animal grace.
“Let’s go,” I tell Curse and Enzo. “We’re done here.”
The hushed crowd parts before us, wide-eyed and thin-lipped.
We cross the room to the soundproofed black door, pull it open, then take the stairs upwards, ascending out of Darragh’s world and back into our own.